Sexist Female Oppression? Cleavage In The Workplace, page 54

Originally posted by Astyanax
Finding studies on the link between courage and beauty is harder because not many people want to research the obvious. Heroism is clearly an attractive quality and men throughout history have been selectively bred for it. Large, strongly-built, testosterone-charged males of proven bravery are, rather obviously, attractive to females (in all species, including the human). Geoffrey Miller's The Mating Mind also contains plenty of interesting and provocative data.

Hmmm...? Well, kind of. For the last 8,000 years or so, the men that currently make up the Western genepool, have been bred to accept orders and to accept reward for acts of 'bravery'. They have been bred for their programmability. They are attractive to females because they offer security, even after death. Some women are still aroused by the idea of a man who will give his life to provide for them, but they too have been programmed. The natural leader, those that make up 20% of any given mammalian population, would not be a leader if they joined a grunt-making-factory, the natural leader 'does', and does not wait to be ordered to do, nor do they differentiate between 'sides'. The natural leader, in Western society is usually invisible and lacks traits that are rewarded in modern society, conformity, the ability to accept orders that contradict their basic moral principles.

The Pygmalion Effect demonstrates that performance is directly correlated to encouragement. A child that is told that it is intelligent, can and will live up to that if told often enough and encouraged. Any child can out perform another given differentiating support. In a society that rewards people for conforming and wishes the illusion of bravery to continue to be defined by following orders and calling that patriotism, will reward only those that thrive in that system. The state school system of any 'nation' is a reflection of the future of that nation. Intelligence, as defined by tests, is easily 'rigged'. It gives no breadth to the knowledge and cannot quantify wisdom. IQ tests are more about your ability to process patterns of information, not your ability to think on your feet.

In short, the rules of engagement that you outline, in terms of the mating game, are those defined by 'leadership' and corrupted over time, successively, by power. They are modern, 20,000 years old at the outside. Some follow those rules. Okay, most follow those rules. But applying them to biological principles, and the success of our species in thousands upon thousand years prior to that, in a much more hostile environment often, is folly. One is based upon survival of the species, and other the urban individual. The latter is next to extinct anyway, most definately on the verge, they won't survive the economic crash let alone anything else.

reply to post by hotbakedtater

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Hello, hotbakedtater, i liked your thread a lot and i appreciate you for standing against that oppression. But have you ever wondered why males do that to woman, what makes them to that, if so you can head to my thread which is inspired by your thread.

Sexist Female Oppression in Workplaces? I Know Why That Happens.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

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Thank you for a cooler and more reasoned rebuttal than most. However, your exposition leaves out the matter of hereditary aristocracies, among whom males have long been bred for martial prowess as well as, understandably, to rule. That is what I was referring to in the passage you quote – not the random assortative mating of the majority.

I see you take a rather bleak view of Western (more accurately, Judaeo-Christian) culture. But while what you say may or may not be true of the Western bourgeois, it is not bred in the bone by any means. Western society permits considerable social mobility, and men and women carry their genes across class divisions. You are confusing genes and culture.

the rules of engagement that you outline, in terms of the mating game, are those defined by 'leadership' and corrupted over time, successively, by power. They are modern, 20,000 years old at the outside.

Not at all. They are as old as sex itself. The effects I am discussing are not limited to Homo sapiens but are true of all social species, and have been particularly well studied among birds – viz. Zahavi's work, which I referenced earlier, which was done among finches, and let's not forget that the paradigmatic example of a fitness advertisement developed through sexual selection is the peacock's tail.

The Pygmalion Effect demonstrates that performance is directly correlated to encouragement.

All other things being equal, perhaps. But all other things are not equal; different individuals have different aptitudes and handicaps. This is just as true of other animals as it is of us.

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reply to post by bigrex

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I will refer to you someone who has undue, uneeded, self-described anxieties...

