Remember back in your high school chemistry class the teacher tried to explain how that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you looking at your crush, that feeling you call ‘love,’ was really just some release of chemicals going on in your brain. This sad awakening is almost akin to telling a little boy that Santa Claus isn’t real; you’ve just learned that the ‘love’ you feel has nothing to do with her pretty green eyes, his Justin Bieber-esque hair, those short skirts the cheerleaders wear or the quarterback’s hunky muscles. In fact, it has everything to do with your raging hormones and, in this sense, science has found a way to de-romanticize every precious notion you’ve been taught about love or sex. Luckily, not all scientific theories dealing with sex are true and, let me tell you, there have been some pretty harebrained theories.
Rape as Evolutionary Advantage
About a decade ago, professors Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer published A Natural History of Rape: Biological Basis of Sexual Coercion. In this manuscript, they outline how the act of rape could actually be looked as an evolutionary advantage of advancing your genes into the next generation. Since the primary biological function of sex is to continue your familial line, individuals who use rape as in aid in doing so must have an advantage over the rest of us. Needless to say, their proposal came under fire immediately from any and all possible sources. Their research went a step further to anger the public as it blatantly stated that a woman is asking to get raped by dressing a certain way, or that a woman can expect to be raped by flirting with a male. You’ve got to wonder whether these guys were just fucking with everyone or if they are so delusional that they took themselves seriously. Either way, it’s a crazy theory that no one takes seriously, I hope.
Sigmund Freud
Thanks to Sigmund Freud, we have a couple more crazy theories to add to the list regarding psychological sexual development. Two in particular stand out; you might know them as the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex.
The Oedipus complex, in a nutshell, can be summarized as the following; young boys are attracted to their mothers, want to have sex with her, and are jealous of their fathers. The Electra complex is also known as penis envy; young girls want to have sex with their mothers, realize they are not biologically equipped to, and thus are jealous that males have a penis. Both of these complexes are part of a three stage phase designed by Freud; in the first, sexual development is concerned with oral fixation, in the second it is anal, and in the third the focus is on the phallic (the penis). These complexes are obviously part of the third stage.
You can see why most of Freud’s work today is taken with more than just a grain of salt; it’s taken with a freaking barrel of salt. If Freud’s work is accurate then it implies that people subconsciously desire incest, an implication that goes against the very nature of human evolution; incest exists so that when we do pass on our genes, the outcome isn’t riddled with genetic deficiencies. The only reason most classes cover his theories about sexual development is to dispute them.
Eugenics
Eugenics is a scientific movement and concept that has, unfortunately, been used as a justification for one of the most horrific genocides in history. Of course, I’m talking about the Holocaust. However, the term eugenics has been applied to many different scenarios and not all of them are as gruesome as genocide. People have attempted to use eugenics to eliminate certain hereditary disorders, albeit unsuccessfully. The basic concept of genetics is actually fairly scientifically sound; that you can breed certain characteristics in people over time via human driven selection. However, this also implies that you can eliminate the ‘bad genes’ which is, in fact, impossible since it is evolution that decides what the perfect human race is supposed to look like and not us. Whichever way you look at it, eugenics looks at sex for the purpose of creating some kind of idealized version of the human species and is not considered to be a legitimate scientific endeavor. After all, we can’t all look like supermodels or Greek statues.
Porn Can Kill You
We already know that pornography has the ability to be highly addictive. Indeed, there are people out there who develop legitimate addictions to porn and need to seek a course of therapy to correct this matter. But did you know that porn can kill you? Well, maybe not exactly kill you, but it CAN lower your life expectancy according to a study done in Britain in 2003. What these scientists did was find that men in their 20s to 40s had higher mortality rates due to watching pornographic websites. As far as crazy sex theories go, this one is relevant to many people’s lifestyles; bet that will make you think twice next time you press play on that XXX DVD.
Masturbation Can Save Your Life
As with many crazy theories, occasionally you will find one that completely contradicts another! Researches in Australia have summarized that males could lower their risk for certain cancers by masturbating frequently. The idea is that certain harmful chemicals could build up in the prostate and that only through masturbation could those be released from the body successfully; sex is considered not as effective because sex increases the risk for STD’s, which in turn increases the risk for cancer. Clearly this is counterproductive so, apparently, masturbation is the way to go!
Gay Marriage according to William Tam
A recent proponent of the infamous Proposition 8 is claiming that legalizing gay marriage can lead to the legalization of incest, polygamy, and pedophilia. This is, of course, a completely insane notion from a man that is deluded by his fanaticism. The danger here is that he testified and repeated this information in a court of law. This is what he had been telling people in order to get them vote yes on the gay marriage ban. Tam helped to create literature that equated gay marriage, in terms of being considered a civil right, with incest, polygamy, and pedophilia.
Obviously, there are also REAL theories out there – and not all of them are as blatantly wrong as the above. There are several interesting theories that actually carry legitimacy within the scientific community.
The Older Brother Effect
A scientist by the name of Ray Blanchard theorized the fraternal birth order defect; basically the claim is that the more older brothers a male has, the higher the chances that he will be gay. The research is based on mostly empirical evidence, and it doesn’t appear that the amount of older sister’s has any effect. Of course, there is research that conflicts with Blanchard’s older brother effect as well. Remember, correlation is not causation; it just sounds silly to think a woman who gives birth to multiple sons should expect each one to be gayer than the former. Despite the controversy surrounding the older brother effect, there are many scientists who are inclined to agree with it. The older brother effect is a theory, it isn’t fact, but it has many supporters.
Fetishism
Where do fetishes come from? Well, there are several scientifically accepted theories. Conditioning, imprinting, or a strong emotional experience are some possible answers. You might have heard of conditioning from the famous study done with Pavlov’s dogs. A sexual fetish can evolve from an accidental association of sex with an inanimate object. It can also evolve from a particular developmental phase, or some sort of trauma. The interesting thing is that many consider fetishes to be a disorder, while others feel that they are part of the regular variations of human sexuality.
The Westermarck Effect
In response to some theories regarding sexual imprinting and the incest taboo, one scientist created a theory on the subject of reverse imprinting. Beyond the obvious genetic disadvantages of creating kin with close biological relatives, the Westermarck effect looks at children who spend many hours in close proximity for the first years of their lives. In particular, you can see this showcased clearly in Israeli Kibbutz communities. Sexual attraction later on in adulthood is negated by this time spent in such close quarters during the beginning of their lives. This makes sense right? Suppose your parents adopted a child into the family and the both of you were so young you can’t even remember; despite the lack of shared genetics, the Westermarck effect actually explains why sexual attraction between the two of you would be negated later in life.
Sex, as it is observed today, is one of the most interesting mixes of science and culture. The science aspect refers to the biological forces driving us to have sex, and the cultural aspect usually determines how we go about it. Of course there have been plenty of theories about sex that haven’t been rejected, but there have also been many that have been as controversial as the act of sex can be in and of itself. Rape as an evolutionary advantage? Penis envy? Using sex to create a perfect human race? These are theories that attempted to be taken for actual fact; it’s a good thing no one has presented research that ‘proves’ masturbating can lead to blindness! On the flip side you have a series of equally interesting sexual theories but, the difference is, some of these might actually pan out to be true.
Images:
chutzpah.typepad.com
cartoonstock.com
realfitnessblog.com
blogs.smh.com.au
open.salon.com
Loading ...
Recent Comments