649. Polyandry And Polygyny Are Not Mirror-Inverted

649.  Polyandry And Polygyny Are Not Mirror-Inverted

Superficially seen, polyandry by women and polygyny by men seem to be mirror-inverted but identical constellations.    When omitting the blurring factor of what makes a union a marriage, as this differs widely between countries and cultures, both forms of polygamy can be defined as: 

One person of one gender has at the same time more than one non-temporary intimate relationship with a person of the other gender.

But in spite of the superficial appearance, it is far from mirror-inverted.  The subconscious biological differences between male and female instincts cause decisive distinctions.  

Both varieties are in general biased in favor of male decision, male needs, male consent, male attitudes derived from their instinctive urges, while they are imposed upon women without an alternative and without the power to reject it.  Men do have the advantage of power by greater innate physical strength, and polygamy is not exempted from its effects.  

I am saying in general, as I am of course ignorant of the possible existence of exceptions.   

Polyandry: 

I just read in a newspaper about a society somewhere in Asia, where it is the custom, that several brothers marry one woman and they all live as one family.   This reminded me of once chatting with a man, who was looking for a woman to be shared with his buddy.   I already talked about them in entry 300.

Such behavior can be explained by evolutionary biologically and by the specific male instinctive predispositions.  

 

When men perceive women mainly as toilets for their body waste and not as companions for nonphysical intimacy, then it is not at all surprising, when they are emotionally and intellectually much closer and much more bonded to their brothers and to their buddies known since childhood.   

When they trust each other to share their assets and commodities as is a car, a machine or a home, then they perceive the body of an objectified woman just as one more commodity to be shared the same way.  
When men claim the right to and even fight over the exclusive control over the access to their mates' bodies, this does not automatically imply any emotional attachment.    Some men can be indifferent to the woman's affective preferences, but they just want to be sure, that they are only burdened with raising those children, who do carry their own genes and not those of someone else.  

But when men decide themselves, with whom to share a woman by the exclusion of all others, and they feel close enough, then this includes the willingness to also participate in the burden of raising children, who are genetically the descendants of one of them, but of nobody else.  

Polygyny:

Polygyny is much more widespread than polyandry.   It reflects the biological discrepancy between the frequency of male dishomeostasis and the reluctance of many women to cooperate to restore the homeostasis of those men, who do not fulfill the women's emotional needs in return.   Instead of learning to give women, what they need emotionally and intellectually, these instinct driven animals attempt to solve their biological problem by the concurrent use of more than one female body.  

So far, I have not yet heard of any two women doing the same as the men in the cases of polyandry, which means to decide to share one man.  Nor have I heard of any man entering such a constellation by passive compliance with two women's decision.   

Polygyny is a man's decision for his benefits only, and it is rarely welcome by the women.  Where it is a legal option, the second marriage is usually imposed upon the first wife, no matter what she really wishes.   The second and further wives are usually pressed into such a marriage by the family.   

Whenever an additional wife is indeed welcomed as someone to share the burden of household chores with, this is no evidence of the acceptance of polygyny as sharing a man, it really is an expression of the extreme plight and despair of women in dire poverty, who are deprived of the relief of machines or paid help.

But a form of polygyny exists even in modern western societies, but it is usually not considered nor recognized as such.   Whenever a man starts a non-ephemeral extramarital affair with a woman, he creates for himself the benefits of a polygynous constellation.   But the two women involved do not agree.   The first one is either kept ignorant or she is tied by circumstances as having children.  She wants her husband to fulfill his promise of being monogamous, she does not consent to share him.   The second woman is foolish enough to compete with the first wife attempting to take her place and then have him to herself.   Both women suffer, only the polygynous man is motivated to prolong this situations, as long as he gets enough benefits for a low price.

Thus, in the case of the polyandry by the men's decision, the men can often be content and satisfied.   in the case of polygyny, which is installed by a men over more or less disagreeing women, it is also the man, who benefits, while the women suffer.  

Only the balanced monogamy gives women a fair chance of getting as much advantages and benefits as do men.         

