Evolutionary traits... 'fate' or simply a crutch?

[*Narkissos*]

Evolutionary traits... 'fate' or simply a crutch?

by Narkissos [Monday 8th January 2007]



In lieu of the numerous threads which support the idea that cheating, for males, is an evolutionary trait... and as such, is a given... this thread serves to debate an opposing view.

Feel free to contribute.

Evolutionists (and those who conveniently subscribe to this school of thought) argue that males are 'hardwired' to cheat. They propose that Monogamy is a 'state of being' introduced through socialisation (societal influences: 'norms' and values)... and secondarily perpetuated through the influence of monotheistic religious sects (Christianity for example). They propose that biologically, males are 'hardwired' to procreate: Each male's thought process being geared towards acquiring as many sexual conquests as possible..(thus spreading their 'seed' and perpetuating their 'legacy'. 'Legacy for this example' being their genetic material)

Ok.

...Supposing that their argument is true... My question to you is: "Should evolution be an allowable excuse/reason for the manifestation of the abovementioned behaviour?"

I say no...

I say... look at all the other traits with which humans have evolved. Addtionally..Look at how we each actively seek to overcome such...

Some Examples:

We've evolved to be highly effective fat-storing machines. Still we each strive to actively maintain a non-bovine-esque appearance.

We've evolved with canines... thus humans are meant to eat meat (to be omnivorous rather). Still hundreds of thousands strive to be vegetarians.

Muscle growth is an adaptive response to trauma...Yes trauma.

Thus it is apparent even at our core that the large scale possession of muscle is 'unnatural'...and biologically counterintuitive: A calorically taxing state of being which or bodies fight at every turn in an attempt to return to a state of homeostasis.

Review the biomechanics of exercise v.s. 'natural' exercise execution. To successfully isolate and recruit a muscle proper form must be taught...and repeated. This is because the body's musculo-skeletal system tries is a cohesive unit which recruits secondary musculature to make tasks easier. This process in itself serves to prevent the overload of any specific individual muscle group. A number of other bilogical processes can be listed...each serving to negate a transposition to a state of higher energy need... Each we've evolved with.

Still so many of us ignore this 'hardwiring', persevering to build Herculean physiques.

Some lifters aren't even 'genetically gifted' (this being an abberation) as others in certain departments... yet they too seek to over come these 'limitations' in order to acheive a state they deem acceptable. How is it that this specific evolutionary fact perceived solely as a limitation... whereas cheating is perceived as the 'final word' of male sexual behaviour.

Why is it not too perceivably a 'limitation'?

If we are hardwired to cheat...why accept it as a state of being? Why not perceive it too as a limitation...and strive to overcome it?

Both of my grandfathers are alcoholics... One died from chirrosis of the liver.

Studies link genetic predispositions to alcoholism.

Should i then accept my fate?

So your two grandfathers are cheating scumbags.

They allowed their hardwiring to take precendence.

Should you?

Discuss...


-Narkissos

[Kärnfysikern]

I agree with everything you say.

Using evolution ect as a excuse for ****ing around is stupid.
Cheating is a choise nothing else. Pretending it is hardwired in your brain doesnt change the fact that you made that chooise.
Just as a alcoholic choose to drink or a druggie choose to snort that line of meth.

[Mizfit]

We live in a society where we need to rationalize everything.. even cheating..

But everyone knows all rationalizing really is bullshitting till you beleive it.

Cheating has always been around.. just now that women are 9in the work force at a much higher level than they were lets say, 50 years ago, it's more noticed. more interaction between males and females leads to more opportunity.. Sadly more and more people r taking it.

[tinyguy2]

We've evolved to be highly effective fat-storing machines. Still we each strive to actively maintain a non-bovine-esque appearance.


haha have you been outside lately. i see more bovines in nyc then borden(milk company).

[*Narkissos*]

^^ I meant members of this community specifically lol.


Moo.

