Your life today is a result of your thinking yesterday. Your life tomorrow will be determined by what you think today.
- John C. Maxwell (Think on These Things, Beacon Hill Press, 1979), American leadership coach (b.1947 )
Don't think you are alone in believing that life is mysterious, that reality is impossible to understand. Anyone who doesn't think that has allowed his brain to settle with what he has been told to believe and to understand.
As you read this sentence, there are nearly seven billion versions of reality among us humans. What's more, by the time you finish reading this article, many of those realities will have changed. Some people will think differently, thus they perceive the reality of that moment differently than they did before.
Can you remember what you thought about the world ten years ago? It's not the same as it is now, is it? In fact, it wouldn't have been the same for you five years ago, one year ago, even a few days ago. Everything you experience alters your sense of what is real.
If you pay attention to (believe) what the media tell you, you will believe that the world is rapidly becoming a more terrible, even horrifying, place. It isn't, based on a huge survey of factors around the planet, but it serves the needs of the media for us to experience some fear about the way of the world, enough that we will tune in to their next broadcast or read their next newspaper or magazine.
If you believe those who criticize you--many do, even if you are not aware of it--then you will see yourself as a clearly inferior being among a much more superior group of fellow humans. They want you to feel that way. If you do, then they have changed your reality. If you do not believe them and act contrary to what they think of you, eventually you will change their reality by giving them a different impression about you.
Even the belief you have about the reality of the world--your world--this moment will be different from someone close to you, such as your spouse. What's more, your spouse's (friend's, mate's, mother's, sister's) sense of reality where it concerns you will differ significantly from your own sense of reality about yourself.
I am reminded of the chipmunks I see outside my window where I live. Chipmunks (known properly as the eastern chipmunk) are solitary squirrels that live in burrows they dig in the ground. They fight with every other chipmunk they meet, usually over food or burrow space, throughout the year (except when they are sleeping during winter). But when mating time comes, they are great romancers and lovers. Once the deed is done, with as many mates as they can find, they return to their solitary existence. When the females have tended to their young, they send them off to fend for themselves, as most rodents do, so they can be alone again.
Being more sociable creatures, we don't try to live alone for most of our lives except to mate. Yet mating is one of the few things we do that we all agree about. Many of us try to avoid procreating during the process, but we still want to have sex because it's fun, pleasurable, satisfying and most of us get a good feeling by helping our partners to enjoy themselves and to feel good.
Once the sex is over, we become relative strangers who cohabit, friends and roommates who live together for their mutual benefit. Until it's time to have sex again.
How can two people ever stay married under circumstances like that? Actually, it's not that hard. But the condition is that we must always consider and work toward the best interests of our partner (or immediate family). Sometimes (often) that means putting their best interests ahead of our own. When that doesn't happen--when one person's own best interests take precedence for themselves most of the time--a relationship is little more than a way to pass time between episodes of sex. Eventually, the relationship will fail.
For some people in a failing relationship, their reality is that their marriage is good and healthy, until the other person passes them the word that it isn't. We may call it betrayal or cheating, but it's simply a matter of two people having realities that are too different from each other's.
A good relationship is not a matter of compromise, as we are taught. Compromise is part of it, but only as a consequence of putting the best interests of the other person first. Compromise comes after, not first. Compromise only comes first in business relationships.
How can we put the best interests of our significant other first if we aren't sure what those best interests are? If you think that your other half's best interests are the same as yours most or all of the time, then you likely don't know what the other person's best interests are.
It has wisely been said that a good relationship is not a matter of staring lovingly into each other's eyes, but of looking outward in the same direction and seeing similar realities.
Just a little something for you to think about.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book of solutions to social problems that most people and governments consider realities of modern life, but that aren't. They can't see the solutions because they don't look in the right directions. The solutions are easy and cheap, but hard to find it we aren't looking for them in the right way.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label mating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mating. Show all posts
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Stuff You Didn't Know About Sexual "Bonding"
That's "bonding" in a social sense. It doesn't mean a male and a female stuck together, mid-copulation, for life.
Monogamy in a sexual sense virtually doesn't exist in nature. The red fox, noted for its devotion to one mate, slips away occasionally to spread around the good will. The Adélie penguin, also famous for its monogamy, gets away occasionally (the females, that is) to mate with unattached males.