I see you are another who cannot conduct a conversation without descending to the personal. When I require half-baked psychoanalysis by unqualified amateurs on the internet, I will ask for it, thank you. As to religious fairytales and what Nietzsche provocatively (though not without justice) called slave morality, they are nothing to me, so you are wasting your breath. How about responding to the actual points I made?

reply to post by Astyanax

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You are being far too literal. You cannot see the forest for the trees. The ad hominem part was that you sarcastically assumed I was an expert, or otherwise I should not be posting. I presume you are an expert? And regarding the full-spectrum IQ test quote, most of us have taken them at some point. I am not sure of the specific terminology, nor will I waste my limited time looking it up. Full-spectrum was an adjective meant for descriptive purposes. It was not meant as a specific name of a test. Don't you get it? There are obviously tests that measure things beyond verbal pictorial recognition. As such, anyone with a minimum of half a brain (or who wasn't an agenda-laden liar) would have used a test that tested for more than one measly facet of intelligence. But you are merely arguing what you already believe. Or you just enjoy the fighting. Point is, you are not being reasonable. Do you not admit that there are tests available which measure more than vocabulary? Of course there are. And if one purports to seek out the intelligence of another, one would presumably cover as many bases as possible, right? I thought people on here wanted to deny ignorance. Hell, even in a statistics class you will be told how common it is for statistics to be used unscientifically for purposes of manipulation. If you are blindly relying on statistics of ANY SORT, without doing the legwork to check their methodology and reasoning, then you are woefully uninformed as to the nature of the world in which we live.

Originally posted by Astyanax
However, your exposition leaves out the matter of hereditary aristocracies, among whom males have long been bred for martial prowess as well as, understandably, to rule. That is what I was referring to in the passage you quote – not the random assortative mating of the majority.

Martial 'prowess' is taught, even to those assumed born into it. Some, no matter how many generations the tradition goes back, are not suited to it's pursuit. See, for example, Prince Edward of the British Royal family. Anyone, who can follow orders can be a serviceman. Anyone can be taught who the enemy is and what to do with a gun and when to fire it. It hardly requires intelligence. Nor does it require much intelligence to pass orders down along the chain of command. Have you seen Black Adder Goes Forth? It offers an excellent example of how effective good breeding and a public school education are at creating leadership. Everyone of the 'Great Monarchs' were supported and buffered by a team of meritoriously selected advisors, who though often served their apprenticeships within the family business, be it law, theology or notary, were blessed with none of the pitfalls caused by the inbreeding of the idle classes. Either way, as an example of 'success' or of the right way to go about breeding, it is hardly a shining one. They're hardly, as a breed, thriving these days are they. Besides, they bred most prolifically, illegitimately. Those recognised heirs, were the result of political and economic deals. The consolidation of power. Not sexual selection based on prowess or military bearing. Mummy and Daddy arranged it. So again, not a good example of what is 'good' or 'normal' or even remotely recommended.

Originally posted by Astyanax
I see you take a rather bleak view of Western (more accurately, Judaeo-Christian) culture. But while what you say may or may not be true of the Western bourgeois, it is not bred in the bone by any means. Western society permits considerable social mobility, and men and women carry their genes across class divisions. You are confusing genes and culture.

Originally posted by Astyanax
Not at all. They are as old as sex itself. The effects I am discussing are not limited to Homo sapiens but are true of all social species, and have been particularly well studied among birds – viz. Zahavi's work, which I referenced earlier, which was done among finches, and let's not forget that the paradigmatic example of a fitness advertisement developed through sexual selection is the peacock's tail.

Yes, but we are not birds and more importantly not egg layers. Firstly though we are mammals, which means we cannot self-clone, this changes all the rules. Birds are very interesting, but of absolutely no use to the study of human sexual behaviour and selection. And why would we, certainly for the purposes of this discussion even bother, we have primates, and we are primates, so they offer the best comparison available, and have been as well studied as the dickie birds.