[perfectbeast2001]

I agree mostly. I think it is natural to want to cheat. I see sexy looking females and of course I would like to have sex with them (especially on Testex ) but I overcome the urge when I have a GF because I would not like it if I was cheated on. treat others as you like to be treated.

[Shane35aa]

It seems everyone tries to find a way to rationalize or blame someone/something for their actions. It seems like it has became much easier than taking responsibility for ones actions

[Shane35aa]

Its really sad when people blame objects for the actions of others...video games, music, videos, movies, guns, fast food restaurants, bars, alcohol etc. All these things can not do any harm with out a person making a decision to use or abuse them for negative purposes.

[tinyguy2]

"Global warming made me fat. damnit there is nothing i can do. I'll have 2 number 8's and a cheese burger with a diet coke. I don't drink soda so how could i be like this? " GOD DAMN YOU GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, i don't cheat because of genetic predispostion, but because i love boobies to much.

[crash187ct]

I would have to say, that we as humans have evolved to a non naturistic level to some degree. These values and norms are what help to distinguish us, as us.

[BigLittleTim]

A straight man who is promiscuous is sowing his wild oats.
A straight woman who is promiscuous is a slut.
A gay man who is promiscuous is a neurotic example of low self-esteem.

-Andrew Holleran

[BigLittleTim]

A straight friend asked me why gay men are so promiscuous, especially when they know how unhealthy and destructive it is. I started to reply that they are acting out a delayed adolescence; that they are self-loathing; that everyone would have as much sex as they could if they could; that they are men, and that men are dogs; that sex is wonderful and that sex is the only antidote to death that we know. Then I saw my friend lighting up a cigarette and I asked him: "Why do you smoke?"

-BigLittleTim

[RA]

Roidy likes girls

[Mike Dura]

Darwinians provide clear proof supporting the idea that males are hard-wired to seek short-term mating strategies (or polygomy in general) while females tend toward monogamy or a long-term mating strategy - a kind of nesting instinct or in the age of consumerism - an "ikea nesting instinct."

As far as woman go, having a male around to protect and provide material resources for an expectant mother has survival value.

Is it an excuse? A man may try to justify his behavior but I don't by it. Who needs an excuse? It's a tendency or a part of the nature of man, that's all. Acting on it is a matter of personal choice and/or self-restraint. But is infedelity absolutely wrong (or right)? Niether. It just is. Making judgements upon it is a matter of personal values and such values can never be absolute (as some christians may argue they are). To each their own.

[Booz]

Roidy likes girls

Roidy is married.......
oooops so was i...................

[mavsluva]

The world and its people have evolved into what it is today because of hatred and greed. We allow our short term desires to blind our long term goals, which unfortunately results in a "what have you done for me lately" world. We need more leaders and less followers. But we need the leaders to be more bold so that the followers will know where to be lead.

The new American dream is to avoid the state of "ungrace", because we're willing to sacrifice our own personal morals at times just to be accepted. Receiving praise has become a bigger priority versus doing what's right for oneself. True "grace" is now known in today's world as a license for immortality. Even the biggest of believers will most likely agree with this.

[Random]

I think people who choose to cheat are not happy and give themselves "the ok" to do so in an effort to make them happy, the point is, is that no relationship is perfect and it sets these individuals up for a vicious cycle...

furthermore i think that people who make excuses to cheat are pathetic and very lost in life....

Just because they think they need to have sex with a certain person or persons doesnt mean they should do it; hell theres plenty of times i've wanted to kill people, yet i havent done it! its all about control and realizing happiness once you find it...just because someone isnt happy deep down doesnt mean they need to make others unhappy along the way (ie cheating and hurting others)

CD

[BigLittleTim]

Americans, products of a lonely society and conditioned to expect instant gratification, are built for promiscuity.

-BigLittleTim

[RA]

Roidy is married.......
oooops so was i...................

I dont think we have evolved enough

[BigLittleTim]

Chastity, that is; sex within marriage or not at all, is regarded by the Catholic Church as a gift.

