Sunday 24 February 2008

Tit for That!

In the last few months I have had the opportunity and good fortune to read a number of books on evolutionary biology and anthropology, two extremely fascinating subjects. However, I find it terribly difficult to summon up facts and illustrations that fill these books whenever I talk about them to my friends and hence, most of the time, my reviews and recommendations end up doing gross injustice to these wonderfully written books. Also, it is difficult and time consuming to write elaborate reviews for them as is possible for movies and music albums. And perhaps that's one reason why one just has to step into one's friendly neighborhood bookstore to confront the magnitude of text that remains to be conquered.

With a very general (and possibly unnecessary) introduction, let me now start cooking the particulars for this post. I finished reading Jared Diamond's Why is Sex Fun? (WiSF) this afternoon. A mere hundred and fifty pages, this one was a joyride compared to his highly formidable Guns, Germs and Steel, which I read a month ago - considerably more voluptuous in size, detail and impact. The subject matter of Guns, Germs... was evolutionary anthropology. WiSF, as its blurb reads, delineates the evolution of human sexuality. For most of us (men and women included) sexual consciousness operates inside the domain bound by various cultural modes. Undoubtedly we've all discussed or contemplated sex at various levels- from early curiosity and explorations into pornography (adolescent) to judging members of the opposite (or the same) sex on the basis of their physical appearances and subjecting them to various roles in our fantasies (carnal) to prescribing and proscribing various kinds of sexual practices in family/public life (social) and to associating roles in society with their sexual identities (sexist) to debating the role of natural sexual desires in our existence (metaphysical). Some of these modes, however, begin with certain unjustified assumptions and end with absurd (but intended) conclusions (e. g. women are 'impure' during their menstrual phase and hence should be sequestered from the rest of the family and should be disallowed from entering temples, a Hindu custom as prescribed in the book of Manu). Many of them are for the greater good of the society and in conjunction with modern principles such as gender equality, freedom of the individual etc (e. g. strict criminal laws against rape, physical harassment of the spouse etc). Some others are implicitly programmed in us by various kind of penalties that are associated with practicing them - social, genetic, health etc (e. g. infidelity, incest, usafe sex with multiple partners etc). But these modes are mostly socio-economic in nature and are ad hoc with regards to assumed sexual characteristics of humans that arise from their unique physiology and psychology. But the real challenge is to integrate these physiological and psychological consequences with causal explanations that were responsible for them in the first place. And whenever we look for systematic causality in the characteristics of life forms on this earth we have to turn to evolution.

Until I read this book, I never appreciated the unique sexual characteristics that humans possessed. To begin with we have the weirdest sex life that would sound blasphemous to any animal worth its evolution including most other mammalian species. To name a few of these seemingly incongruous characteristics of ours,

1. We're one of the only three species that practice recreational sex - most species on this earth engage in intercourse only when the female ovulates, in other words, when she is fertile for conception. Even dogs would probably find the prospect of having sex any time of the year a disgusting one.
2. We're one of the few species who have sex in privacy. While species practicing temporary monogamy will be found frequently in birds, lifetime monogamy (which the institution of marriage ensures, in most cases) is probably unique to humans.
3. We're one of the very few species on earth where the females ovulate in a concealed manner. Most others animals, including mammals, display a conspicuous physical change in the body of the female that attracts the males towards them.
4. We're perhaps the only species on the earth where the females experience menopause. Most other mammals have a systematic decline in fertility but nothing like a menopause. Men on the other hand continue to be fertile for much longer.
5. Men apparently have unusually large penises (!). Apparently our ancestral cousin, the gorillas have males that are nearly two times as big as us but possess penises one fourth the size of ours. An interesting tongue in cheek point is that the male gorilla still manages to happily maintain a harem of 7-8 females who stay loyal to him and beget him children :-).

Most of these questions may seem unworthy of answering but nonetheless in them lies the uniqueness that makes us different from other animals. Indeed one may ascribe points 1-2 as 'human characteristics' that have arisen from civility but they are not so, as Diamond says. They have distinct evolutionary advantages and it is because of natural selection that they have survived and manifested in us. Diamond provides convincing answers for most of these questions other than 5 which he leaves for posterity. The book provides a highly detailed and convincing explanation for the existence of menopause and concealed ovulation in women and their evolutionary purpose. It is probably, he says, the two main characteristics that differentiates our sexuality from other animals including our immediate ancestors, the primates.

If one had to use a redundant phrase, one would say that all discussions on sexuality unfortunately end up being or being perceived as sexist. The battle of the sexes is one that has profound evolutionary significance and it is one that does not arise from male chauvinism or feminism- which are undoubtedly important but sociological manifestations and not primeval. Indeed, one might be able to work out the genesis of male chauvinism and its iniquities in the fundamental inequality of needs that evolution has inflicted upon its male and female species. There are a few exceptions - for instance the case of the Black widow where the female bites the head off the male during intercourse and makes a meal out of him subsequently - a practice termed sexual cannibalism. Check out The Selfish Gene in order to understand the evolutionary advantages that the male (surprisingly) possesses in this act of 'sacrifice'. An interesting fact is that the decapitation turns him on and causes an enhanced discharge of semen! Notwithstanding a few countable examples, however, one must admit that there has existed a fundamental inequality in the roles of males and females in the animal kingdom. Most mammals are brought up by their mothers alone and most of these grow up scarcely knowing the identity of their father (there are some examples where the mother performs the act of desertion). This bastardisation of society is extremely common in different mammalian species and it is important to understand the existence of these characteristics with the eye of objectivity. The book will help you do that, apart from many other things.

As is my habit usually, let me leave you with a lingering thought which might also justify my choice of title :-). While still significantly lesser than the woman, the male in human society surprisingly contributes much more to the rearing of children than most other species (This is by no means a justification or an excuse - to the women). Though men and women in human societies originally evolved to play distinct roles, the gap is now slowly bridging. One of the historically feminine roles was that of child nutrition through lactation after childbirth. With a queer sense of irony, natural selection has made men capable of lactation too! The role of men and women in hunter-gatherer societies were distinct - the women had to tend to and nourish children while the man had to provide for security and hunt and to use a modern phrase, he had to 'bring home the bacon'. The gap however has bridged thanks to civilization, consciousness and not so surprisingly mutation through natural selection! Six out of ten males are apparently capable of lactating provided sufficient stimulus is provided to their nipples (this was discovered in some 'self indulgent' teenage boys in the US according to Diamond). And who knows - the current definition of the metrosexual might soon have to be extended to accommodate this one bit of evolved feature :))

4 comments:

Aditi Rawat said...

interesting post.very informative!

Karthik Shekhar said...

@aditi: Thank you

Tannishtha said...

Endsems cause me to read blogs :P This is hilarious stuff. Awesome awesome. Last sem makes you blog a lot I see.

Karthik Shekhar said...

@tanny : mug girl mug! :)