Chimpanzees live in large multi-male and multi-female social groups called communities. Within a community there is a definite social hierarchy which is dictated by the position of an individual and the influence the individual has on others. Chimpanzees live in a leaner hierarchy in which more than one individual may be dominant enough to dominate other members of lower rank. Typically there is a dominant male referred to as the Alpha male. The Alpha male is the highest-ranking male who controls the group and maintains order during any disputes. In chimpanzee society the 'dominant male' does not always have to be the largest or strongest male but rather the most manipulative and political male who can influence the goings on within a group. Male chimpanzees typically attain dominance through cultivating allies who will provide support for that individual in case of future ambitions for power. Its within a male chimpanzee's character to display in an attempt to show strength and recognition from others which may be fundamental to holding on to status. The alpha male will regularly display by making their normally slim coats puffed up to increase view size and charge to look as threatening and as powerful as possible to intimidate other members in an attempt to hold on to power and maintain authority. Lower-ranking chimpanzees will show respect by making submissive gestures in body language or reaching out their hand while grunting. Female chimpanzees will show deference to the alpha male by presenting their hind-quarters.

Female chimpanzees also have a hierarchy which is influenced by the position of a female individual within a group. In some chimpanzee communities, the young females may inherit high status from a high-ranking mother. The females will also form allies to dominate lower-ranking females. In contrast to males who have a main purpose of acquiring dominant status for access to mating privileges and sometimes violent domination of subordinates, females acquire dominant status for access to resources such as food. High-ranking females will often get first access to resources. In general, both genders acquire dominant status to improve social standing within a group.

Its often the females who choose the alpha male. For a male chimpanzee to win the alpha status he must gain acceptance from the females in the community as they are the ones who actually dictate the way the lifestyles are set up (the females are the ones who ensure the survival of the next generation; they have to make sure that their group is going to places that supply them with enough food). There are cases where a group of dominant females will oust an alpha male who is not to their preference and rather back up the other male who they see potential of leading the group as a successful alpha male.

en.wikipedia.org...

So in short, in the natural order, the alpha male is selected for his ability to accept orders and conform to the wishes of the females by maintaining the social order and breaking up disputes.

Originally posted by Astyanax
All other things being equal, perhaps. But all other things are not equal; different individuals have different aptitudes and handicaps. This is just as true of other animals as it is of us.

What the Pygmalion Effect or Self-fulfilling Prophecy demonstrate is that the outcome can be directly influenced by positive feedback regardless of social class or gender. Intelligence is not predetermined by genetics alone. If someone is told that they are stupid, they are more likely to perform to expectation. If someone is told that they are highly intelligent, they too are likely to perform to expectation. Superficial constraints as to what is or isn't sexually attractive is similarly a perception that can be influenced by positive and negative feedback. Money and power are seemingly the main factors which decide which males get the most sex, so surely it is that which defines what is or isn't attractive? Since THAT sex is seldom for reproductive purposes, it is all moot anyway. But it explains all the confusion. I'm reminded of a scene in a film where Robert De Niro, or perhaps Joey Soprano, is explaining to his shrink why he doesn't let his wife perform fellatio, because she kisses his kids with that mouth.

Originally posted by Astyanax

I will refer to you someone who has undue, uneeded, self-described anxieties...

I see you are another who cannot conduct a conversation without descending to the personal. When I require half-baked psychoanalysis by unqualified amateurs on the internet, I will ask for it, thank you. As to religious fairytales and what Nietzsche provocatively (though not without justice) called slave morality, they are nothing to me, so you are wasting your breath. How about responding to the actual points I made?

You asked me whether I thought you would accept and branch out to the violent portion of eugenics, so I responded to your question by telling you I did not have evidence of that, but I did include in my description of yourself what your own words seemed to allude to about yourself. Ok, maybe you don't believe in a Holy Spirit, would you prefer the term gut feeling or intuition? It's all semantics with you people who go through life and only believe in yourselves and the material world you can touch.

How about responding to the actual points I made, I have responded to yours with points concerning how beautiful people can be as dumb as any physically unattractive person. Case in point, that mixed up girl who went after and married H. Hefner. How do you account for all the pornography on the Internet? Did these physically "attractive" women just decide they would rather do that although they were perfectly capable of being brain surgeons and theoretical physicists? Please include photos of beautiful scientists in your next response or do not respond. Using your own medicine, your words are nothing to me, we are talking about physical beauty so let's see some physical "visual" evidence of it.