648. Ayumu - The Distinction Between Animals And Humans

648.  Ayumu - The Distinction Between Animals And Humans

The evolution of humans and chimpanzees bifurcated about 6 million years ago.    But this does not mean, that only humans have continued to evolve.   Also chimpanzees have not remained the same species as 6 million years ago.   The two species have evolved differently, some qualities and traits have evolved more rapidly in humans.   The possibility cannot be excluded, that after many more millions of years the descendants of today's chimpanzees may also reach the intelligence of today's humans.  

Therefore seeing the amazing accomplishments of a chimpanzee called Ayumu is amazing but comprehensible.  

Ayumu does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA

This and other cases of amazing problem solving skills by animals as for example ravens has caused some people to doubt, that there were no real and decisive distinction between humans and animals.    
But there is one clear distinction.  This distinction is the complete determination of all behavior by instincts only in animals, while humans have cognitive control over their behavior.  It is the distinction between all needs and urges being instinctive in animals, while humans have intellectual and emotional needs, which can be stronger than instincts. 

Animals are those beings, who are determined by instincts and whose intelligence and skills are restricted to only serve and enable the pursuit of satisfying the instinctive urges.   

Humans have a conscious identity derived from predominantly cognitive needs, memory and anticipation allows them to be fully aware of the detrimental long-term consequences of whatever instinctive urges they do experience.    Their intelligence enables them to use cognitive control over the instincts and to avoid damaging themselves by succumbing to temporary instinctive urges.

Human evolution is actually in a phase of transition.   Some members of the species homo sapiens are still animals, who are determined by their instincts but have invented very elaborated tools and methods to serve these anachronistic and obsolete urges, causing extreme damage and suffering.   Some have already evolved farther and are no more animals but cognitive beings in full control over their instincts.  

Ayumu demonstrates his amazing abilities as a tool to get treats as a reward.  It serves his instinct to eat.    Only humans do pursue intellectual challenges of any kind for the emotional and intellectual joy of doing so, of feeling good by achievement.  

Weapons are a good example.  

As long as someone driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct had nothing but a club as a weapon, he at least had to get close to the person considered as an enemy, before he could attack one at a time.  
At the era of the club, there was a balance between the possible damage caused by the ingroup-outgroup instinct and the limited intelligence restricting the magnitude of the maximum damage.  When the intelligence evolved, this augmented the damage done by instinct.  
It needs high intelligence to produce mass destruction weapons as are the nuclear bombs.   One person can press a button and kill millions.   But doing so is still an act of succumbing to the ingroup-outgroup instinct of killing enemies and defending the own kind.
No matter if the club or the button, those who use weapons are animals determined by the instinct, which is served by the intelligence to create the weapons.
 

True humans are no longer determined by the obsolete ingroup-outgroup instinct.  Instead they see all humans as individuals with equal rights, the only valid distinction being the one between decent people, who harm nobody, and the bad ones, who do and who need to be impeded to do so.
True humans are politicians, leaders and organizers, who use their intelligence to install and create fair treaties, agreements and compromises between countries or groups.  They contribute to peace, justice and cooperation. 


The second example is men's reaction to their experience of sexual dishomeostasis.  

As animals, men are driven without hesitation to procure for themselves the access to the ruthless abuse of a female body.   When the legal consequences make outright rape too risky, some men apply amazing amounts of intelligence to get access to female bodies without any awareness of being primitive animals.    For those men, whose attempts of simple seduction by manipulation, trickery and lies are not successful, other men have used a lot of professional qualification to develop and sell instruments and methods for attempting abuse.   Some have invented chemicals like artificial pheromones or knockout drops.  Others have written elaborate manuals for aspiring PUAs (Pick Up ANIMALS).   But no matter how clever the methods, everything serves male instincts to abuse women.   
     

Truly human men are very different.   They consider and experience sexual homeostasis as a mere collateral benefit of having a relationship for reasons based upon the appreciation of women as persons.  By those men, who are predominantly cognitive beings, restoring sexual homeostasis is by itself not considered or justified as a sufficient reason to get involved. 
The behavior of human men is determined by their cognitive need for a companion in a long-term bonded and monogamous relationship.   

