Well, finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow would almost certainly make me happy, but I still don't plan on chasing down a leprechaun in order to achieve FIThisDinosaur wrote:I'm not saying following a cultural script is the only path to happiness. I'm saying cultural scripts partially reflect how people find happiness.
Maybe there are tales we keep telling to 20 year old humans, just like there are tales we keep telling to 2 year old humans, but "Cui bono?" See "Peyton Place", "Elmer Gantry","The Virginian", "Rabbit, Run" and Emily Dickinson vs. Mani. Spartan males were culturally conditioned to only have sex with younger males until they were of marital age, so new brides shaved their heads like young boys. In our modern prison system, a similar/opposite behavioral adjustment has been acculturated.Firstly, people seek to conform. To be part of the herd. Even the western ideal of a nonconformist individual is a specific cultural role in the tribe. Second, the drive to couple off can conflict with other drives in the individual. Like how men are driven to reproduce and then flee the resulting commitment. Its what I was getting at with the comment about asexuals. Fbeyers analogy is good enough. Like a plant that develops a trait to grow AWAY from sunlight instead of towards it could either exploit shady areas with good soil that other plants ignore, or it could grow itself into darkness and wither away.
True, but nursing only "uses you up" for a short while, then your milk comes rushing back in even heavier. A baby may cry pathetically, but may also butt his head assertively against your breast if he wants to be fed, and both of these behaviors are likely to trigger increased sympathetic glandular response.I doubt that I could summon up a high enough level of prolactin to produce milk at the age of 52 if I found myself alone in a cabin in the woods with a hungry infant, but I can still feel the wired pathway. I think this is similar to how older men often feel when they struggle with erectile dysfunction. Totally different than no longer feeling the desire/urge or never experiencing it in the first place, losing it due to depression or repressing it due to conflict with other goals or anxiety/anger. My own DD26 is nominally supportive of the anti-breast-feeding feminist movement.Executing and fulfilling your most natural biological functions uses you up. Its supposed to be this way. A parent is supposed to be The Giving Tree. Individualism is supposed to conflict with community. Your drive to have as many reproductive partners as possible is supposed to conflict with your avoidance of using up resources on too many offspring.
Not that simple. It has been my subjective second-hand experience that individuals with low-sex drive do not obtain as much pleasure from sex as people who have high sex drives, although it is true that they are more comfortable without it. IOW, you can pretty much bet if you ask the guy who literally bounced off the bed in "little death" orgasm, to quantify his baseline drive, he will say something like "Well, once a day, at least." Generally people do attempt to repeat experiences they find highly enjoyable.BRUTE wrote:possible of course. but it's also possible that lower sex drive is a symptom of lower amounts of sex for the same hormone release. for example, humans that don't have sugar cravings - depressed because they don't get enough sugar, or "lucky" because they don't require as much sugar to sustain dopamine balance?
In spite of my long-standing love for Jane Austen, I have to admit that I was very happy practicing polyamory. Of course, it was just that gleeful sort of happiness, like when I was a kid and I had 5 new library books and 3 assorted bags of penny candy and no school due to blizzard. Not the healthy allegiance to moral code of predominant culture sort of happiness which might better sustain me like a bowl full of lentil gruel.