Happy New Year to Everybody on ATS

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

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Answering your points in detail entails more work than I feel up to on a lazy New Year's morning, so, very quickly: sexual selection is a form of natural selection and has nothing to do with royal matchmaking, which was mostly about military alliances and territorial consolidation. But you and I aren't talking about royal matchmaking; we are talking about the tendency of aristocrats--who became aristocrats through martial prowess, i.e. beating the stuffing out of the weak--to marry one another (while producing any number of bastards as insurance) and then put the legitimate offspring of these unions, as well as a few adopted bastards, through a difficult and dangerous education to weed out the unfit and those lacking the martial virtues. That has been going on throughout human history and even prehistory (the paradigm being Sparta) and its products have always been thought beautiful and/or sexually attractive – a point we do not need to belabour unnecessarily.

Your description of chimp behaviour from Wikipedia fits perfectly with the thesis I am expounding here. It would be surprising if it did not, since it is such ethological observations as these that gave rise to it. Due to the differential energy investment required by parents of either sex to bring offspring to adulthood, different reproductive strategies are adopted by each sex. The upshot of this is that males compete with each other to be chosen as mates by females. The ultimate arbiter of status among social animals – chimps and birds alike, as well as humans – is sexual success. This doesn't mean 'taking orders from females' as you make out; it simply means making oneself as attractive as possible to them. Among social animals, one way to do this is to show dominance over other males. Which brings us back to aristocracies and martial elites again.

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reply to post by orwellianunenlightenment

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I dealt with the objections you raise before you even arrived on the thread. See this post.

Simply put, if a test accurately measures IQ (that is, it gives results comparable with other types of IQ test), it is legitimate – even if the methodology has to do with juggling balls.

Anyone with a minimum of half a brain (or who wasn't an agenda-laden liar) would have used a test that tested for more than one measly facet of intelligence.

Why don't you look up the actual study (its home page is linked in my post mentioned above) and judge the intelligence and agenda of the researchers for yourself?

If one purports to seek out the intelligence of another, one would presumably cover as many bases as possible, right?

Yes, indeed: and if one happened to be testing tens of thousands of adolescents in a nationwide survey that is repeated annually, you would, for practical reasons, adopt a quick, simple and sufficiently accurate test that could be administered easily by schoolteachers and others without the need for special training. Hence the use of the Peabody test in the survey concerned.

Do you not admit that there are tests available which measure more than vocabulary?

The Peabody test uses vocabulary to measure IQ. Go and look at it. There's a link to that, too, in my post.

The concurrent validity of PPVT has been established using comparisons with other vocabulary tests. For example, the correlation of PPVT scores with that of the Stanford-Binet Vocabulary Subtest ranges between 0.68 and 0.76. The reliability of the PPVT was measured in two ways, the split-half and the test-retest. For the former, the reliability ranges from 0.60 to 0.80. For the latter, the range is from 0.70 to 0.90. The only caveat is that the population used to establish the norm did not include examinees that suffered from a physical handicap. Source

If you are blindly relying on statistics of ANY SORT, without doing the legwork to check their methodology and reasoning, then you are woefully uninformed as to the nature of the world in which we live.

Well said. I take it you realize that this is precisely what you have been doing? I have long since looked at the survey homepage, checked out methodology and investigated the nature of the test used. You, on the other hand, are merely speaking from ignorance. Follow your own precepts.

You are merely arguing what you already believe.

Do you expect me to argue for what I don't believe?

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reply to post by Brood

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An accusation of prejudice isn't personal? What is it, then?

Look: IR1984 is a decent ATS member who has let himself get a bit hotter under the collar than he intended. I know he does not mean to offend, so I am not offended. But he really does need to clean up his posting etiquette. One should never offer insults unintentionally. Insult should only be deployed for good reasons of policy, and with a clear understanding of the likely consequences.