647. Masculinity Is Obsolete And An Anachronism

647.  Masculinity Is Obsolete And An Anachronism

Ruthless capitalistic people do not hesitate to enhance their profit, and propagating masculinity is just one example:

"Where male attitudes are concerned, a new study implicates magazine advertisements specifically aimed at men as helping to reinforce a certain set of views on masculinity termed "hyper-masculinity.""

"Hyper-masculinity is an extreme form of masculine gender ideology comprising four main components: toughness, violence, dangerousness and calloused attitudes toward women and sex."

"Vokey's results are consistent with considerable prior research showing a positive association between hyper-masculine beliefs and a host of social and health problems, such as dangerous driving, drug use and violence towards women. "

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228113359.htm

Masculinity is not only a hazard to women and sometimes also to other men, it is also obsolete and an anachronism when considering the circumstances of modern life.


What is usually defined and understood by the word masculinity, are either physical traits or traits and behaviors derived thereof. 

• Strength, endurance, stamina, high libido
• Muscles, speed and fitness acquired by physical exercise
• Skills acquired by sports and exercises like catching and throwing objects, fighting, riding, climbing
• Aggression, violence, competition, risk taking, fearlessness, domination.

Masculinity does not include any intelligence and cognitive skills, which depend exclusively upon the quality of the brain.   Masculinity is understood as what distinguishes men from women.   The cognitive qualities, which women can have as much as men, are not used to define masculinity.    This reduces masculinity to physical traits.
Men can easily demonstrate their innate physical advantage by beating up, abusing and raping defenseless women, while any male claim of higher intelligence contradicts reality.   Only fools deny the evidence of women's cognitive equality.       

A positive attitude to their masculinity is men's pathetic attempt to interpret their biological advantage of merely physical strength as an alleged superiority.    It really is both sad and ludicrous to consider it a sign of superiority, when someone is physically able to force his will upon a helpless victim.


In prehistoric times the survival of hunter and gatherer societies depended upon men's attributes of masculinity.  

• Hunting for food and fighting for the protection against wild animals and marauders required physically strong and fit men, who cultivated masculinity.   
• Leaders had to proof their abilities by fighting and competing over other men.    
• When resources were extremely scarce, fighting over access to the resources was fighting over who would live and who would perish.  
• High male libido deprived women of a choice and caused many unwanted pregnancies.  This may have contributed to the survival of the human species by compensating for the high mortality.

Today, masculinity is obsolete.  

• Any intelligent, trained and educated person of both genders even with physical disabilities can do research and construct or invent machines, tools, appliances, chemicals, which are stronger and faster and more efficient than any prototype of an extreme masculine man could ever be.   
• Politicians, leaders, rulers, bosses need to be elected for their wisdom, responsibility, justice, intelligence, education and the ability to cooperate and to communicate.   Those who get to the top by successful fighting are the wrong ones to be there.   I suspect that masculinity contributes to the Peter principle.   
• Today, the global resources suffice for a modest, frugal life for all living humans, a fair distribution requires cooperation.   Fighting over resources today is fighting for unjust greed, not for basic survival.
• Today, male high libido causes women's suffering and global overpopulation.   Today, those who invent the best and safest birth control methods compensate for the damage, that male libido does.  

Today, many of those people of both genders, whose qualities enable them to contribute to the technological, medical, chemical and social progress, would have been failures and losers as cave men.  The females would have been wasted as breeders.    Femininity is as obsolete as is masculinity.   


When persons of both genders are wearing comfortable clothes like jeans and t-shirts, the most prominent visual distinction between natural and unmodified men and women would be a man's beard.   A beard is in fact the only distinctive sign a man's maleness, which neither does harm women nor can be used to do so by a man's choice.  
It is weird and absurd, that men shave off this sign of being men and then they compensate for the lost distinction by enhancing and accentuating what they consider as masculinity and what makes them hazardous.    A man with a beard presents himself so unmistakably as a man, that neither muscles nor aggression can add anything to this.     


