683. Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

683.  Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

Sometimes things appear to me so obvious, that I am surprised, when they are confirmed by research, which is presented as if it were a novelty.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130921092236.htm

"A recently published study strongly suggests men succumb to sexual temptations more than women -- for example, cheating on a partner -- because they experience strong sexual impulses, not because they have weak self-control."

"Overall, these studies suggest that men are more likely to give in to sexual temptations because they tend to have stronger sexual impulse strength than women do," 

"But when people exercise self-control in a given situation, this sex difference in behavior is greatly reduced. It makes sense that self-control, which has relatively recent evolutionary origins compared to sexual impulses, would work similarly -- and as effectively -- for both men and women,"

The misery and plight enforced upon women as a consequence of the physiological asymmetry between the genders is one major topic of this blog. The devastating consequences of men's recurrent dishomeostasis experienced as the urge to use female bodies for the removal of body waste cannot be explained by the mere lack of self-control. 

The reality of this drastic asymmetry is evident by the fact, that men often obtain the abuse of female bodies not only by payment and manipulation, but also by violence.  The latter is enabled by the unfortunate co-evolution of the urge towards abuse with the superior physical strength to force it upon unwilling victims.   

The evolution of these devastating strong male urges seems to make a lot of sad sense, when looking only at how it serves procreation.   Evolution serves the survival of the species, not the emotional and cognitive wellbeing of individuals.        

Female animals willingly copulate at the moment of estrus due to their lacking the cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences of giving birth and raising the offspring.   

When the human cognition evolved, this enabled women also to anticipate the experience of pregnancy and child rearing.  Some women perceive this is a horror, an abuse of their bodies and a form of slavery.  Logically they attempt to avoid this.  

The human species would probably have been extinct by now, had not the further biological evolution counterbalanced this by hiding the female estrus and by adding more male urges plus physical strength.   Thus pregnancies continued to be caused, no more only by compliance due to ignorance, but also by force upon unwilling women.  


In spite of more legal equality in modern western society, even in recent times the plight of women has been perpetuated by two main fallacies.  Both fallacies deny the physiological differences and attribute all asymmetry between the genders to education and culture.   Both fallacies are based upon the projection of the level of the own urges upon the other gender.

1.  The fallacy of the so called 'sexual revolution' is the fallacy of men, who project their higher urges upon women and claim, that women only feel abused due to sexual repression.   This dangerous male fallacy has proclaimed that if women were liberated, they would as much as men want to copulate like alley dogs and would as little as men need emotional commitment.

2.  The feminist fallacy overestimates men's willpower and unrealistically demands men to have the same easy self-control as women.   This is based upon the mistake to project their own lower female physiological urges upon men.   More about my suggestion for a more rational feminism in entry 566.  

 

According to the study, men's problem is not self-control, but the stronger sexual impulse.   But it is a banality to state, that stronger urges require stronger self-control.    Thus the same ability to exercise self-control does not automatically mean the same success of willpower over stronger urges.  

Thus any abolition of the abuse of women requires a change in the attitude and behavior of both genders.   This requires a shift of the focus away from both fallacies.  Neither the female demand of more self-control by men and nor the male myth of female repression leads to any improvement of women's plight.  

The focus needs to be on the full acknowledgment of the disruption and harm caused by the excessive male urges and a subsequent change of both men's and women's attitude and behavior.  

1.  Men need to acknowledge their instinctive urges for recurrent restoration of physiological homeostasis as asymmetrical and not reciprocal.  They need to learn and take for serious, that women have different needs.  Men need to accept the biological reality, that the magnitude of male urges cannot and will not be requited by women.   Men need to give up the devastating myth of the existence of less consciously felt but equally strong urges as being the women's defect, and the belief in this myth as the justification to overcome this alleged defect by hook or crook as if this would ultimately be beneficial for the women.  This is a male delusion with cruel consequences for the victims. 

Instead men need to recognize, that the only realistic expression of consideration and responsibility towards women means to refrain from commodifying and objectifying them.    

2.  Women need to acknowledge, how little men have control over the automatic triggering of their instinctive urges towards abuse, whenever they are exposed to the perception of stimuli from female bodies.  This is aggravated, when men are in the state of high dishomeostasis.  

Even those decent and nice guys, who have not the least conscious intention to let abuse follow the perception of any unwelcome triggers, need more self-control for stronger stimulation.   Whenever they need all their available self-control to cope with these urges, this may leave them depleted of any further willpower, which they need to cope with other urges.  This may make it more difficult to resist other behaviors like overeating or smoking.   This can be concluded from studies about the depletion of willpower as presented in entry 524.   

(The following may sound like a far fetched speculation: I am wondering, if obesity, alcoholism and other self-harming widespread behaviors of lacking willpower are not partially enhanced by the oversexation of the media and of everyday life.  Not abusing women may deplete many decent men of so much of their willpower, that they more easily succumb to other urges instead.)