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reply to post by bigrex

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What a difference in content, tone and manner from your earlier post! Allow me to express my warmest appreciation – and no, I am not being in the least sarcastic.

I have responded to yours with points concerning how beautiful people can be as dumb as any physically unattractive person.

You are right, they can be. Any high school sports team can provide plenty of examples. But taken all in all (meaning, taken statistically) there is a tendency for intelligence to correlate with physical attractiveness. And it makes sense if you think about it – smart animals are more likely to survive and breed successfully than dumb ones, right? And animals that prefer smart animals as mates will obviously do the same, because they're making babies together. So, over time, the preference for smart mates will spread through the animal population. In other words, they'll find smart animals attractive. It really is as simple as that.

It isn't so much that good-looking equals smart; it's that smart equals good-looking. Some of the time. As I said, it's statistical.

How do you account for all the pornography on the Internet? Did these physically "attractive" women just decide they would rather do that although they were perfectly capable of being brain surgeons and theoretical physicists?

Their circumstances probably made it impossible for them to follow academic careers and hurdle the very stiff barriers to entrance in those fields. But they were smart enough to make the best of what they had, without letting petty considerations of morality and convention hinder them. The same goes for the young woman who just married Hugh Hefner. Do you think it's easy to become Hugh Hefner's wife? The competition must be terrific. People do not achieve such things without being exceptional. The same goes for Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and all the so-called bimbos who have been slandered on this thread. They are women of ability, whatever their IQs are measured at.

Please include photos of beautiful scientists in your next response or do not respond. Using your own medicine, your words are nothing to me, we are talking about physical beauty so let's see some physical "visual" evidence of it.

Since I am propounding an argument based on evolutionary biology, it would be appropriate to begin with a photo of Leda Cosmides, one of the pioneers of the field:


Here's the very gorgeous Michael Faraday, who has been called the exemplar of all a true scientist should be:



Ada, Countess Lovelace, a pioneer of computer science and information technology:



Hedy Lamarr, inventor of the radio-controlled torpedo and spread-spectrum radio communications (without which your mobile phone wouldn't exist):


Controversial physicist (and surfer) Garrett Lisl:



Carl Sagan needs no introduction:


Richard Dawkins, scourge of the believers:


And here's Deborah Berebichez, a physics Ph.D who works on Wall Street...


...from an article about 11 sexy physicists who ought to be working there.

Of course, none of this means a lot. As I said before, we're talking about a statistical correlation, not individual cases. And scientists – obviously – have no monopoly on intelligence. But... ask and ye shall receive.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

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There's a similar culture in Australia. It's called "Aussie Rules".

As a footy trainer who gained acceptance as "one of the blokes", I was honoured with entré into a culture from which women were generally excluded except as sex-objects to be publicly humiliated.

Footballers had to practice at least two nights a week and spent most of the weekends together playing. While off the field there was lots of hugging, horseplay and genital touching. They loved to organise events with porn films, where they could have group wank-offs, or a visiting prostitute, who they would all share. Social etiquette dictated that footballers never discussed women unless it was to boast of how degradingly they'd treated them. If their boasting was to be believed, they each went through several "girlfriends" a week, treating each worse than the last. These stories were only topped by the things they claimed to have done to shared pros.

Young footballers coming into this environment quickly learned to accept being felt up by the older men, and partaking in holey communion with them. Many had fathers who were already part of this system, who reinforced this way of life.

These guys, looks-wise, were the cream of Australia, but most of the creaming they did was around each other.
As for intelligence, the number of downright retards playing made those of moderate intelligence look like geniuses. However they did succeed in the genetic competition, as most managed, with the help of gullible women who recognised footballers as somehow "special", to leave a trail of little bastards in their wake.

reply to post by Kailassa

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These guys, looks-wise, were the cream of Australia, but most of the creaming they did was around each other. As for intelligence, the number of downright retards playing made those of moderate intelligence look like geniuses. However they did succeed in the genetic competition, as most managed, with the help of gullible women who recognised footballers as somehow "special", to leave a trail of little bastards in their wake.