-BigLittleTim

[Flagg]

It seems everyone tries to find a way to rationalize or blame someone/something for their actions. It seems like it has became much easier than taking responsibility for ones actions

Agreed. Some people just can't admit to being an asshole.

[Billy_Bathgate]

sure, if you want to talk about an evolutionary standpoint with mamalian species, monogamy (or technically serial monogamy) is not the normal, the most related case with primates.

but, serial monogamy, especially reguarding to the eastern society, is cultural. and in this context, i agree evolution makes a weak case. a stronger case would be compartive cultures in western society where it is much more accepted and normal. with this comparison, most will come to the conclusion that the argument is not on faithfulness nessicarily, but the social construct of marrige or love.

so my answer, ya you could say its somewhat instinct to have a society in where you have polygyny, however this is based soley on procreation, not the idea of relationship. therefore, the arguement IMO become null once you are in a relationship, as that in iteself is not evolutionary to other mamalian species. instead, the only argument could be that of cultural identity and ones idea of what marrige or relationship is, however again your pretty much screwed if you live in an eastern society as that is the norm here.

so if you wanna cheat, and want it to be ok...id say move somewhere in asia.

[Billy_Bathgate]

oh...one more thing just to throw out

it should be noted that baboons are known to have polyandy, usually one female baboon with two males...so watch throwin that out there if your girl happens to be an anthropologist haha

[Flagg]

Two swans also tend to become life partners.

A cheat is a liar, someone not to be trusted and I don't know about anyone else but I don't care for people that are untrustworthy.

[Random]

A cheat is a liar, someone not to be trusted and I don't know about anyone else but I don't care for people that are untrustworthy

Yea i agree. If you dont have trust, you really dont have a anything...

[beuleux]

The same can be said about not cheating, are you merely obeying your social programming rather than your gentic programming, in some cultures its ok to have more than one partner and nobody concerned cares because it is the way theyve been socialy programmed to behave. In modern western cultures where cheating is a taboo there is little difference in the hurt caused to a party in a relationship between being dumped for another person or being cheated on. If you can live with your own actions and are prepared for others to behave in the same way towards you then fine, live by your own standards. I am neither for nor against cheating, if it happens then I deal with it and get on with my life, life is too short to dwell on other peoples actions or your own for that matter. We are humans, we are strong, we survive things, we carry on.

[prncezzml]

I like the school of the thought, of sternberg, previously put on the other post on "Are we genetically designed to cheat?" by bojangles. People love different ways, so some people value things like committment more so than others. Things in life take work, like nark said about his grandfather being an alcoholic, my dad is an alcoholic, i headed down the drug/alcohol path myself, but am now 2 years clean. So we can all CHOOSE to go down whichever path we want I believe. Some people defintitley use "genetic disposition" as a crutch, and others choose to say, "You know what, I don't want to be like that, I am going to change something about myself, even if it takes hard work". Somewhere on this thread someone mentions "instant gratification". I TOTALLY AGREE.

People who cheat are not thinking about someone's else's feelings and just want the pleasure and no consequences. Cheating has always been around, I think some people truly are sex addicts and need help. It's normal to be attracted a person you find sexy/attractive. But that doesn't mean you have to go bang them when you already have a mate. IMPULSE CONTROL is something we as humans HAVE. I would love to sit here and eat chocolate covered pretzels instead of a plain grilled chicken breast but I know, if I want to be healthy and lean, I better not indulge. Same goes for cheating!

P.S. People who cheat on their wives/husband who have children are truly just being selfish because how do you explain something like that to a child? "Mommy, where's Daddy?", "Oh honey sorry, he's out with his girlfriend he can't play soccer with you right now".

[*Narkissos*]

Wow.. this thread got some seriously mature responses.

I'm impressed.

bump!

[prncezzml]

mature threads sure don't grab as much attention as "my GF's pussy is too wet" threads LOL

[MuscleScience]

People are animals too. We give are selves to much credit.

[Booz]

there needs to be more adult debatable threads here instead of the usual immature bullshit............................