 
Therefore women too have a responsibility and a moral obligation to be considerate of men's physiological affliction.   Women need to avoid triggering male instincts towards their bodies, unless they are in private with a man, with whom they either have or want a relationship. 

Most people would agree, that it is cruel to show a bill of money to a beggar and then tell him to keep his fingers off, because it is not for him to have.  This invites the beggar's attempt, if he grabs it, while of course this is not a justification.   The beggar needs willpower not to grab it.   He would not need willpower, as long as people just pass him by.   A woman presenting herself nearly naked or in any provocative attire does the same to any man in dishomeostasis, whenever she wants him to keep off her body.    

As unfortunate as it is, the misunderstandings between the genders lead to antagonistic struggles, in which in the end both genders suffer.   Men are able to enforce abuse, but women react by materialistic exploitation.  
The abuse of women and the exploitation of men can only be abolished by cooperation based upon the realistic acknowledgment of the biological asymmetry.   Studies like the one cited are a good beginning, but a much more widespread recognition of the true problem is needed.      

642. Statistical Evidence Of The Asymmetry Of Instincts

642.   Statistical Evidence Of The Asymmetry Of Instincts

According to estimates recently published in the local newspaper, the yearly transaction volume of prostitution in Germany are € 14.5 billion and the daily number of abusers (euphemistically called clients) of prostitutes are 1.2 millions.    The population of Germany is nearly 82 millions.    

Even by a cautious interpretation of estimated numbers, the magnitude of this market gives clear evidence of the biological asymmetry and the differences between male and female animal instincts.
 

I am basing my consideration, that prostitution is clear evidence for a blatant asymmetry upon the logic in people's decision, what they are willing to pay for and what they only supply in return for payment.  
People choose to pay money for the fulfillment of a need by another person, who himself does not benefit from his part in the activity and who therefore has no own reason to engage in unless for money.      
Outside training and instructing, people have no need to pay a partner for shared activities as is playing chess, tennis or dancing.  Such activities are chosen by both partners in a symmetrical dyad for the purpose of mutual benefits. 

Someone shining another person's shoes does not do this for personal benefits or by deriving pleasure engaging in such an activity.  Without being paid, nobody would shine shoes.  The person wanting his shoes shined can therefore obtain this service only by the compensation of payment.   

The statistical fact, that so many men can only restore their physiological homeostasis by paying indicates very clearly, that the emotionally unattached copulation of two bodies is not or rarely experienced by women as beneficial.    

1.  Evolution

 

Some men justify their abuse of women as this being natural and that humans are just animals and thus nothing were wrong with behaving as such.  This is a fallacy, because it does not take into consideration the very unique distinction in humans between the evolution of both genders, where only in the females the cognition has evolved towards overriding the force of instincts.

Most species of non-human mammals copulate for the purpose of procreation at the moment of the female estrus.   As these animals are lacking the human cognition, especially the long-term memory, copulation does not create attachment.  For animals, copulation is a physiological act of limited duration, which leaves no traces except fertilization.  For most mammals, male dishomeostasis and female estrus are balanced and occurring following a similar cycle of recurrence.  

In humans, this balance is disrupted and modified in several ways. 

• The female estrus cycle is about one month, while male sexual dishomeostasis is a cycle of days or even hours.  
• Women are neither consciously and innately aware of nor signaling the moment of the estrus.
• The moment of estrus is for women only an option to become pregnant, not an automatic urge.

This means, that the human evolution has changed male instinctive urges to copulate with a female body only towards a higher frequency of the dishomeostasis.    But it has separated the female urge to procreate from being driven by the estrus to copulate for the purpose of becoming pregnant.   Emotional attachment has replaced the estrus as what is motivating women towards physical intimacy.  
If women were able to react adequately to this imbalance by refusing any abuse of their bodies and demand emotional attachment from men as a condition for giving them homeostasis, the human species would have been extinct a long time.   

But the concurrent superior male physical strength has enabled men to enforce their homeostation by the abuse of the bodies of non-consenting women.   Thus the ability for emotional attachment did not evolve equally in men.    

2.  The effects of this evolutionary asymmetry on contemporary people. 

A man wanting to merely copulate with a female body has only the choice between abuse by force or abuse by payment.   If he wants a woman's motivation to give him his recurrent homeostation, he has to take care, that she has a reason to experience physical intimacy as beneficial for herself.   This reason is giving her emotional attachment, bonding and long-term commitment.  

In modern civilized countries, the risk of the dire consequences of abuse by force is so high, that the abusers usually choose prostitution. 

   
Prostitution is for the man the exact simulation of the situation of the animal copulation.   But a woman, who is not driven by an estrus to get pregnant, has no own reason to copulate with a body.   She does not experience any personal benefits by being abused as a toilet for men's body waste.   The prostitute takes money as a compensation for the damage of allowing herself to be abused (if this even is a free choice). 