Nice to see you back on the thread, Kailassa. See the comment about 'high-school sports teams' in my reply to bigrex.

Intelligence isn't the only attribute that makes a man a good mate. It probably isn't even the most important one. It may be argued that footballers must possess a good many of these other traits: physical health and fitness, courage, aggression and competitive vigour, an instinctive understanding of social hierarchies, the ability to work cooperatively with others towards a commonly desired result, and so on. At least some of these traits, too, are correlated to aspects of appearance, which women consider good-looking. There are many different ways to be attractive to the opposite sex, at least if you are human.

And besides, a footballer has to be at least intelligent enough to understand the rules of the game, something a great many women profess not to understand. Maybe such women are attracted to footballers because of what they perceive as their intelligence?

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Kailassa

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Intelligence isn't the only attribute that makes a man a good mate. It probably isn't even the most important one. It may be argued that footballers must possess a good many of these other traits: physical health and fitness, courage, aggression and competitive vigour, an instinctive understanding of social hierarchies, the ability to work cooperatively with others towards a commonly desired result, and so on. At least some of these traits, too, are correlated to aspects of appearance, which women consider good-looking. There are many different ways to be attractive to the opposite sex, at least if you are human.

Being a good mate was not a significant factor for these guys when it came to perpetuating their genes. Most could be expected to have a few children with a partner, but the bulk of the children they fathered would be from random encounters. Although I could never understand why, the sight of a sweaty, muddy footballer in tight shorts so little that sometimes bits would dangle out works as a potent aphrodisiac on many women.

Appearance-wise, the footballers' well defined, muscular buttocks mattered much more than their faces. I suspect if they developed baboon colouration the women would mob them to death.

And besides, a footballer has to be at least intelligent enough to understand the rules of the game, something a great many women profess not to understand.

What man is going to learn the rules when he's watching girls in wet t-shirts playing beach volleyball?
Anyway the rules are simple. The only difficult part is knowing when you can get away with breaking them, and few footy players ever get that down pat.

Maybe such women are attracted to footballers because of what they perceive as their intelligence?

No, no, no, no, no.
It's buttocks and action and pheromones and physical fitness.
It's all about having a savage, animalistic lover who can perform like an ever-ready bunny.
And then the poor girl discovers he's been on muscle growing hormones which have shrunk his genitals and removed all sexual desire.

Being a good mate was not a significant factor for these guys when it came to perpetuating their genes.

I am following a strict evo-bio interpretation of 'good matehood' here: the footballers had good genes to share, increasing their female partners' chances that the children born of the union would survive to have grandchildren, thereby perpetuating the partners' genes (as well as the footballers', of course). In reality, few or no children would be born (because someone took 'precautions') and the leather-punishers would probably have made appalling fathers and husbands, but them dumb genes they don't know dat.

Most could be expected to have a few children with a partner, but the bulk of the children they fathered would be from random encounters.

Bingo!

Menstrual Cycle Alters Face Preference Nature, June 1999

...and since confirmed by any number of subsequent studies. I'm sure you're aware that more than one in ten children born inside wedlock is a secret bastard. Women will often obtain immunologically superior genes from an 'external donor' and raise the resultant offspring with the help of a more 'nurturing' male partner – someone who is a good husband and father, but whose genes aren't out of the top drawer, selectively speaking.

Actually, the practice is widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Even songbirds, those supposed paragons of marital fidelity, will have it off with partners other than their regular mates if the opportunity arises. The reason it took humans so long to discover this is simple; when songbirds want a bit on the side, they do it in the bushes, where their parnters can't see them.

Although I could never understand why, the sight of a sweaty, muddy footballer in tight shorts so little that sometimes bits would dangle out works as a potent aphrodisiac on many women. Appearance-wise, the footballers' well defined, muscular buttocks mattered much more than their faces.