What is needed is a model of humanity, which is contrasted with animality and which replaces the gender distinction.  Those cognitive qualities, which are the enabler of progress are gender-neutral.
Only primitive fools derive their identity from their masculinity and as being different from women.   Wise intellectual men derive their identity from the cognitive qualities of their brains.  They recognize this as shared with women but as a decisive distinction from animals.

Nothing of what I and many other educated and intelligent women wish to share with a man requires masculinity.   

646. Science: The Harm Of Procreation To Women - 2

646.   Science:  The Harm Of Procreation To Women - 2

In entry 557 I quoted a study about childbirth as a cause of PTSD.    Another study indicates postpartum depression as another consequence of the sad reality, that the survival of the human species depends upon the biological abuse of women's bodies.   

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130314124618.htm

"A surprisingly high number of women have postpartum depressive symptoms, according to a new, large-scale study by a Northwestern Medicine® researcher."

"The study, which included a depression screening of 10,000 women who had recently delivered infants at single obstetrical hospital, revealed a large percentage of women who suffered recurrent episodes of major depression."

"In the study, 14 percent of the women screened positive for depression. Of that group, 826 received full psychiatric assessments during at-home visits. Some of the key findings from those assessments:"

"Suicide accounts for about 20 percent of postpartum deaths and is the second most common cause of mortality in postpartum women."

Whenever people are driven by instinctive urges to actions with long-term detrimental consequences, they are doomed to suffer later.    Cognitive control and/or the ability to anticipate long-term consequences would help to avoid and to prevent mistakes, but strong instinctive urges override and deactivate such rational protection.
  
Women following their instinctive urges to breed are one example.   Their rational long-term planning for the best way of life is often temporarily blurred.   Once they have the child and get aware, what harm they have done to themselves, it is too late.   They have irreversibly burdened themselves with the obligation to raise the children.  

They have such good reasons to be depressed, that I cannot agree to consider even the severest depression as an illness, but as a very healthy and logical reaction to the doom and plight of being burdened with children.   

645. The Implications Of Men Fighting Over Women

645.    The Implications Of Men Fighting Over Women 

I recently read an article, which while mainly about another topic mentions men fighting over women.  

"NC: I reported in my 1988 article, “Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population” (Science 239: 985-992) that unokais (men who had killed others) had 3 times the average number of children than same-age non-unokais and 2.5 times the average number of wives."

"I found the Yanomamö quite violent, without any outside provocation making them so, and that their violence revolved around competition for women. Specifically, there was chronic and sometimes violent competition to obtain nubile, young females."

"Now if a scientist studying yaks, bullfrogs, bats, deer, salamanders, or any non-human animal stated that they competed for opportunities to mate, no one in biology would have taken that to be anything other than an accurate observation. But if you say that about human beings, it becomes “lurid speculation.”"

Source: 

Savage Science: Excerpt of an Interview of Napoleon A. Chagnon
by Frank Miele, Senior Editor, Skeptic Magazine
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-03-06/


Being a woman, I perceive men, who fight over access to and control over women, as a hazard. 

A not partnered man experiencing sexual dishomeostasis often encounters obstacles between his instinctive urges and the access to a woman's body.    Depending upon circumstances, these obstacles are varieties of who controls this access.  Men's methods how to react to these obstacles depend not only upon the factual control, but also upon an individual man's attitude towards women.

1.   When women are controlled and owned by men.   

Under different social and historical circumstances, there are and have been many situations, where women are and were under the control of men, enforced by structural power and physical strength.   This control can be legal or illegal, the controlling men can be family members, religious gurus, autocratic leaders, owners of slaves, captors, abductors, kidnappers, who restrict the access to the women under their power.  
Access can only be obtained by fighting, payment or clever means of outwitting and overriding this control.    Any transfer of who controls a woman is between men, while the woman herself has no influence.

Depending on his general attitude towards women, a man's congruent behavior respects or denies the woman's own wishes to have control over herself. 

1.1.  A man freeing a respected women attempts to win her consent by creating emotional attachment and commitment and he disagrees with any man's usurped alleged right to control a woman.   History, fairy tales, fables and novels are full of such stories.  

