From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Fundamentalists and the clitoris
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 06:34:47 GMT


In article <17964@autodesk.COM> owen@autodesk.com (D. Owen
Rowley) writes:

>In article <Bxv786.DAp@fig.citib.com>, glp@fig.citib.com
>(Greg Parkinson) writes

>>I hate it when human sexuality gets compared to and defined
>>using lower animal behaviors.  Human sexuality is a
>>complicated and subtle thing, and human sexual desires and
>>needs and expression cannot be explained simply in terms of
>>the "functional" penis and "non-functional" clitoris.

>But sexuality has evolved from our animal ancestors like all
>of our other aspects.

Don't you think a *very* large "but" attends the word "like"
in that pronouncement?  We have animal precursors that
copulate.  But do they have sexuality?  Do even the other
primates have sexuality?  

Our sexuality may well have a broad basis in the
reproductive and other copulatory actions of the species
from which we arose, but I think it is far too sweeping a
statement to claim that either sexuality or all our other
aspects have evolved from earlier species.  For one thing,
it seems too deterministic.  For another, it allows for no
spontaneous adaptations in our species to conditions that
simply do not exist for other species, largely as a result
of our cortical development.

>Clearly there is room for the wide view, wouldn't you agree?

But Owen, there's wide, wider and way too wide, especially
since there are so many features unique to human beings.

Moreover, I think your point is only tangentially relevant
to Greg's.  It seemed to me he was talking about those
factors that have no real analog in our precursors, and
whatever else one might speculate about the nature of our
sexuality, there's a signficant portion that is simply not
addressed by such concepts as "function" in our genital
parts.

>I find the social POV that sex organs are holy and that what
>you do with them or how you do it should be governed by
>religious dogma infinitly more disturbing than the POV that
>these organs and their function are determined by biological
>formulas.

Though the religious dogma view also disturbs me more than
the biological determinism view, both views seem close to
equal in the *immense* distance by which they fail to
account for the behaviors.

>>There are so many basic differences (a big one being that
>>human females do not change appearance when they are in a
>>fertile period) that comparisons like this are specious.

>um, there are some very real changes in women that can be
>measured.

Um, he said changes in appearance.  You're saying *those*
can be measured?  Swelling of the breasts, maybe, fluid
retention?  Is that what you mean?  Temperature, hormonal
changes, and things like that are not apparent to the eye of
the beholder (though indeed they can be very apparent to the
woman during the fertility cycle).

>I think what you mean is that human reproduction is not
>intrinsicly tied to an estrus cycle, but that factor is not
>unique to our species.

I miss the relevance here.  What do you mean?

>>And language is a virus from outer space according to Wm
>>Burroughs.  I'm inclined to agree.

Trying to tie themes together, that's certainly a pregnant
idea!  :-)

>Me too, I also believe that all words hypnotize.

Trance-formational grammar, I suppose.

<> I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being skin-deep.
<> That's deep enough.  What do you want, an adorable pancreas?
<> -- Jean Kerr
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
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