And here she comes again. This was even before all the other discussions. You should read this and then come back here, so we can discuss the issue:
Read this: Dangerously Untrue in Psychology Today
Here is the thing: As we read the above article by Dr. Emily Nagoski, we might get to the point where we need to accept that there is no guarantee that what the genitals are showing is also what the brain is accepting. Now, the big question is why the discrepancy. And this is what we need to focus on.
Sexuality is a subject that has been extensively encased within a social box of what is practical, acceptable, convenient, not only for the individual—during social programming, as growth happens—but mainly for the culture, society, the establishment, the—at any one time—current survival system. Of course, as I type this I can remember hot arguments of persons that insist that they do what they do because that’s what they feel like doing. Of course, they can’t be blamed for being human, i.e., organisms with programmable brains, which is the main evolutionary advantage of this species.
You see, Ph.D.’s like Emily Nagoski should not be in need to be reminded that the evolutionary advantage of the human brain is the so called gregarious instinct. This is the instinct that allows humans in general to internalize the patterns of behavior and cultural formulas in such a way that they get to believe that they do what they do because that’s what they want, and not because they have been socialized.
So, is what you feel like doing the result of your sole free will? Do you really believe that you are 100% free to feel as you wish? (Some people are free; but they have gone through very special training and, actually, what they have been able to overcome is any ego identity formed during socialization.) So, what you feel like is not the result of our free will. Our freedom is confined to clear limits, which happen to be, also, what cultural systems need in order to function.
So, what is really dangerously irresponsible and untrue is to suggest that the discrepancies between conscious feelings about situations, and the actual responses of the sexual organs to those situations, are something natural or embedded in our genes.
Following Dawkin’s reasoning—The Selfish Gene—sexuality is part of our biological essence; the human brain, though, is a successful gene elaboration. The evolutionary advantage of the human brain could be, precisely, that the genes “decided” to make it huge, capable, but empty at birth. It became, thus, the perfect element upon which to build cultures. As part of the genes' guarding box, the power of the brain lies on the fact that it was left on its own for it to choose the most convenient way to take successful survival decisions.
Thus, it should be clear that the sexual responses of the human parts are truly and irremediably the unambiguous agent(s) of sincerity. Our sexuality has been encased, jailed within the boundaries of the boxes defined by different cultures. Yes, the body does receive from the brain the OK signal to behave as though engagement in sex were something imminent; that’s the part of the brain connected to biological sexuality; at this point interferes the cultural formula to respond to sexuality, and the conscious person says: “I’m not really interested”.
The other way around is just as true. Our brain is a very complex machine. The occasion is culturally positively sanctioned, the persons are the culturally “OK” persons, but the biological essence of the individual is not interested in the engagement-to-be; then a good lubricant must be used for the event to be a culturally acceptable moment.
What we need to accept is the fact that, not because our culture dictates that we should be crazy about sex at certain moments, our bodies—more connected to the bare universe of biology—are going to respond accordingly.
Culture does have a price to pay. However, Dr. Emily Nagoski insists: Monogamy is not the problem. Really, scientist?
No comments:
Post a Comment