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Hard to imagine that asexuality would be an evolutionary stable population.
One generation and pfft.
First of all, of course, this argument doesn’t hold water for homosexuality and so it doesn’t hold water for asexuality either.
Assuming there’s no conceivable benefit to a parent for having the occasional non-reproducing offspring there’s still the little matter of vast numbers of people being shoved together by parents or circumstances where they’re expected to reproduce whether they like each other or not, let alone whether they like sex. There might be some reproductive hit for not having functioning reproductive systems, period. But that’s clearly more common than simple lack of interest. And yet the species somehow soldiers on.
So.
For whatever reason, as long as asexuals, like anyone else, are able to manage to have enough sex to reproduce 2.2 times on average — and like most people in history subject to social expectations plus social and familial pressure they largely have been — then pop evolution isn’t going to answer anything.
Clue #1: if you’re averse to reproducing in the first place, but your social and possibly physical success depends on it (children being most people’s retirement policies anyway) then you’re probably going to “invest” a lot more in the success of the children you do have than people who consider sex a recreational activity as well as a form of economic activity.
Clue #2: As the photo Tyler chose suggests, people who aren’t very interested in sex may have considerably more energy for other, potentially more productive activities. With the result that any children fortunate enough to be born to asexuals are likely to benefit from their parent’s additional enterprise.
figleaf
Fig, When I looked up the definition, it would seem to rule out your premise: “For whatever reason, as long as asexuals, like anyone else, are able to manage to have enough sex to reproduce 2.2 times on average” Sorry, not trying to offend anyone, and apologize if I did.
Kin selection. Relatively few traits are 100% genetic. If this is only partly genetic, then you don’t need the asexual people themselves to reproduce successfully, you just need their non-asexual relatives to reproduce enough to pick up the slack. (This is one of the leading hypotheses explaining homosexuality.) Perhaps asexuals help their relatives be fertile in some way, or perhaps the relavent gene only sometimes produces asexuality sometimes and other times produces more beneficial traits.
It is not “one of the leading hypotheses”. It has been shot down by, I believe, Pinker, among others. Much more promising is one about the gene that causes women to have more children, and men to be gay. Something similar may be going on with Asexuals, or it may be completely environmental.
The most plausible explanation I’ve heard is Greg Cochran’s pathogenic theory.
Then there is the autoimmune theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_sexual_orientation#Fraternal_birth_order_effect
It is on occasions like this that I (briefly) understand the social innovation fatigue that must motivate social conservatives. Really, we all have to be informed about “asexuals”, who are apparently identical to “sexuals” in every important respect (they even masturbate at the same rate, according to the interviewee) save their peculiar desire to affiliate with yet another trendy, internet-organized lifestyle sect.
It was at the idea that an “asexual” person frequently masturbated and had pleasure from an orgasm but claimed not had sexual pleasure that this became just another Facebook group completely devoid of any real meaning.
Yeah I am an asexual too. I just have sex with hot girls out of the kindness of my heart. *Rolls eyes*.
why do i read MR? pretty much giving up and just reading the Browser now… its all Tyler posts.
I so call bullshit on all of that.
You guys don’t read enough Roissy. A man seducing a woman should display disinterest. Claiming to be asexual is one way to do it.
I had same thought- this guy is probably getting laid left and right by women looking to “cure” him.
Men, more likely.
Possibly, but it would still be a hell of schtick.
God damn your skepticism. We do party hardest.
@bill: I am very difficult to offend, but you managed to do so with your second sentence. It was kinda obvious.
And you misspelled “evolutionarily.” Inexcusable
It’s a statement about how evolution works, or people who think they understand it, or people who think it is a litmus test for support of science because it is supposedly required for making scientific predictions, because only people who really understand evolution can be pro-science.
If an asexual isn’t interested in sex, how can he be the “hardest”…?
I was wondering that myself. How do asexual men get erections if they are not attracted to the person? Do they have a more difficult time in bed or require more stimulation/medication?
Why would he go to parties?
To meet the glitterati?
then the crushed material will be discharged from the lower opening of the crushing room
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