The female penguins exact a fee for this service. The male has to pony up a bunch of stones to bolster the nests of the female. Some skilled female penguins can even get a male to offer up the stones without offering her services later.
"Genetic testing has put the lie to the myth of monogamy" according to narrator F. Murray Abraham, of the PBS series Nature. Ninety-nine percent of mammal species never form pair bonds. Of the few that do, the genetic material of the devoted pairs can still be found in offspring of others. In the case of the red fox, that figure is about 80 percent.
So, in nature, monogamy means devotion to one mate in a relationship sense, not in a sexual sense. Nature cares about genetic diversity, not relationships.
Though life began on our planet some 3.8 billion years ago, sexual reproduction didn't evolve until about two billion years later. Scientists aren't sure why it even developed since they believe asexual reproduction has advantages over the sexual variety in several important ways.
The excuse that close relationships of paired animals required it falls apart when you realize that sexual reproduction developed first in plants. Unless, maybe, plants that reproduce sexually send signals between each other that we can't detect. "Hey, Baby, how about we put your pistil together with my stamen?"
The earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has the best of both worlds, with both male and female reproductive equipment. It can mate with any other of its own kind. In a pinch, it can even double itself around and mate with itself. Successfully, without having idiot offspring. And they don't call each other by nasty names either.
We know a fair amount about the mating habits of monkeys because they have been studied intensively for the past few decades. Bonobos, which are quite similar in appearance to our nearest DNA relatives, chimpanzees, are notorious lovers. They go at it many times each day, with no thought about jealous mates. Bonobos are also known as the least aggressive members of the ape family. Do the math.
Barbary macaques have maybe the noisiest mating procedures. Once the male engages the female, the female yells to get the male to ejaculate. Without the yelling, the males often don't climax. My sources didn't say if the yelling was of the "Get it on, you....!" or of the accentuated sweet talk variety.
If people did that, it would be on YouTube. Or YouPorn, a new site for amateurs.
The spiny anteater, native to Australia and New Zealand, has a penis with four heads. (You can't make up stuff like this. No one would believe it.) However, only two of the anteater's penis heads will fit into a female at once. No mention in my sources about threesomes.
The ultimate in mating--at least the ultimate in mating sacrifice--must be the tiny paper nautilus. It's an octopus. The smaller male impregnates the much larger female by shooting his penis into her. Then he has to leave it there and take off or the female gets mighty grouchy.
Nature has lots of examples of homosexual behaviour. About 1500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird and even invertebrates do it.
When two male geese decide to keep company, a female will often slip between them and mate with both. Later, the males share fatherly duties. I have seen that happen with mallard ducks as well. It was a bit strange to see two males and one female together constantly for weeks at a time each year.
Fruit flies have been studied in laboratories because they are such easy subjects. At the University of California at San Francisco biologists exposed male fruit flies to high levels of alcohol, then turned them loose. The males were ready to mate with anything they could, including other males and other species of flying insect (if they could).
One expert said that eventually the test turned into a homosexual orgy, with "a chain of males chasing each other."
The more alcohol the males had in them, the less likely they were to mate successfully, despite their lack of discrimination. No wonder they're a great model for studying human-like behaviour.
While bonobos and orangutans join humans as the few species to mate face to face, few other primates do. Hamsters and beavers are among them.
French kissing is rare in nature. The white-fronted parrot is the only species other than humans known to do it. The birds open their beaks prior to mating, then touch each other's tongues. After that, the male spews his lunch over the female's chest.
While the latter behaviour is not common among humans, it's not unknown among college frat boys.
Size does matter. Tall people tend to choose each other as mates. People also tend to choose mates with the same hair colour (check out how many blonds are coupled with blondes), skin colour and education level.
One British study even showed that obese people tend to choose mates with comparable levels of body fat. While the reason for this may seem self evident, the mates usually select each other before they become obese.
Finally, nature plays some dirty tricks on us dumb humans. Young women with the most curvaceous figures usually become fat as they get older. Rounded butts and eye-catching breasts are almost entirely composed of fat. For many women, fat collects first in the places that men pay most attention to. Then it spreads. As always, caveat emptor.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today' Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach kids what they most need to know to avoid getting into trouble, before the trouble presents itself.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monogamy in a sexual sense virtually doesn't exist in nature. The red fox, noted for its devotion to one mate, slips away occasionally to spread around the good will. The Adélie penguin, also famous for its monogamy, gets away occasionally (the females, that is) to mate with unattached males.
