Why have sex?
People die. Unless new people join families, communities, and nations, they also die. One way for families, communities, and nations to grow is to attract members of allied or competing groups, or to merge with other groups. This means of growing requires that other groups lose members to moving as well as to death, putting those groups at risk.
Making babies is something groups can do to regenerate members. We are the descendents of groups that successfully attracted and kept members, and that propagated their family, community, and national ideals, goals, and rules. Raising babies, attracting new members, and maintaining current members are ways that successful groups maintain themselves, and lower risk to the group. Whether your understanding of origins is biblical or evolutionary, the fact remains that within recorded history families, communities, and nations have experienced greater or lesser risk, some succeeding, some failing.
Our habits, our values, our history and our heritage, and for the evolutionary minded, natural selection (as opposed to cultural selection) have built what and who we are today. Our cultures and our bodies are geared to making babies; it is the successful life path.
I would paraphrase ‘decadence’ as ‘deviation from the cultural imperative to make babies’. That is, social position, devotion to ‘diversions’ as a basis for lifestyle — gambling, promiscuity, drugs, and anything else that diverts energy from the basics: Grow to puberty; select a mate; nurture children; retire.
In the American colonies I was taught that the average life span was 29 years, average age of marriage was 13 (average!). Note that compulsory education was originally stated to ‘eighth grade or age 16′ and still adhered to by Amish communities and others. 8th grade is about .. um .. age 13. About the time puberty is mostly over for most adolescents. We fling casual words about like ‘raging hormones’, we look wise and talk about ‘wild kids’, and ‘importance of abstinence’, but I wonder if we are overlooking some important phenomena? What if the teen pregnancies are natures legacy, and the perversion is in trying to divert that teenage drive to make babies? Where are the tree huggers here, who believe they know what is true and what is exploitation in nature?
We are rapidly approaching the opportunities that Canada and Australia/New Zealand have built over the last 10 years for distance learning. What if the appropriate model is for teens to make their babies, and pursue education uninterrupted?
I am not in favor of promiscuity. I believe one report correlates a woman’s chances of cervical cancer increase with the number of sexual partners. One description I heard is that the woman’s body physically, chemically, and hormonally adapts to her sexual partner. The adaption takes time, and apparently there is a limit to safe frequency or safe number of adaptations, which may vary from woman to woman. One SF writer expresses a view that ‘kids should receive contraceptive implants and be turned loose to work out their sexual destiny’. I believe this overlooks some important aspects of personal development, not to mention the problem of skills — if peers are joining to have sex with everyone they encounter, what life skills are they developing that will suit them to their next important stage in life — nurturing their children?
On a related matter, I don’t see letting young people attempt to establish a home away from their parents before the young people’s children are ready for school. I contend that selecting a mate and nuturing children are the two skills that are vital to a healthy family, community, and nation. Where are young people to learn these skills, receive guidance, except in their parent’s home? I contend the most dramatic decline in American culture followed WWII, when Sears propagated the myth of ‘the American Dream’ of the single family dwelling. We need to bring our children up to be *parents* first and formost.
We see isolated studies showing women have a lesser risk of some cancers, if they had children during the child bearing years. I am not convinced that these risks compare to the health risks of child bearing. I am also not convinced that studies relating to child bearing before age 21 are balanced — no one does a study without funding, no one funds a study unless they have a use for the results. I recall in 1964 that a statistic was going around the study hall, that 25% of girls age 11 had experienced their first sexual contact. I know that 4 years later, when I was in 9th grade, 6 9th graders and 4 8th graders were sweating as we started the fall semester — during a series of summer beer parties, they had all been with a girl entering 8th grade — and was pregnant (small rural town of about 2,000 population).
I want to see the marriage law changed. I want to see each act of delivering a child be made a legal act of marriage. That is, no girl or woman could possibly deliver a child out of wedlock — at the moment of birth the father of the child is wed, whether present or informed of the pregnancy or birth. I also want to see any chance of shielding assets or prenuptial agreements be voided in favor of the child, at the moment of birth.
