[HPFGU-Feedback] Anger towards JKR (was Re: Great group / Quoted text)

[Amanda Geist]

Susan McGee:

Lee Kaiwen has just told us that the purpose of sex is 
propagation -- that's the whole purpose! I guess some people still believe 
that.....I feel sorry for them.

Amanda now:

Not to leap into the middle here, but this has too much potential to be
semantics. "Purpose" isn't an easy thing to speak to, when we won't even be
able to agree if it means what an intelligent motive force intended versus
what something happens to accomplish. This may have to be an
agree-to-disagree situation.

I think Lee is correct, but doesn't have the whole picture (note: I didn't
read what he/she said; I have only your quote to go on). Sex does ensure the
propagation of the species, and reproductive success is the name of the game
if you are a believer in evolution. I dislike the "selfish gene" approach,
but it does hold a certain amount of water.  However, part of the reason it
works-that sex ensures propagation-in humans, is that it feels great and
acts to cement emotional bonds, keeping the adults together long enough for
the young to have a higher probability of survival. It wouldn't serve its
"purpose," as Lee identifies it, unless it fulfilled a whole bunch of other
emotional and physical needs. In fact, I have found nothing in life that
only had one purpose, down to chemical reactions and organ function.

All of this to say that this is probably a "you're both right" type of
thing.

Susan, I thought of you a lot a couple of years ago, when I was reading
"Mother Nature; Maternal Instincts and how they Shape the Human Species
(http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Nature-Maternal-Instincts-Species/dp/034540893
4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0806207-8001411?ie=UTF8
<http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Nature-Maternal-Instincts-Species/dp/034540893
4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0806207-8001411?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192995481&sr=8-1>
&s=books&qid=1192995481&sr=8-1 ). It's a really good book, and takes a hard
look at humans and how they interact with their young from an objective lens
of primate behavior. It touches, among other things, on just what the use is
for sex to feel good, and how in modern (read: historical versus
prehistorical) human society it's almost a liability for it to feel good to
a woman. It also looked at how "aunts" (I forget the term) as the main
"secondary" caregivers to the young, not males, were really the way our
species' reproductive strategy worked. At several points throughout, I
wondered what your take would be.

~Amanda 



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