1.2.  A man with the attitude of subjectively justified objectification and commodification acquires control over a woman as over the possession of a utility.    Having the delusion that acquiring control creates unlimited rights, he abuses women in disregard of their own wishes.   The victory of one man over the other determines, who will be the one imposing the abuse upon women, who themselves have no chance to avoid this..    

2.   When women have themselves the legal and/or factual control over their own body.  

In this situation, a rational man respecting and appreciating a woman as an equal partner with her own capacity to decide does not fight or compete with other men over her.    He recognizes that only the woman herself is entitled to deny or allow access to her body.   He knows that unless she needs to be freed from another man's illegal and unjustified control as in 1.1., every agreement for any interaction is strictly between him and her.   

As long as their behavior is correct and not breaking any preexisting freely chosen obligations, nobody else matters or has a right to interfere.   Even in the case of a cheating woman, she is herself responsible for the transgression.  The betrayed partner has a right to direct his consequences to her, but this does not justify to fight over her as if she were a stolen possession.

Fighting over women can have many forms.   While animals and some men fight by using physical violence, in modern societies men often compete by more subtle means.   But this still implies blatant disregard for women's ability to decide for themselves.
The story of the wager in entry 119 is a good example.    Even though in this event the woman apparently made her own choice, the circumstances were created by two men.  She was manipulated by them for the purpose of winning a wager.  

There is a very serious and dangerous fallacy in a man's thinking, if he competes and fights over a woman with another man, who has no factual legal or illegal control over her.   Such fighting implies a man's lack of respect and regard for the woman as a person.    

2.1.   Fighting over women implies a general justification of male control and dominance over women.    Instead of principally rejecting such control, men fight over who of them can have it.   

2.2.  Men fighting over a woman deprive her of the choice between all of them.   The loser usually is no more available to her.   Either the winner impedes the loser(s) to get near her, or they withdraw discouraged.   Even a winner, who has enough consideration to not attempt to control her, thus limits who other than he himself gets a chance to attempt winning her consent.  

2.3.  Men competing misrepresent themselves in their attempts to appear each better than the other.  This deprives her of a more realistic assessment of any of them, which would enable her rationally evaluate each of them compared with her needs.    Competing has the best result for those men with the most advanced skills as manipulators, bluffers and liars.  

2.4.  A man fighting over a woman often respects his rival more than he respects the woman.   In this case he fights mainly for the psychological benefits of winning against a valued opponent.  Winning is the main objective, the woman herself is not important.  

2.5.  Fighting means taking risks of being harmed and it means strain and effort.    Therefore the winner is inclined to feel entitled to his prize.   But winning the fight only removes another man as an obstacle, it does not automatically make the woman want him.
Some men are afflicted with the fallacy of wrongly assuming, that as the winners they are automatically attractive and wanted by the women.   

Thus they are prone to become a nuisance when not accepting the woman's rejection.
If such a man would realistically consider the probabilities of a woman's choice between consent and rejection, this would make fighting less attractive.  It would motivate him to attempt to win her directly instead and respect her choice.   

644. A Literary Example Of A Delusional Man

644.  A Literary Example Of A Delusional Man

I just listened to the audio version of The Golden Silence by C.N and A.M. Williamson, which is legally available at
http://librivox.org/the-golden-silence-by-cn-and-am-williamson.  
(I really appreciate the excellent work of all the volunteers at librivox.org and www.litteratureaudio.com, who have done the reading of this and many other books.)

I am aware that this book was written in 1911, more than a hundred years ago, and I know, that the world has changed since then.   I am also aware, that what is told as a fictional story, does not imply it ever having happened in real life.   
Yet somehow it seems very probable, that a man can really be as delusional and as dangerous as was that man in the story, and this is very scary.   

By circumstances of the story, a young girl got under the power of an islamic man somewhere in northern Africa.  He had become very infatuated with her beauty and he pretended and believed to love her.   According to his understanding of correct behavior and honor, he wanted her as his wife.   So he threatened to force her into marriage, if she would not consent.   

But love requires respect for an equal, which he did not have for her.   His complete disrespect for her own ability to know herself, what is best for her, caused him the delusion, that forcing himself upon her were beneficial for her, so that he could do this without having any bad conscience.   