Let me go a step further. Let civil law be changed to only acknowledge a marriage or family with children. Religious practice has it’s own agenda and goals, and should continue to meet those needs. But for the IRS, for insurance, for probate, for determination of income, welfare, etc., I would reserve ‘marriage’ to mean ‘adults with one or more of their children’. Let unmarried adults be ‘companions’, of whatever combination of gender.
As I am against promiscuity, an act of birth should be an act of marriage. Thus any philandering is going to be creating larger, multiple adult, marriages. The reason for doing this is that I would also change ‘divorce’ to ‘dissolution of marriage by reason of abandonment’. Just like when a spouse dies, abandoning a marriage would require abandoning all assets. Remember, no pre-nupt’s, no hidden assets, etc. Also, no long enduring financial obligation, nor enduring ‘parental rights’ outside the marriage. What I call my ‘first rule of parenting’ — don’t reward bad behavior.
Our bodies want us to make babies. Our family, community, and nation need us to make babies. But why should *I* make babies? Because making and nurturing babies use fundamental skills, and focus our energy on the most rewarding endeavors possible. Distractions such as social events, social shopping, social status, gossip, and other vices like gambling, addictions, and perversions, all fundamentally damage the individual in physical, mental, and cultural senses. A parent is not shunned — but a sexual addict might be. A gambler might have trouble finding a job that would be open to a parent.
The Amish would certainly abhor my views, but still I admire the way they treasure work that child and adult can share. I can probably identify ethical questions in any workplace that aren’t ‘fit’ for children. Why do we waste time at unhealthy pursuits?
In our local school system we have a program for pregant teens. It is closed to those pregnant below 8th grade, and has a waiting list. I hear on the news that the football homecoming pep rally is scheduled tomorrow — celebrating mostly football players, band members, and other extra curricular activity members. How many professional athletes make headlines by their excellent parenting skills? Can anyone say ‘Dennis Rodman’? The successful parents have to keep their heads down to protect their families. And we are all so distracted, can you guess whether our young people look for the quiet parents or flamboyantly successful for role models?
We have come to believe the path of decadence is the way of truth. How else have we come to tell our children that they need to make babies, and they need to acquire the skills to be successful? Instead we have the fiction that ‘family values’ means ‘abstinence’ — which is absurd. Who is the role model for abstinence making a stronger home? We gossip (one of the true social evils) and our criticism elevates sexual and social misconduct to the point that our kids know little else than aberrant behavior.
Check out the movie ‘Holy Matrimony’ some time. The 10-year old Hutterite groom comes out with what makes a good husband — and none of the description includes ’successful’, ‘notorious’, football player’, or ‘21′. He uses words like ‘his word is golden’, ‘gentle’, and ‘honor’.
A year ago I lamented that as a culture, as a nation, America is bereft of a reason for people to have sex. We have a lot of social agendas that tell us about not having sex, but as a culture we haven’t got a reason to engage in this powerful activity. Training materials for school teachers, and for horse training, emphasise that the way to success is to instruct the trainee to do what is ‘right’, instead of only admonishing what is ‘wrong’. Next time you are in the grocery store, notice the parents walking along with a kid touching the shopping cart. They give the instruction ‘keep your hand on the cart’. This rule is easily mastered, and a relief to both parent and child. Much harder is ‘behave!’ — a worthless rule that means something like ‘don’t do anything I will yell about if I see you do it’. We should be teaching our children ‘have sex to make babies’. We should adapt society to start showing our children what that means, and stop pandering and publishing any other use of sex.
Depending on the life stage, sex has various uses. Before the ‘Select a mate’ stage there is no use for sex other than private, solitary explorations during puberty. During ‘Select A Mate’, sex serves as a deeper introduction, a means to evaluate the personality and qualities of a prospective partner, and a way to prove fertility — by starting a baby. (Not something to enter into lightly or for thrills.) During ‘Nurture the children’ sex serves to make any additional babies desired, and to nurture the spouse. During retirement generally the marriage is through making babies, and sex is more nurturing.
But in general:
Why engage in sexual intercourse, or other sexual contact? To make babies.
Brad K.