I’ll get to the reasons why in a moment, but my latest Google search, and the top answer, was this :
At first glance, I did wonder whether they were talking about a new gender
The reason for my search was a comment from Rikard of this parish from some time ago. Of course I can no longer remember what article the comment came from and nor can I remember exactly what was said, but (heavily paraphrased to avoid accusations of Gay plagiarism) it was a comment to the effect that humans have really buggered up their own evolution.
The key element of evolution is reproduction. In the animal kingdom, the vast majority of species reproduce sexually. It is true that there’s a few who can do the whole virgin birth thing (parthenogenesis), but overwhelmingly it takes two to tango in the animal kingdom.
Yes. Two.
There’s no such thing as “non-binary” when it comes to rutting season.
It’s also true that homosexuality has been observed in some natural species and filmed, although not often in such august surroundings as a Senate hearing chamber.
When it comes to explaining the behaviour of animals we don’t try to speculate about “social constructions” or cast things in terms of oppressors vs oppressees. No, we look to evolution as providing the key insights into why some animals do what they do.
A very common theme in some commentary, particularly from those who view all human behaviour as having been socially constructed, is to kind of view the mind as some distinct bit separate from the bodily blob of meat. The blob evolveth, but the mind has, somehow, escaped this age-old pressure.
It’s a typically narcissistic conceit, of course.
Although we humans are able to often overcome our evolutionary impulses and to shape things in a very different way from other animals, we are still, fundamentally, animals.
We are able to consciously shape our environment in a way that other animals cannot. Sure, other animals do learn how to modify their environments - there might be some termites with an “arch building gene” who build more stable structures than their fellow termites and thus become more successful in producing offspring. But it’s not like they sat down and published research papers on how to make a safer termite home.
This ability to consciously shape our environment - and not to wait until the “arch building gene” surfaces naturally as a result of mutation which is then acted upon by evolution - is itself a huge evolutionary advantage.
It is unlikely that Sam Smith would enjoy much success as a hunter - especially not if he insists on stuffing himself into glittery spandex all the time. The fact that he can wobble about on stage and could even reproduce, should he find any other willing entity with a suitably opposite biology in the biological binary that exists, is testament to just how far us humans have been able to master our environment.
I imagine Mother Nature, having honed her evolutionary prowess over billions of years, is looking at Sam Smith and thinking “what in the everloving fuck am I supposed to do with that?”
Indeed - what are we supposed to “do” with all of this? We’ve shaped our world faster than any evolutionary process can respond to.
We’re all aware that sex is a very powerful driver of human behaviour. But we’re not just chaste entities who have had wantonness and lasciviousness grafted on to us as a result of social construction - the powerful sex drive we have is a result of evolution. A species that doesn’t reproduce quickly finds itself playing with the Dodos outside the pearly gates.
I would maintain that pretty much everything about human behaviour and society is rooted in rooting. That CEO who has climbed the ladder of success? He’s on the top of a hierarchy that has given him access to greater success in the mating game - whether he is conscious of this or not.
We’re all involved in climbing the various hierarchies that exist - it’s an almost inescapable drive - and, whether or not we recognise it consciously, it’s all about sex in the primal “lizard brain” part of us.
Being closer to the top of whatever hierarchy we choose seems like it’s a human “social” desire - but we’re driven to seek status and domination at a deep, primal level because it gives us a better chance of passing on our offspring.
When a woman slaps on the lippy and squeezes into that tight skirt, she’s sending a sexual signal. This does not mean she wants to have sex (although it could do1). It’s a signal to both men and women to notice how attractive she is. You’ll hear that she doesn’t do it for others but because it makes her feel better about herself - which is probably true at a surface level. But that’s not really what it’s all about. She feels better about herself because she perceives (again at this unconscious deep, primal level) that she’s stepped up on the hierarchy - she’s made herself more attractive to a potential mate and she’s signalled to other females that she’s of higher sexual status than them.
Nothing wrong with this at all - it’s a necessary survival mechanism for the human species, this struggle for position on the hierarchy.
