Instinctive vs. learned behavior

What are we really born with and what is a product of our environment or social pressure

WARNING

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I have pondered often about certain innate characteristics of reactions, feelings and human behavior in general. Whenever people are startled or scared one of the most common reactions is that “your hairs stand up on end”. This is clearly one of the vestiges of our ancestors who would fan out the hairs in order to appear more menacing and thus avoid being attacked.

There is another curious instinctive reaction whenever humans are threatened: they will unwillingly lose control of their vowels or they may urinate. Again, this is something we can observe in some animals that when they are being threatened, just before they are chased, they get rid of extra weight and also the possibility of the animal pursuing them could get feces in its face and be discouraged to continue.

Nobody has to teach a human to suckle…this happens from day one that a newborn will suckle instinctively. As they grow older and become toddlers some of these habits remain and it is necessary sometimes to provide the child with a placebo or a substitute, like a sucker.

I experienced and observed one very peculiar situation with one of my daughters: she was at a loss when she was a toddler to go to the potty. We found out that she wanted to retain that waste within her, not willing to let it go she would go for days without defecating. It got so serious that we would have to induce going to the bathroom by introducing suppositories. For the most part, if people like her do not overcome that stage they become anal retentive and very selfish.

Sex differentiated behavior

From a social structural perspective, a society’s division of labor between the sexes is the root of sex-differentiated behavior. These differences are determined by factors such as situational, climatic, and geographical and even the availability of natural resources.

We have seen some remote tribes that don’t grow more than four feet tall. Clearly, the natural resources available to these indigenous people are limited and very dear. We have also observed curiously that the population of Japan in general as well as hat of the United States is roughly a foot taller. We can tell this is because of skeletal remains that have been unearthed of 17^th century people and if you look at how low the doorways were it confirms this as fact.

Diet has a lot to do with how tall we grow; unlike those pigmies that only measure four feet, the abundance of foodstuffs and the rich diets of some Western peoples have created as a result much taller individuals.

The pecking order

We can readily observe a litter of puppies that will invariably have an “Alpha” male and a female counterpart. The pecking order is established very early in the development of the little critters. This of course has a biological reason: the survival of the fittest; humans are not much different and from an early age we see how little children interact with each other and a clear “Alpha” male or female emerges. There is of course a reason for this as well…one can easily see that a few centuries ago mankind was not numerous and a simple epidemic would have wiped out the entire human race. Mortality was such in those days that humans had a life expectancy of 40 years or less. With this burden on its shoulder, humanity had to resort to measures that would ensure the preservation of the species.

We see measures embedded in religious ideology and these of course have its roots in the preoccupation our ancestors had for preserving society and the protection of genetic longevity. We can see how some species of animals can only be fertilized by one male because there are physical barriers that prevent the female from engaging in sex until the egg is fertilized.

Another curious behavior that is common is that of a grown male to kill the offspring that another male had engendered; this has a double purpose: to establish his dominance and to make the female fertile by abandoning the nurturing stage.

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, human sex differences reflect adaptations to the pressures of the differing physical and social environment that produced an ability to adapt.

Modern man has a whole set of different economic, environmental and social circumstances. We as humans are not so much worried about the preservation of the species in terms of numbers but just the opposite: we have to refrain from reproducing because our resources are finite and it is not wise to have offspring and see it languish with hunger and need…therefore, mankind has a certain responsibility to maintain these population explosions from destroying mankind.

Arguably homosexuality provides a good deterrent for this. It is, as some claim, nature’s own way at controlling the population explosion. I offer a different explanation: men and women alike are capable of loving other human beings. Some of these attractions or affections come in a variety of flavors; like the love of a mother for a child or the lustful attraction to a prospective mate. But we can’t ignore the fact that such attractions can also exist between persons of the same sex. Whether these affiliations are demonstrated or accompanied by intimacy is another matter.

The issue of monogamy is controversial at best. In some animals it is not desirable as it is to the advantage of procreation to have as many diverse possibilities of genetic material as possible and may the best and strongest sperm win. Some animals do pair off for life and maintain a close relationship with the mate. In nature, there are many species that have animals of the same sex pairing off for life. I witnessed one such occurrence in the medieval village of Moret Sur Loin where there are two male swans that have paired off for life…and their bond is unflappable and just as strong as one of male/female.

Humans as well as other animals engage in sex as a form of obtaining pleasure and a demonstration of affection…”if it feels good, do it” and if nature or the Creator had intended for us not to have sex the act itself would not be pleasurable. That is why I will argue against those who prescribe that sexual activity should only be conducted by individuals for and only for the whole purpose of reproducing. It is clear that people way past their child bearing window of opportunity engage in sexual activity and enjoy it. It is also quite clear that people of the same sex engage in sexual activities, also very enjoyable

There is the possibility of a strong bond to be established between two people of the same sex; the culmination of this bond could be expressed in sexual intimacy: the ability to provide pleasure and sexual satisfaction to that one person we deem attractive or worthy of our affection.

One thing is very clear: that sexual activities provide a great deal of pleasure and there is a physiological need to have sexual fulfillment…it is part of ourselves, much in the same way we have a need to eat, urinate or defecate. To deny these very basic human needs as religion for example has tried to do for centuries in order to maintain power and dominance over its adherents…is absolutely absurd and unhealthy. By suppressing sexuality all we obtain is frustration and a very unhappy person. That is why these “cure homosexuality” efforts always end up in failure.

How intimacy is expressed

Humans engage in coitus because it feels good. There is that need in all of us. So that an expression of this same sex intimacy is going to copy or resemble that of a heterosexual pair engaged in sex. It feels just as good if not better because you are pleasing your partner and your partner is giving you a lot of pleasure. I often wondered why anal intercourse between males was possible and the only answer is that it actually feels good to the receiver as well as the giver.

Conversely, oral sex can also be very pleasurable for both the giver and the receiver. Some scientists claim that those who “give” oral sex or perform fellatio on another male are people who never grew out of their suckling stage; and as for the one who receives the sexual favors it is inconsequential because the need for sexual fulfillment does not discriminate between a mouth and a vagina or male or female…they are simply the receptacles in which that sperm is deposited…”cum dumps” is one term used often for these people.