Chemistry and Subconscious Instinctive Communication - 2
When I wrote entry 232, I had omitted the important factor of personal space. I already wrote, that I consider it as impossible, that two person of the opposite gender can have a relaxed platonic friendship, if for at least one of them the instinctive attraction to the chemistry of the other's body is so strong, that it overrides the denial and gets conscious.
I am using the word chemistry in the sense of dating sites, where it means the physical attraction of two bodies with the conscious result of feeling passion and infatuation. Chemistry is the result of the checking of all visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli, that indicate good genes and immunocompetence for having healthy offspring.
People have an instinctive urge to keep invaders out of their personal bubble around themselves. The size of the bubble differs between individuals and between cultures.
I consider it as probable, that the three layers of the bubble correspond to three different phases of the mating process. In the social space the visual and auditory checking takes place, in the personal space the olfactory checking, and in the intimate space all activities leading to the copulation.
The prototypical dynamics of mating behavior can be described as a process following a pattern. For a description I am assuming our ancestors of a million or more years ago, still not very advanced in the realm of cognition and language, in a situation of enough food and enough space to live. Male instinctive urges are stronger than those of females.
1. A male feels a need to regain sexual homeostasis, therefore he enters the social space of a female.
2. The female either moves away or they start reciprocally the process of visual and auditory checking.
3. When one is not satisfied with the result, he or she moves away.
4. When both are satisfied with the result, the male enters her personal space.
5. Here they reciprocally start the process of olfactory checking the information from the pheromones.
6. When one is not satisfied with the result, he or she moves away.
7. When both are satisfied with the result, they have established chemistry. This triggers the sexual instinct in both.
8. The male enters her intimate space and they copulate.
When I wrote entry 232, I had omitted the important factor of personal space. I already wrote, that I consider it as impossible, that two person of the opposite gender can have a relaxed platonic friendship, if for at least one of them the instinctive attraction to the chemistry of the other's body is so strong, that it overrides the denial and gets conscious.
I am using the word chemistry in the sense of dating sites, where it means the physical attraction of two bodies with the conscious result of feeling passion and infatuation. Chemistry is the result of the checking of all visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli, that indicate good genes and immunocompetence for having healthy offspring.
People have an instinctive urge to keep invaders out of their personal bubble around themselves. The size of the bubble differs between individuals and between cultures.
"Intimate space, at 0 to 1.5 feet, is the closest distance possible and is appropriate when engaging in activities such as dancing, hugging, or having sexual intercourse. Personal distance falls between 1.5 and 4 feet, and is used when communicating with those that one is comfortable with and knows well. Social distance is used when interacting with strangers and ranges from 4 to 12 feet of spacing. "http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Personal_Space
I consider it as probable, that the three layers of the bubble correspond to three different phases of the mating process. In the social space the visual and auditory checking takes place, in the personal space the olfactory checking, and in the intimate space all activities leading to the copulation.
The prototypical dynamics of mating behavior can be described as a process following a pattern. For a description I am assuming our ancestors of a million or more years ago, still not very advanced in the realm of cognition and language, in a situation of enough food and enough space to live. Male instinctive urges are stronger than those of females.
"l can imagine myself being comfortable and enjoing 'casual' sex with different partners" agreed 48 percent of men and 12 percent of women in another survey of 4901 Australians (Bailey & others, 2000).
http://159.191.14.141/.docs/pg/400/rid/13333/f/Development_1.pdfAs a consequence of this difference, I consider the males initiating the process of the first mating encounter between a female and a male.
1. A male feels a need to regain sexual homeostasis, therefore he enters the social space of a female.
2. The female either moves away or they start reciprocally the process of visual and auditory checking.
3. When one is not satisfied with the result, he or she moves away.
4. When both are satisfied with the result, the male enters her personal space.
5. Here they reciprocally start the process of olfactory checking the information from the pheromones.
6. When one is not satisfied with the result, he or she moves away.
7. When both are satisfied with the result, they have established chemistry. This triggers the sexual instinct in both.
8. The male enters her intimate space and they copulate.
In these steps, only the first step is caused by an innate urge of the male. The checking is an instinctive reaction to the distance inside the space, the reaction cannot be stopped while the distance is maintained, it can only be stopped by enlarging the distance.
This is only describing the dynamics of the instincts, independent of what happens afterwards. This process can take a long time, it can be interrupted and resumed, for example in the case of danger by predators.
This process can have variations, depending on the circumstances. When there is male domination, then it is only a onesided checking for chemistry: The male invades the woman's space without her consent, he checks chemistry from his side only and coerces her to procreate.
I think, that the same instincts are still virulent in modern people, only their expression is modified by different factors, due to the evolution of cognition.
