The Sexual Continuim

Sexuality in humans is far from the binary absolute beloved of traditional moralists and assumed by large majorities of the public.   When we contemplate carefully the male and female divide we find that  aspects of the other gender are never absent in even the most masculine or feminine of individuals.

The mixing begins at conception.  Nature bequeaths to the zygote a genetic inheritance taken equally from mother and father.  For a time the developing fetus cruises in neutral until chance intervenes and a bath of hormones flips the sexual coin.  Unlike when opposing captains at mid-field decide who kicks off, the decision is not binary.  Most of us land mostly heads or tails, male or female, but no coin lays absolutely flat.

Some few even balance on edge, clear evidence that the genetic code of evolution is indifferent to individual well being and no more accurate than it has to be for the species to survive.  We call these babies hermaphrodites: they are adorned in varying degrees with both sets of genitalia, at least briefly until an arbitrary choice can be made.  Doctors can reduce the superfluous plumbing, but usually have no clue which way to swing, and therefore  get it wrong nearly half the time over the whole population. Adult sex change operations are in part a modern admission of their errors.

Most of us grow up with genitals within the range of ordinary design and dimension, and with hormonal balance to match.  Others do not.  We ordinary ones are not normal, but usual.  Others are not abnormal but unusual.  Nature does not care about this range of differences and neither should we.

Of late western society is slowly coming around to this position.  The United States is slower than most, as the usual stereotypical thinking is bolstered by its national excess of religiosity.  Laws prohibiting same sex marriage is the cardinal (pun intended) example. Adherence to the christian precept of "love one another" is not so excessive in our country that we can afford to denigrate any source of loving couples.

A major scientific question, still  unresolved, is whether homosexual orientation is innate or learned behavior.  Like all such questions  that require separating nature from nurture for an answer, it may be unresolvable.  Which, for example, is bisexuality?  For sure it is overt.  Perhaps that is all it is, an overt manifestation of our blend of genes from both sexes.  Amoral Nature admits for numerous ways of sexual gratification after all, and few among us would have trouble naming them all, perhaps with a blush or two.

Sexual experiences are so intense that, an athletic few aside, none of us have trouble remembering vividly the first and best of them.  It is possible that our earliest encounters are imprinting, thus setting orientation for life.  Such an origination would be as equally binding as one genetically based and no more susceptible to a "cure."  It is equally possible that a genetic structure leads us to encounters that reinforce innate tendencies.  These are interesting speculations that are becoming less important over time to anybody other than experts as public tolerance grows.  More, preferably apolitical, research is needed.
 
Another major question: why would inclinations and activities not conducive to reproduction persist and to what evolutionary advantage?  The answer may be found in the long gestation period of our species and the extended helplessness of the infant and child.  Sexual pairs that stay together and nurture their children are more successful if they bond closely through mutual understanding, respect and empathy for each other.  Despite the jokes men and women really can understand each other and have an innate drive to do so which is expressed in seemingly endless cultural variations.

These variations include sexual expressions which meet with varied degrees of acceptance or condemnation, of celebration or taboo.  Stages of society and of human development influence the kinds of sexual behavior that is accepted or at least tolerated.  Oral sex for example is found in most primate societies, is highly satisfying,  and is not any more so for opposite than same sexual partners.  So, too, is mutual masturbation,  while anal sex is not unknown between married heterosexual couples in conventional suburban bedrooms.

Anciently, sexual practices of all kinds have been subject to social restrictions and proscriptions, usually by elites as a way to enhance their own status and dominance.  Perhaps the most perverse of these has been the attempt to divide pleasure from procreation in order to deny the former and emphasize the latter.  All major religions employ this particular perversion to strengthen their hold on their followers through cycles of sin, guilt and redemption.  Technology in the form of effective measures of birth control and disease prevention, has happily turned this use of taboo on its head, to the benefit of women especially, but also to the good of men more inclined to good will than oppression.  Technology, however, cannot end the odious practice of genital mutilation of girls and young women on the cusp of adulthood. 

The sexual continuum has a darker side that goes beyond religious and social dominance practices.  Rape and sexual assault are committed by (mostly) men so avid for dominance and control they forgo the supreme pleasure of mutual enjoyment.  The pedophile, that most despised of creatures, seems stuck in fantasy, from an earlier time, an imprint that never evolved further.  Most pedophiles were themselves molested as children, experts say, and may be taking displaced revenge, perhaps unconsciously.

Vladimir Nabokov's novel, "Lolita," turned into cinematic gold by actors James Mason, Shelly Winters. Peter Sellers and others, is the closest we have to a deep exploration of the mind of a case of sexual arrested development. No such exploration exists to my knowledge into the mind of a predator priest, coach, scout leader or gym instructor, while science has done little beyond reinforcing the cliche that pedophilia is incurable.

The desire for sex and sexual companionship does not cease with age, though it does fade in intensity and is a victim eventually of a cruel incapacity.  Once women are past menopause Darwinian evolution plays no part in shaping the sexual practices of the elderly.  Few men of advanced age enjoy the sexual companionship of the young, nubile and fertile.  Offspring are rare from such unions in any case as contraception prevents what little conception aged sperm does not. 

This leaves the field to culture.  As ever more of us live ever longer, the grips of shame and convention loosen ever further. For now there is only pleasure, as the urge and the possibility of procreation become impossible.  Even disease, that other fear inhibiting sexual adventure, is less a threat.  Now only jealousy, loving commitment and/or habit keep us choosing monogamy.  Stay tuned: the wheel is still in spin.