The female penguins exact a fee for this service. The male has to pony up a bunch of stones to bolster the nests of the female. Some skilled female penguins can even get a male to offer up the stones without offering her services later.
"Genetic testing has put the lie to the myth of monogamy" according to narrator F. Murray Abraham, of the PBS series Nature. Ninety-nine percent of mammal species never form pair bonds. Of the few that do, the genetic material of the devoted pairs can still be found in offspring of others. In the case of the red fox, that figure is about 80 percent.
So, in nature, monogamy means devotion to one mate in a relationship sense, not in a sexual sense. Nature cares about genetic diversity, not relationships.
Though life began on our planet some 3.8 billion years ago, sexual reproduction didn't evolve until about two billion years later. Scientists aren't sure why it even developed since they believe asexual reproduction has advantages over the sexual variety in several important ways.
The excuse that close relationships of paired animals required it falls apart when you realize that sexual reproduction developed first in plants. Unless, maybe, plants that reproduce sexually send signals between each other that we can't detect. "Hey, Baby, how about we put your pistil together with my stamen?"
The earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has the best of both worlds, with both male and female reproductive equipment. It can mate with any other of its own kind. In a pinch, it can even double itself around and mate with itself. Successfully, without having idiot offspring. And they don't call each other by nasty names either.
We know a fair amount about the mating habits of monkeys because they have been studied intensively for the past few decades. Bonobos, which are quite similar in appearance to our nearest DNA relatives, chimpanzees, are notorious lovers. They go at it many times each day, with no thought about jealous mates. Bonobos are also known as the least aggressive members of the ape family. Do the math.
Barbary macaques have maybe the noisiest mating procedures. Once the male engages the female, the female yells to get the male to ejaculate. Without the yelling, the males often don't climax. My sources didn't say if the yelling was of the "Get it on, you....!" or of the accentuated sweet talk variety.
If people did that, it would be on YouTube. Or YouPorn, a new site for amateurs.
The spiny anteater, native to Australia and New Zealand, has a penis with four heads. (You can't make up stuff like this. No one would believe it.) However, only two of the anteater's penis heads will fit into a female at once. No mention in my sources about threesomes.
The ultimate in mating--at least the ultimate in mating sacrifice--must be the tiny paper nautilus. It's an octopus. The smaller male impregnates the much larger female by shooting his penis into her. Then he has to leave it there and take off or the female gets mighty grouchy.
Nature has lots of examples of homosexual behaviour. About 1500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird and even invertebrates do it.
When two male geese decide to keep company, a female will often slip between them and mate with both. Later, the males share fatherly duties. I have seen that happen with mallard ducks as well. It was a bit strange to see two males and one female together constantly for weeks at a time each year.
Fruit flies have been studied in laboratories because they are such easy subjects. At the University of California at San Francisco biologists exposed male fruit flies to high levels of alcohol, then turned them loose. The males were ready to mate with anything they could, including other males and other species of flying insect (if they could).
One expert said that eventually the test turned into a homosexual orgy, with "a chain of males chasing each other."
The more alcohol the males had in them, the less likely they were to mate successfully, despite their lack of discrimination. No wonder they're a great model for studying human-like behaviour.
While bonobos and orangutans join humans as the few species to mate face to face, few other primates do. Hamsters and beavers are among them.
French kissing is rare in nature. The white-fronted parrot is the only species other than humans known to do it. The birds open their beaks prior to mating, then touch each other's tongues. After that, the male spews his lunch over the female's chest.
While the latter behaviour is not common among humans, it's not unknown among college frat boys.
Size does matter. Tall people tend to choose each other as mates. People also tend to choose mates with the same hair colour (check out how many blonds are coupled with blondes), skin colour and education level.
One British study even showed that obese people tend to choose mates with comparable levels of body fat. While the reason for this may seem self evident, the mates usually select each other before they become obese.
Finally, nature plays some dirty tricks on us dumb humans. Young women with the most curvaceous figures usually become fat as they get older. Rounded butts and eye-catching breasts are almost entirely composed of fat. For many women, fat collects first in the places that men pay most attention to. Then it spreads. As always, caveat emptor.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today' Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach kids what they most need to know to avoid getting into trouble, before the trouble presents itself.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
