UllrsIshtar
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyPact
This is one of the things in life it would be really neat to KNOW, as opposed to what we think. This one is harder because unlike being gay, straight, bi, whatever, we can't eliminate the nature vrs nurture question for people.
You can eliminate the nature vs nurture to some extend. When you look at cultures with different nurture, and you see what people end up doing you can draw at least some conclusions about how much is nature and how much is nurture.
What you see in humans time and time again -not just when it comes to sexuality, but when it comes to any kind of topic where nature vs nurture is off debate- is that humans seem biologically programmed to NOT be homogenized.
By this I means that: no matter what the cultural norm is, MOST people seem to fall in the middle of adhering to that culture norm. But on either side of the bell-curve, you're also going to find people who deviate by the norm, either by extreme adherence to the cultural norm, or by rebelling against it.
So lets say that it was a cultural norm to 'paint your face blue'... then you're going to end up with most people painting their face blue... some people going to the 'extreme adherence size' and painting their entire body blue, and some people going to the rebelious side, and painting their face red, or not at all.
If the cultural norm would change to 'shave your head', again all the people in the middle would follow, and some people are going to 'extreme adherence' and shave their eyebrows as well, while others will rebel and grow their hair out.
This pattern seems to be ingrained in us because it creates biological diversity. It's not good for nature if we're all too much the same, and so no matter what the cultural norms are, some people are going to be 'programmed' to rebel against them.
When it comes to sexuality, most people again will fall in the fluid middle... they'd be able to be either straight or bi, either monogamous or poly, either kinky or vanilla, all depending on what the cultural norm happens to be. Whatever they're nurtured towards is what they'll end up being, and in a different culture, their sexual orientation could have ended up being something else from what it currently is.
Then there's the people who fall on the extremes. They will be driven to either extremely adhere to the cultural norm, or to completely divert from it.
The question is: is it their sexuality that's programmed? Or is it their need to adhere/divert that's programmed?
In other words: is somebody born programmed to adhere, and so if they grew up in a poly culture, they would be extremely poly, whereas if they grew up in a mono culture, they would be extremely poly. And if they're born to divert, they'd end up poly in a mono culture, and mono in a poly culture.
OR
Is somebody born poly, and if they grew up in a mono culture, they'll end up automatically falling into the 'rebelious' category, while if they grew up in a poly culture, they'd end up falling into the 'extreme adherence' category.
I personally tend to think it's the first one, which means that somebody who ends up extremely poly in a mono culture, does that because they're biologically programmed to divert from their nurturing. So in a sense, while it's the nurturing that shapes the end result, it's also biologically inevitable that they would be end up deviating from the norm... which norm they'd end up deviating from just depends on the culture, but 'outsider' type people would probably ended up being outsider type people, no matter what nurturing they received growing up.
Of course, the latter is speculating on my part, but what's interesting about it is that it shows that, in any given culture, there will be those who divert from the norm, because they're biologically programmed to do so, and so, in that sense, in a culture where homosexuality is a taboo (not ours), you can be pretty sure that those who end up being gay are ending up so because of biology, not really nurture.
It's only when a culture becomes more open to accepting different lifestyles that it becomes difficult to see whether it's nature or nurture that plays a role, because now, all the people in the middle who can go either way, and might be swinging one way or another based on a hoist of different factors.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyPact
Earlier in the thread, DreamLady pointed out that there are certain species that mate for life. We know it's nature for them because all of them do it. There is no nurture in the equation. It's what they do as an instinct.
So far, we haven't found a single species that's actually sexually faithful though. While there are animals who pair up for life, we have found that in all of them, between 10% and 40% of the young are not genetically related to the male that's raising them.
What we think of as pair bonded, or 'monogamous' animals cheat. They cheat quite a lot actually.
They also cheat in very predictable patterns: females will only cheat with males then are more desirable biologically (stronger, prettier, more fit) than the one they've got. They may have to settle for a 'lessor male' raising their young, but they're going to try to get the best genetic material for those young they can get, even if it means being 'unfaithful' to the male their 'bonded' to.
Males, on the other hand, will cheat any chance they get. It doesn't matter if the female is worse or better than the one they've got, if she's letting him mate her, and he's fairly convinced his partner won't find out, he will.
< Message edited by UllrsIshtar -- 3/9/2016 7:32:55 AM >
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