We all know that competition
for sex in nature is ferocious. Males compete with other males, and females make their selection. “Sorry, your nest’s not good enough”—“I prefer more
colorful feathers”—“learn better dance steps”—“there’s not enough money in your
bank account.” See what I mean? Of
course, there’s forced copulation, but by and large, females choose the father
of their children, and males go to great lengths to woo them.
When sex is involved, there’s
competition, and where there’s competition, there’s conflict. Or stated another
way, “Whenever the strategy adopted by one sex interferes with the strategy
adopted by the other sex, conflict ensues.” (The Evolution of Desire, by David M. Buss). Sound familiar?
Fighting
after sex
The Scorpionfly offers a
lovely example of competing strategies that cause conflict. In this case the
female wants sex with dinner, and the male just wants wants sex. But in order
to accomplish his goal, he needs to feed her. So far, so good. The problem
arises when the male miscalculates the size of the dinner serving.
During copulation, it takes
the scorpionfly 20 minutes to deposit all his sperm into the female. In order
to get her cooperation he brings her a little gift—a dead insect. If he gets
the size right, it will take her 20 minutes to consume it. If the gift is too
small, and she is done with dinner before he’s finished, she’ll thanklessly
walk off leaving him hanging, so to speak. If on the other hand the gift is too
large and she’s still eating when he’s done—this is the part I love—they fight
over the leftovers! In fact, while they’re having sex, the male keeps a
delicate hold on his little insect gift to make sure he doesn’t loose control
of the situation.
What's the human story?
In human terms, the source
of our sexual conflicts lies in the ancestral program that was developed over
millions of years—women needed men to invest in them and their children in
order to survive. Women already made enormous investments in children by
carrying the babies in their bodies.
Nature makes it obvious who the mother of a child is, but it took social
rules, laws, and cultural pressures to secure paternity. Women needed food and
protection. Men needed to know they were making the investment in their own
offspring. Jealousy was a strategy that allowed each gender to be alert to the
threat of a sexual rival. If a rival succeeded, women and their children risked
being abandoned and men risked being uncertain of whether the child was
theirs. As described by Buss,
because of modern birth control, “in today’s industrial nations, women can have
short-term dalliances with less fear of pregnancy.” But human sexual psychology
evolved to cope with the adaptations of our ancestors. “We still possess this
underlying sexual psychology, even though our environment has changed.” In
other words, our biology hasn’t caught up with our modern culture and
technology.
The popular show, Sex and the City, depicts a sexually
liberated woman, Samantha Jones, whose appetites and behavior are compared on
the show to those of a man. Samantha is the anomaly—envied, mocked, judged and
admired. However, the overarching
message of the show is about single women finding Mr. Right and living happily
ever after. The modern conflicts are portrayed, but the emphasis is as
conventional as ever. Love, marriage and
divorce, whatever the cultural packaging, is a worldwide phenomenon and is part
of the deepest human traditions.
The good
news
Every one who is alive today
is a success story. We exist because of the successful mating strategies of our
ancestors and we are one link in an unbroken chain that stretches back to the
beginning of humankind. The people who were not successful in securing mates or
couldn’t provide for the survival of their young—all died.
In nature, the goal is to
continue the species, and strategies that work are rewarded by survival. Over the
millennia, those effective behaviors are passed along in our genes. But,
there remains the push and pull,
the tension between the sexes that reflects
our different biological agendas, even though we share the
same goal—just like
all the other species on the planet. But resolving that tension, figuring it
all out and
making it work, is an essential part of what makes us human. Not
only that, it’s also fun!
By Sally Schloss for WebVet
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