2.1.  Modern communication technology like the web enables people to find a partner for any activity.  Whenever an activity supplies reciprocal and symmetrical benefits, people can find a partner without needing to pay.  

If uncommitted copulation of two bodies were beneficial for more than a tiny minority of women, men would find them and avoid paying for prostitution.   The web is full with ads and profiles of men, who want intimate encounters, no strings fun, friends with benefits or any other euphemism for wanting a woman as a living toilet. Any woman (if there are any) attracted to be used this way, would be certainly found.   But the € 14.5 billion yearly only in Germany show, that the consent to be abused is not available for free, it is only sold.   

2.2. There is a big difference between reducing dishomeostasis and attempting to find and indulge in pleasure.   Dishomeostasis is experienced as an urge to remove or reduce a state of discomfort and return to the neutral relaxed state.    This urge can severely disrupt rational thinking and distort appropriate behavior.   

When in a relaxed state there is a free choice for additional pleasure and enjoyment, this is an undisturbed mind's wise choice or preference.   

Most people would prefer to buy for example a piece of cake or a newspaper rather than a painkiller.   But when they experience the dishomeostasis of having a headache then they need the painkiller and cannot spend that money on buying something else.   They are more driven to pay for relief than for pleasure.   

A man in the state of homeostasis can wisely choose between spending a sum of money on a book, a visit to the zoo or in a restaurant.    But a man, who pays a prostitute instead of buying a book is unable to make a wise choice, he is driven by an urge to reduce his physiological discomfort.    

2.3.  By evolution, women's strong need for emotional attachment has replaced the urge to copulate as being identical with the urge to get pregnant at the moment of a noticeable estrus.   This need to not only be in a situation of being able to get attached but also to experience the attachment as reciprocal is doomed to bring harm and pain, as long as it is onesided, because too many men are driven towards copulation without attachment.   

Many women get emotionally attached to their children, while they commodify and take advantage of men as material providers.  Based upon the evolutionary asymmetry, I am wondering, what is cause and what is reaction and how many women do breed not by really preferring their children for emotional attachment, but by perceiving this as their only chance to get any emotional attachment, which they do not consider possible with a man. 

  

Women commodify men as purses and men objectify women as bodies, but there is a huge difference.    Men are at least respected as being able to fill the purses.   Women are perceived as bodies only apt to trigger men's instincts, which is not considered as an achievement requiring a brain and justifying respect. 

2.4.  By recognizing the reality of men's instinctive urges I do not excuse or condone any abuse of women.  Men have the problem, it is their task to cope with it without abusing women.    

When someone has a recurrent problem, which causes him so much discomfort, that he is willing to pay for a remedy, because he is unable to solve it in any other way, this is usually considered as an affliction, as an unfortunate and detrimental situation.   
But when the recurrent problem is a man's sexual dishomeostasis, and his choice of a remedy is paying for prostitution, because he is unable to get emotionally attached in a serious relationship, then this man often feels proud of his high libido and is in complete denial, that he has an affliction, a disability and a defect.  

I consider men, who are proud of their high libido, as pathetic idiots.   

The man, who has a low libido and no need for emotionally unattached copulation is the winner in the lottery of life, which has given him the genes, which cause the least harm to himself and to women and the most long term benefits.   

High libido is as obsolete as excessive hunger or appetite.  For long parts of human history, overeating served survival.  Fat stored on the body, when food is plenty was needed in times of scarcity.    Before modern medicine, the mortality was so high, that male high libido combined with physical strength enabled men to force so many pregnancies on women, that the species survived.    Today, the same combination has led to overpopulation.    Men overeating damage themselves, men driven by high libido towards abuse damage women.  

Unfortunately, people are more prone to change attitudes and behaviors, when they experience the damage on themselves, then when they only harm others.   

Not all men abuse women, and there are many, who theoretically and generally agree that women deserve better than being abused, with or without being paid.    But this is not sufficient.    What is really needed is a radical change of men's attitude towards their own libido.   

 

It is the same as with obesity.   As long as a man considers it as good to be fat, he will continue with a positive attitude towards overeating.  Only if he changes his attitude and considers overeating as harmful and undesirable behavior, he can control. his behavior and loose weight.   As long as a man considers it as good to pay for the abuse of prostitutes, he will continue with his positive attitude towards a high libido.   Only if he changes his attitude and considers copulation without attachment as abusive, harmful and undesirable behavior, he can control his behavior and stop all abuse of women.  

While there is nothing wrong with any amount of libido, as long as it can be absorbed entirely by the physical intimacy earned by emotional attachment in a bonded monogamous long-term commitment, men need to acknowledge and recognize, that all libido beyond this is a dangerous and detrimental affliction.    Only then the world can become a better place for women.