[Hunter]

Every person in this world has the power to choose. You either choose to cheat or you dont. Are we gentically destined to cheat? I dont believe so, no other animal has the amount of higher level thought we do. Cheaters are selfish people who put there feelings above there partners feelings. I would never cheat on my g/f, why? I value her feelings, thoughts and morals. I think most guys who cheat do not feel good about it and look for an excuse for why they do it, instead of acting like a grown man and say "hey I ****ed up." However I would find it hard to respect a woman who stays with a man who cheats or vice versa. So no I do not think we are gentically destined to cheat.

[beuleux]

What about the downtrodden wife who is stuck with her control freak husband who has no way out of a cycle of misery for one reason or another, she goes and finds a bit of happiness with a guy who respects her while psycho boy is at work, is she a cheating scumbag?... Or the guy who wont leave his kids no matter how much abuse he gets from his fat psychopathic punani witholding wife. Is he a cheating scumbag also? Is it also wrong no matter how much one party may deserve to be cheated on through thier own selfish or just plain nasty actions toward thier partner. Rightly or wrongly some people are and will continue to be in unhappy relationships through no fault of thier own. We dont live in a perfect world and to idealise relationships is just plain tunnel vision. There are a lot of "cheats are scumbags nomatter what" posts but they are not taking into account all the possible scenarios IMO.

[Carlos_E]

A cheat is a liar, someone not to be trusted and I don't know about anyone else but I don't care for people that are untrustworthy.

I feel the same way. If a guy tells me they cheat in their relationship I tend no not trust them as a friend. They are liars with no integrity.

[Carlos_E]

What about the downtrodden wife who is stuck with her control freak husband who has no way out of a cycle of misery for one reason or another, she goes and finds a bit of happiness with a guy who respects her while psycho boy is at work, is she a cheating scumbag?... Or the guy who wont leave his kids no matter how much abuse he gets from his fat psychopathic punani witholding wife. Is he a cheating scumbag also? Is it also wrong no matter how much one party may deserve to be cheated on through thier own selfish or just plain nasty actions toward thier partner. Rightly or wrongly some people are and will continue to be in unhappy relationships through no fault of thier own. We dont live in a perfect world and to idealise relationships is just plain tunnel vision. There are a lot of "cheats are scumbags nomatter what" posts but they are not taking into account all the possible scenarios IMO.

Cheating is wrong and there is no excuse or justification for it. As is staying in a relationship when you are extremely unhappy. You have to ask the question, "Why do people stay in unhappy relationships?" I think it's insecurity. They're afraid to be alone so they stay in a bad relationship and find new partners. It's like men who wait to dump their gf until they find a new one. To me, it's obvious they have a problem with being on their own. They have to have someone around. Even someone they're not happy with.

[Bojangles69]

People are animals too. We give are selves to much credit.

I had to pick this out as the most intellectual response in this thread. (with the exception of spelling lol)
It is right on the money.

All you people talking about rationalizations and excuses and how its *not ok to do. Your hypocrits, and your doing it right now. Read what you write.

Are we genetically predispositioned to cheating? theres no question about it, some people absolutely are.
Somebody once said the whole interplay comes down to *cheating vs. *options. There are thousands of men right now who DONT HAVE THE OPTION to cheat and are saying "i would never cheat" blah blah blah.

And guess what? They would even come into a open forum like this and claim they are moral noble people who make all the right choices in life and would *never do such a thing.
Call this a shot in the dark,
Out of every 100 guys who say that. Id be willing to bet that 75% of them right now COULDNT cheat if they wanted to so why needlessly incriminate themselves? Than another sayyyy 10% WANT to cheat, and dont suppress the "forbidden desire" by societal expectations, but just havent had a chance to do it because thier lifestyle dictates as such (always working, always with thier family or wife, gf etc). Whats that leave.. 15%

Yeh those are the m/fkrs leading denial parades, actively cheating right now and lying thier asses off. Long story short. People are people. But before we were people we were animals. (unless you think some intergalactic stork dropped a human baby off thus evolved the human species) And as much as I see and hear people saying "i wont cheat" "im not like that".

