Your sexual self

Thursday 3 January 2008 - Filed under Journal

There are two you’s — the normal, everyday you and the sexual you. I’m pulling out the sexual you not because of the normal human fascination with sex but for the more coldly scientific reason: you are a creature that reproduces. You are hardwired to be a creature that reproduces. Some have gone so far as to say that everything about you is just a vehicle for your testicles or ovaries. A way to get around. To me what is interesting about our sexual selves is that it is one area where we are, in some ways, deeply in touch with our animals roots. Instinct takes over, to some extent, when you are involved with sexual behavior. Subconscious drives come into play. This is why a) people are so diverse when it comes to sexuality and b) why we are so obsessed with sex, as a culture. It’s hardwired. Natural selection has selected us because we like to fuck. Sex is selected.

I can see why this scares the loony-toon creationists. They don’t at all like the idea that they are the product of a long line of horny sex. At least they say they don’t. Yet we see the same overlay of a sexual self on those people, the faithful puritans of the “family values” movement. They get into trouble fucking whores or being gay, too. Subconscious drives come into play.

It’s a fascinating subject, really, the interplay of the sexual self and the “normal” self, where our personal and social ambitions meet the hard, cold fact that we have been fine tuned over millions of years to be sexual creatures.

2008-01-03  »  lolife