Caio Rossi wrote:
> Linda, you're wrong, sorry, for two reasons:
> 1st: The primary biological purpose of sex is not procreation, but variation,
since procreation is much more easily assure by fissiparousness (
self-replication ).
No, that's a refutation of the idea that "sex is the primary method of
procreation" which is not what I said. Crawling may not be the primary
method of locomotion for most people other than babies or drunks, but
locomotion is still the primary purpose of crawling. I'd not argue with
the second half of your paragraph, though I'd add that self-replication
would, I suppose, be procreation without variety, but with sexual
reproduction you won't get variety _without_ procreation.
Yes, variation is desirable and necessary. However, nature throws up
"sports" from time to time. Take the albino giraffe. What advantage does
that have? Other giraffes ostracise it because it will draw attention to
the herd (what do you call a group of giraffes?) because of its lack of
camouflage. Surely that must threaten its own survival.
It's easy to see why in some societies homosexuality was proscribed,
when population growth was a precarious thing. Population growth doesn't
seem to have been seen as a problem among the ancient Greeks! but it
probably was among the wandering Israelites, which could explain why
Moses laid such a law against a man who "lay with a man as with a woman"
(I'm quoting from memory) Nowadays it shouldn't affect us at all, in
fact the problem is more one of overcrowding - which means that the
homosexual tendency should be welcomed in this century! :) The gay man
or woman is no longer the albino giraffe of the human species; but old
values die hard, it would seem.
>That's genetics 101. And gays are an obvious outcome of that, if sexuality has
anything to do with genetics, of course.
And nobody still seems to know this one way or the other. I keep an open
mind on that one, though I can't at the moment see how it's possible:
surely a gay gene woud be a sort of genetic suicide, wouldn't it? What I
was saying was that there's no point, biologically, to sexual
attraction,
unless it's to encourage you to have sex. Because if the purpose of sex
is for variety, the act still isn't going to give variety amongst the
creatures performing it, but among the creatures they produce.
>
> 2nd: The primary biological purpose of your hands is not processing words,
and the primary biological purpose of your reproductory system is reproduction.
If you use 'primary biological purpose' as a way to determine rights and
wrongs,
which I didn't
> you must excuse a rapist who causes a nun to become pregnant.
I can't see why. And I can't see what her being a nun has to do with it.
And I can't see what her getting pregnant has to do with it. I wasn't
saying that the reason a man has sex with a woman is in order to get her
pregnant. I said that was the reason that the _urge_ was there: nature
ensures that whether or not you fancy the idea of fatherhood, you will
still want to do that thing that is necessary for it. Of course then
civilization steps in and decides that there is more to sex than
procreation, that pleasure for its own sake is ok, and bonding is a good
thing, and from Onan to Marie Stopes and after, it distinguishes that
side of sex from the purely biological side. But that's civilization,
not nature. (And wasn't Onan also roundly condemned for wasting his
life-giving potential?)
> Facts are facts, and values are values: confusing facts with values is a
mistake no ethics philosopher or religious leader would ever dare to tread.
That wouldn't make any sense.
Thanks. But if you read it again carefully, you'll realise I was not
making a value judgement. And my values do not discriminate against
people on such grounds. I was attempting - ok, obviously somewhat
clumsily, since you misunderstood me - to show some understanding of why
the opposite values may have arisen and been perpetuated, and to offer a
different way of looking at things for those who do hold such values.
Is that any clearer, or have I muddied it even further?
cheers
Linda
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