It’s an unconscious bias - only this time real.
Of course, I could just be wrong and we’re entirely and precisely what we consciously feel ourselves to be at any one moment - but I strongly suspect this is not the case.
We can call all this, and what results, what we like - patriarchy, toxic masculinity, rape culture, etc - throw the whole gamut of social constructions at it - but fundamentally it’s all about sex and a deep evolutionary drive to reproduce. This manifests in all sorts of ways as we navigate the particular version of a society we find ourselves in.
But it’s indisputably also a good thing that we are able to suppress and override our deepest primal urges. This ability, too, has probably conferred some evolutionary advantage.
Our societies have evolved with these fundamental primal drivers extant - and the result has been some weird and wonderful ways of coping, along with some ugly ways of coping, too.
Some Chinese emperors were reported to have had concubines numbered in the thousands - with one randy git reported to have had access to 40,000 women. I hope his batteries were sufficiently rechargeable.
It’s the kind of sexual proclivity that people called Aidan can only dream about.
Basically we construct these societies, in all their varieties, driven sub-consciously by all of these primal urges. And because men have, again by the virtue of evolution, been able to dominate women physically, it’s no surprise that patriarchal varieties of these societies tended to be the ones that developed.
Evolution works its magic over many, many generations. The shifts in human cultural norms and societies and our mastery over our environment has occurred on a much shorter timescale.
Technology has accelerated beyond any capacity of evolution to deal with its consequences.
It’s one thing to offset a hostile environment by building a fire to keep you warm, and quite another thing to develop reliable birth control technology. This has completely changed the sexual environment that human beings face. And this is only one technology developed over the last century or so that has had an enormous impact.
Our lizard-brains, our evolutionary primary drivers, have just not been able to catch up. At all.
On a cultural and humanitarian level we can applaud some of these changes - but can we be so certain they have been beneficial at a species level?
We’re changing, through technology and other things, the nature of the hierarchies we’ve all had millennia to get used to and I’m not at all sure we’re doing a very good job of adapting to them. We’ve got the new woke hierarchy of victimhood and oppression, for example, where we see the same drive to climb up the status scale by claiming more oppression points.
It’s all the same scrabble for a better position on the greasy pole that we’ve had since we stopped swinging about in trees (and even before that). Our struggle for position hasn’t changed - the nature of the hierarchies within which we battle has altered very drastically.
Why do we desire status? Because we want to procreate. We don’t consciously feel this to be so, of course. We’re much “higher” beings than that, made of much more refined stuff.
Even rejecting status altogether would probably get you voted in as the next Boss Monk.
Just because, as I maintain, these primal evolutionary drivers exist does not mean we should act upon them. That’s one of the great things about humans; we are able not to bash Mr Ugg’s head in because we want to copulate with Mrs Ugg. But we shouldn’t entirely dismiss them, either.
So much crap has been written about things like patriarchy and oppression and all the other things that have bedevilled humanity. Most of it takes no account whatsoever of the evolutionary landscape in which it has emerged.
Don’t misunderstand me here; I’m not arguing that we should go back to being driven by our primal urges. Not at all. I’m saying that we need to take better account of them when trying to figure out how to construct a decent society.
Evolution has been an amazing thing, but us humans have broken it. We’re no longer prisoners of an evolutionary gaol, but have the capability to determine our own destiny through environmental mastery - and this includes everything; our physical, social, and sexual environments. Social media, for example, is drastically altering the nature of our social environments and who knows exactly how that’s going to play out?
I suppose one question we could ask is whether we want to be Samsons or Sam Smiths?
Although we should remind ourselves that Samson was ultimately scuppered because he wanted to pork Delilah.
It’s taken as a given that a man wants to have sex whatever he’s wearing.
The true believers of the current thing woke commie propaganda voluntarily remove them selves from the gene pool. The ones with a less lemmingness and better bullshit detectors pair up and the next generation comes equipped with the mind set to better deal with destructive woke commie propaganda
Time travel! Watch my chain mail armor turn into a glittery dress! Poof!