1. Wearing clothes and cleanliness reduce the impact of the visual and olfactory stimuli.
2. People are to some degree able to be conscious of instinctive impulses. They can make conscious decisions in contradiction to them, because they are aware of the consequences.
3. Living in social density forces people to regularly accept situations of sharing the personal space with strangers or people, whom they do not want to be near to. Sometimes this is forced upon people, who have no choice.
4. Social rules, norms and laws focus on prevention or punishment to restrict detrimental consequences of the instincts.
5. Cognition enables some persons to have an identity, that chooses a mate not by chemistry, but by intellectual and emotional criteria.
In the process described above, if there is any chemistry, then the development is a gradual process, automatically starting at the male's entering the female's social space. In a society, where people are forced to share their personal space with strangers as part of everyday life, sometimes for hours in public transport and crowds, this would have serious detrimental effects. The lack of distance would trigger the permanent checking. I am omitting the consideration of the permanent aggression between men in each other's bubble.
Therefore people have adapted to the temporary loss of personal space with the mechanisms of desensitization and denial. Thus they are able to avoid conscious perception of any chemistry below a threshold. This threshold can be individually higher or lower.
Denial means, that the instincts do check and subconsciously perceive the signals from the other body, but as long as they are weaker than the threshold, they are not reaching consciousness. Denial can also be collective, when the majority of people shares the threshold and denies the existence of anything below it.
But there is at least one exception, the Metro of Mexico City. In the rush hours, the first wagon of every train is reserved for women and children. The authorities there are not in denial, that it is not correct to expose women to men misbehaving due to their stimulated instincts.
Desensitization means, that the instincts check subconsciously for chemistry, but when the strength of the stimuli is below the threshold, the instincts stop checking or postpone rechecking and register it as no chemistry. Desensitization can grow with habituation to being in crowded situations.
Example: Incest inhibition by desensitization. Children, who grow up together, do rarely develop chemistry, even when they are not genetically related as when adopted. But if genetic siblings only meet as adults, they can develop chemistry. There was a tragic case of a brother and sister, who had children together and the man was put to jail for this.
Desensitization and denial are unavoidable in all densely populated life situations. But they has very detrimental consequences. This will be continued in another entry.
This process can have variations, depending on the circumstances. When there is male domination, then it is only a onesided checking for chemistry: The male invades the woman's space without her consent, he checks chemistry from his side only and coerces her to procreate.
I think, that the same instincts are still virulent in modern people, only their expression is modified by different factors, due to the evolution of cognition.
1. Wearing clothes and cleanliness reduce the impact of the visual and olfactory stimuli.
2. People are to some degree able to be conscious of instinctive impulses. They can make conscious decisions in contradiction to them, because they are aware of the consequences.
3. Living in social density forces people to regularly accept situations of sharing the personal space with strangers or people, whom they do not want to be near to. Sometimes this is forced upon people, who have no choice.
4. Social rules, norms and laws focus on prevention or punishment to restrict detrimental consequences of the instincts.
5. Cognition enables some persons to have an identity, that chooses a mate not by chemistry, but by intellectual and emotional criteria.
In the process described above, if there is any chemistry, then the development is a gradual process, automatically starting at the male's entering the female's social space. In a society, where people are forced to share their personal space with strangers as part of everyday life, sometimes for hours in public transport and crowds, this would have serious detrimental effects. The lack of distance would trigger the permanent checking. I am omitting the consideration of the permanent aggression between men in each other's bubble.
Therefore people have adapted to the temporary loss of personal space with the mechanisms of desensitization and denial. Thus they are able to avoid conscious perception of any chemistry below a threshold. This threshold can be individually higher or lower.
Denial means, that the instincts do check and subconsciously perceive the signals from the other body, but as long as they are weaker than the threshold, they are not reaching consciousness. Denial can also be collective, when the majority of people shares the threshold and denies the existence of anything below it.
But there is at least one exception, the Metro of Mexico City. In the rush hours, the first wagon of every train is reserved for women and children. The authorities there are not in denial, that it is not correct to expose women to men misbehaving due to their stimulated instincts.
Desensitization means, that the instincts check subconsciously for chemistry, but when the strength of the stimuli is below the threshold, the instincts stop checking or postpone rechecking and register it as no chemistry. Desensitization can grow with habituation to being in crowded situations.
Example: Incest inhibition by desensitization. Children, who grow up together, do rarely develop chemistry, even when they are not genetically related as when adopted. But if genetic siblings only meet as adults, they can develop chemistry. There was a tragic case of a brother and sister, who had children together and the man was put to jail for this.
Desensitization and denial are unavoidable in all densely populated life situations. But they has very detrimental consequences. This will be continued in another entry.
