Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA02295 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:18:58 +0100 Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000711104525.02175e80@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:14:37 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: Re: Memes and sexuality In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0007110839110.2376-100000@koko.umd.edu> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174590F@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 08:41 AM 7/11/00 -0400, Lawrence H. de Bivort wrote:
>I wonder if the repression of overt sexuality among humans comes to a
>certain extent from a desire to put some distance between ourselves and
>'mere' animals, to prove to ourselves that we are not 'animals.'
>
>- Lawrence
Lawrence,
I suspect that the tendency to view sexuality as a "lower animal" drive
results from the proliferation of intense taboos rather than the other way
around. In Thought Contagion, I have expressed a variety of hypotheses
about how such taboos tend to cause more reproduction and higher child
inculcation rates, and that the taboos are a result of simple propagation
forces acting over long periods of time. Rodney Stark, in The Rise of
Christianity has found evidence that reproduction differentials indeed
played a part in the early spread of sexually repressive Christianity.
Interestingly, some of the criticisms of these hypotheses have made subtle
or not so subtle appeals to the still very widespread sex taboos and
sex-talk taboos. People who hold various levels of sex-talk taboos may be
led to scoff at scientific hypotheses that can only be expressed using
fairly explicit language, and this fact can have Machiavellian usefulness
to people who do not themselves hold such intense taboos. I suspect that
some of the critics who have felt genuinely offended by the notion that
their taboos came from such mechanical processes have repressed any mention
of it, however--and found other ways to assail the hypotheses. Such are the
hazards of taking up emotionally loaded subjects.
--Aaron Lynch
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