Homosexuality = Born this way. Objectification of women = Exact Same thing!

WARNING: POSSIBLE SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIGGER IN BELOW RESPONSE.

That's just one of those evo-psych stories that may superficially make sense but is it actually the reality? Did men always control women's sexuality throughout human history?

Couldn't tell you that for certain, I'm not an anthropologist and quite honestly I don't think it's worth digging in to - we're no longer nomadic or living in caves and our capacity to kill and rape has much less bearing on our survival now than it did in the past so either way my argument is that behaviour is destructive in the current environment.

What may be good for the man may not be good for the woman. Women also want to "pass on their genes" and your description ignores that women are also part of the evolutionary process. It removes their agency. Evolution is about adapting and evolving in the face of selection pressure (like controlling behavior). As a result women developed their own strategies. They respond to male behaviors, just as males respond to female behavior.

Women are part of the evolutionary process, but a woman can't make an ideal mate reproduce - ejaculation is required for conception. Forced submission for procreation purposes is an entirely one way street and it has happened. Look at Genghis Khan, 1 in 200 men are direct descendents of him. Who knows how many are related to the mongol's generally, because rape was pretty commonplace during their invasions. Evolution is about change in allele frequency, it doesn't necessarily require selection to do that (selection is just one driver of evolution). And evolutionarily it's much more costly for a female to produce eggs than a male to produce sperm. In fact, women have a limited number of eggs and an even smaller pool of healthy eggs. Meanwhile males can produce sperm indefinitely. The cost of the male side of reproduction is less than the cost of the female side, is my point. A particularly aggressive male can sire children with many women, but those women are limited by development of the foetus (and at least in some respects, caring for the infant after birth). Women have developed strategies, that is finding the strongest male and relying on them to fend off unwanted men. In tribes, this was essentially the men protecting the women from men from other tribes (or outcasts). Living together is primarily about safety in numbers. An interesting parallel is the duck, where the male and female duck exist in a twisted kind of evolutionary arms race where female ducks have evolved means of preventing rape and male ducks have evolved ways of circumventing it.

So, men want to treat women as property in order to pass on their genes but is it in the best interest of the women to comply? Women also wants to see their children grow up healthy and strong and it may not be in her best interest to be controlled. What are her options? She could sleep with several men so that they all think they are the father. Having one father is good but more are better. Therefore the woman has the help of several men instead of one which increases the chances of survival for the child. The men can't be sure the child is theirs but if they want to pass on their genes then it is to their advantage if they act like it is. Additionally, having several fathers is good for the women because if one of them leaves or dies she won't be alone because the others are still there.

It's in the best interest for the male, and potentially the best interest for the next generation. It's not in the best interest for the woman because her eggs are limited. If she has no control over who fathers her children then that is great for the male, but not great for the female because she loses control of ensuring her children are the best fit for their environment. Sleeping with multiple males and keeping them around is not that common in the animal kingdom - it only occurs in social environments like with Lions. Many males will kill offspring that aren't theirs, and dolphins have been known to kill offspring from other males in effort to entice the female to mate again. However, this isn't likely to be the case. Look at historical examples where women have been treated as property - kings/warlords/chiefs often had multiple wives while wives only ever had one husband. Polygamy in Asia and Africa is still a common occurrence, with much of it being polygyny - multiple wives to one man. It's difficult to make the case for women not having been historically seen as property when they get traded for X number of cattle. Why am I making this point? Because in these cultures women who sleep with multiple men get shunned. In some cases, killed. A man can have multiple partners but a woman can not. That's not how our societies have worked (at least on the whole).

Or she could sleep with several men simply to select for the most healthy sperm or for the sperm that is most likely to result in pregnancy.

Having motile sperm has very little to do with the genes carried being recessive or dominant (which is what leads to diseases). In cases where faulty genes encode for the flagella then yes, there would be selection for it. But a perfectly healthy sperm could be carrying homozygous recessive or heterozygous genes that will/can pass on faulty genes to offspring.

In other words, having the man be in charge and control the sexuality is kind of artificial. It is forced and the woman is seen as less. Think about it this way: Controlling behavior is associated with aggression and testosterone levels, right? So why hasn't evolution selected for aggressive behaviors? Humans are not a particular aggressive species, we are very social and need to play nice in a group - which is a selection pressure against aggressive behavior. What I am trying to say is that human sexuality and behavior cannot be reduced down to "purely reproductive sense". There is no such thing as "pure" because you cannot treat one limited feature as separate or independent.

I'm not arguing it's good. We should be above that behaviour, I am just arguing that when we were closer in behaviour to other animals male dominion over women was seen as a positive thing because it ensured the genes got passed on. Having said that, aggression is selected for. Chimps, our nearest relative, is one of few animals that kills other chimps just for fun. That is, murder is a very primate-focused trait. Not only that, but chimps engage in war. We are exactly the same, in that we're civil with people in our group but can't wait to fight with those outside our group. See: ISIS, Christian fundamentalism, Racists, North Korea/South Korea etc etc. Just because it's been advantageous to not stab our neighbours doesn't mean aggression hasn't been selected for. Pure is a bad word, but in this instance it was used to refer to theory. Theory that stands true based on what we know of genetics. The reality is that environment changes things considerably and so genes can't be blamed for it, but instinct is a thing and sexism and violence have been a part of our cultures for a long time and only recently has it become less of a structural problem.

Finally, is it really better for the man to treat women as property? People are not rational actors when it comes to sex and an imbalance like this could result in problems in future generations.

Again, no. Was it better? Probably. If all we were concerned about was surviving as a species. Is it better? No. Women are people, and should be treated with respect for what they need and what they want. Basically my argument is that people aren't necessarily born nice people. They need to be raised in a way that will counteract any inherent human nature to drag somebody else down for their own benefit. Look at the fact that we still need equal representation laws to actually enable voting rights for minorities and women.

p.s.: oops that got a bit longer than expected.

Yeah, mine too. Having said that there's a lot more I could say on the matter, and yet I don't expect many people to actually read all of this.

/r/GamerGhazi Thread Parent