Two quotes summing it up: 

"I do not fear thy hate. When thou belongest to me, I will know how to turn it into love."

"Give me thy love, and thou canst bend me as thou wilt.  Refuse it, and I will break thee."

Such a delusion in combination with the power to enforce it makes a man dangerous.   But when his religion also tells him, that having power over women, and having four wives and an unlimited number of concubines is the will of his deity, then he is any woman's worst possible enemy.     

While this story is an extreme example, unfortunately many men are misguided to sincerely overestimate the benefits of what they do to women and to underestimate without any doubt the harm they do.  

643. A Man's Persistent Contact With Ex-Partners Is A Variety Of The Traditional African Polygamy

643.   A Man's Persistent Contact With Ex-Partners Is A Variety Of The Traditional African Polygamy

In entry 642, I pointed out, how prostitution simulates the copulation of mammals, where the male is not impacted by any emotional or cognitive trace after copulating with a female body.  

When a man perceives a deactivated intimate partner as not different from someone, who had never been more intimate than a platonic friend, this also is evidence, that this man does not experience physical intimacy as creating an irreversible permanent special bond, which can never be undone,  but only drastically broken and severed.


I once wrote a term paper upon traditional African family structures.    Simplified, it was like this:  When a man marries for the first time, he and his wife have one hut each in a compound.   They have an intimate relationship, until the first child is born.   Then the physically intimate relationship with this wife is deactivated.   The man marries a second wife, who gets also her own hut.   When she has her first child, the physical intimacy with her also gets deactivated.    Depending on his material resources, he may add several more wives.   When he reaches his limit, he reestablishes the intimacy with the more ancient wives, until they again are pregnant.  
This means, such a man has a harem, which consists during long periods of one active intimate relationship and several deactivated intimate, but temporarily platonic relationships with women, whom he has not discarded as unsuitable.  

A man, who enters a new intimate relationship, while maintaining a platonic friendship with deactivated intimate partners, has the same kind of a harem.  If he would experience emotional attachment as connected with physical intimacy, he would know this.   But if physical intimacy does not create any permanent emotional trace, then he is not aware of creating a harem and he does not know, what he does to the women, whom he denies exclusivity by placing them in the harem.   
He is oblivious of the decisive difference between a deactivated intimate partner and an ex-partner.  


I define an ex-partner as someone, who is discarded from all voluntary contact as being unsuitable for a relationship. 
A woman, who was an intimate partner and who is still treated and considered as a platonic friend, is not an ex-partner, but a deactivated intimate partner.  

I define monogamy as having only one intimate partner at the same time, no matter if active or deactivated.    

I consider and perceive a person, who is not suitable for friendship as also no suitable for an intimate relationship and the step from friendship to physical intimacy as a one-way street and there is no way back.  


I have been thinking hard, but I cannot imagine any valid reason, why two persons get intimately involved and end the relationship, and in spite of this can continue to reciprocally merit each other's friendship.    A valid reason to end a relationship and valid reasons to reciprocally merit each other's friendship are mutually exclusive. 

• When a relationship ends, because one commits an unforgivable transgression, then this means, that the basis for friendship has been forfeited and destroyed.  
  
• When two people have made the mistake of getting involved by infatuation, while they had nothing in common to keep them together, then the they cannot remain the friends they never had been.
  
• When a man gets aware of the banality of his recurrent urge to restore his homeostasis, then as a wise man he understands, that this is inherent in human cognition, which enables intelligent humans to compare more rewarding intellectual activities with the primitive homeostation of animal instincts.  This awareness does not diminish a mature man's attachment to the person of his partner.  
  But if experiencing his own needs for homeostation as a banality suffices for a man to replace his companion's body with another female body for the purpose of enhancing the sensation of primitive thrills, then he is a worthless idiot and an immature jerk and he does not deserve the discarded woman's friendship.  

Therefore any man, who needs to continue the contact with his deactivated intimate partners, scares me for two reasons.  
It makes me suspicious, that physical intimacy is for him not connected with emotional attachment, bonding and commitment, and it indicates a high risk of me being hurt by his ending the relationship for invalid reasons.