Let me say, I dont care who you are or what you do. You are human. I dont trust you. I dont care WHY you cheat. Genes DO play a role among many other factors. So I'll end my point by saying if you have a mouth or fingers. What you say and what you type doesnt mean shit to me.

The key is to be smarter than 99% of the people around you, and to realize its not really hard at all. Just dont believe people when you listen to them. Let them yap all they want, and validate themselves to the world.
Than f**k up and apologize for the next 10 years.
It happens everywhere, in this thread, in real life, in your own home.
So my motto is, who give a f*ck?


Edit: and this is something ive just noticed from experience, the more people talk about how wrong it is to cheat and like they have to validate thier morals with me and the rest of the world, the less likely im to believe they wont cheat.

its usually the ones who dont talk about it who really dont think about it, thus dont feel tempted to actually do it.

[*Narkissos*]

^^That's an extremely one-sided and unyielding rebuttal you put up there Bo.

And you keep regressing to the moral angle... but you do realise this is not a thread about Morality..right?

..I disagree with you obviously.

But you're entitled to your beliefs as are we all.

...so thanks for posting.

[Kärnfysikern]

the difference betwen us and animals is that we are more than instincts. We can choose. Instincts might give us urges to do stuff. But we can always choose.

Its not about any absolute set of morality.
If someone gets into a relationship it is with the unspoken rule "you **** no one besides your partner". Now if someone doesnt like that they should be frank from the start and say "no can do, I **** who I want when I want" and the problem are solved.

I dont think there is anything moraly wrong with swingers, multipartner relationships or whatever possible. Aslong as everyone agrees to it.

If you know you can not stay faithfull, find a girl that is ok with it. Otherwise dont get into a relationship. How many people havent been mentaly destroyed by unfaithfull gf's or bf's? Doesnt matter what our genetic profile is, when we choose to cheat we choose to hurt someone tremendously.

[dhriscerr]

Two swans also tend to become life partners.

A cheat is a liar, someone not to be trusted and I don't know about anyone else but I don't care for people that are untrustworthy.

Do you tell anyone that asks you if you do steriods , that you do? I doubt it, but that internt makes you a liar and as you said that makes you not trustworthy, so in esence you do not care about yourself because you do not care about untrustworthy people. I dont neccisarily aggree with cheating, but you dont just get to pick and choose what you lie about and decide if you lie about this its ok, but if you lie about that your untrustworthy? I do think that some people do it for fairly decent reasons, and really is all sex about intamacy? What if you love your wife more than anything in the world and you have been with her for 20 years but the sex and lust for eachother isn't there but you love them and your children with them but you find someone in the same position and you have sex to satisfy your sexual desires only, but there is no love or commitment or relationship of any kind there. Is that so bad?? I dont know, but if you love some one but there is no sex or the sex isnt fun anymore is that a good enough reason to get a divorce? Or should you live the rest of your lfie with no sex which inturn will make your life misserabl?

[beuleux]

Cheating is wrong and there is no excuse or justification for it. As is staying in a relationship when you are extremely unhappy. You have to ask the question, "Why do people stay in unhappy relationships?" I think it's insecurity. They're afraid to be alone so they stay in a bad relationship and find new partners. It's like men who wait to dump their gf until they find a new one. To me, it's obvious they have a problem with being on their own. They have to have someone around. Even someone they're not happy with.

WHY indeed Carlos but that is another subject altogether, the fact is that people DO stay in unhappy relationships for a multitude of reasons some financial, some for thier children and some like you say are just too weak but we are idealising again by saying they SHOULD do this or they SHOULD do that, the fact is they dont. So I do not believe cheating is wrong for wronged people, the offending partner shouldnt have been such a control freak or shouldnt have beat the crap out of the other and it wouldntve happened. Something Ive noticed is the people more against cheating period, are around thier early/mid twenties and while the more blase are in thier thirties and fourties, I realy dont mean to be patronizing but my outlook on life and the universe now at 42 is completely different than it was when I was 22