I suspect this is explained by the lovely phrase 'immunological competence', which appears in the paper linked to above.

I suspect if they developed baboon colouration the women would mob them to death.

I fear this might be seen as a sign of infection, i.e. immunological incompetence.

It's buttocks and action and pheromones and physical fitness.

Sounds like a pretty potent combination to me. Sadly, I lack them all (except possibly the pheromones).

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

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While the female of our species may display for the males' benefit, the males are chiefly interested only in impressing each other, because over generations they have been bred this way, with all the heterosexuals getting wiped out on the battlefield, homosexual inclinations gives the survival advantage.

Observe adolescent boys in the presence of adolescent girls and you will see at once how wrong this is. They shove and push and display the usual interpersonal aggression of male social mammals in rut, but their eyes are always on the girls. The showing-off, the loud talk and crude jokes, the attempted feats of courage, prowess and skill, all increase in quantity and intensity when ladies are present. We boys jockey for status amongst one another, certainly, but that is because it is status that impresses the girls most. Other social mammals are made the same way, too.

Moreover, I think the propensity of women to be attracted to martial heroes, decorated warriors, strong-featured men of soldierly bearing or even some twerp in a uniform speaks for itself. As does the sexual desirability of sporting heroes (like Kailassa's sweaty footballers) in modern societies deprived of war and heroic challenge.

Now let's see where you're going with this homosexuality business.

In Sparta, I should imagine, like Greece, advancement into the upper ranks could be aided by becoming the lover of a superior officer.

I'm afraid not. All Spartiates were of equal rank (their Messenian helots did all the work) and potential for 'advancement' was minimal. There was no social mobility in Sparta; you were born a Spartiate, a periokos or a helot, and you stayed in the class you were born.

Spartiates were rarely wealthy and their lives were so devoid of luxury as to be positively, well, spartan. Sparta was poor and proud of it, though individual Spartiates, like the infamous Pausanias, were notorious for greed and corruption in their dealings with foreign peoples, no doubt precisely a result of this socially-imposed poverty back at home.

The only road to 'advancement' in Sparta was glory, which was won on the battlefield. And what was advancement? Becoming one of the two kings, which was more an imposition than anything else; kings were held on a tight leash in Sparta, and their responsibilities were essentially military. Apart from them, the only 'superior' Spartans were the Gerousia, a governing body which you had to be over sixty years old to qualify for, and the five-man council of Ephors, who were elected. So, no: becoming the lover of some noble Spartiate didn't really get you anywhere, you being a noble Spartiate yourself to begin with.

Women were forbidden to Spartan warriors for most of their time in service. They certainly weren't allowed to marry until they left... for sex, they mostly had each other. As a Spartan would be taken at seven for training, it is likely that this 'system' was instilled fairly early on, passed down from each new intake to the next and considered perfectly normal, which it was, contextully. Much in the same way it was in the British Public School system until very recently, this being the system that created the majority of Officers in the service.

I know more about the 'British public-school system' and its tradition of buggery than you may imagine. It has been my experience -- as I am sure it was any young Spartan's -- that a person's sexuality is not a matter of choice and that the degree to which it can be shaped by social sanction is rather limited. I am heterosexual, despite having had plenty of encouragement to engage in homosexual play during my formative years. Among my contemporaries at school, who had the same experiences as I, most are straight, some are gay. Overall, the number of gay men produced by my dear old school, a nationally notorious hotbed of effeminacy and sodomy, does not seem to be proportionately any greater than that produced by other educational institutions in my country. Beware of adopting dangerous stereotypes; you are suggesting that sexuality is based on conditioning -- that it can be taught. That is a bigot's viewpoint, and I am pretty sure you are not a bigot.

Now, let's return to those Spartans. Some of what you have said about them is untrue.

The military and the city-state (was) the center of Spartan existence. The state determined whether children, both male and female, were strong when they were born; weakling infants were left in the hills to die of exposure. Exposing weak or sickly children was a common practice in the Greek world, but Sparta institutionalized it as a state activity rather than a domestic activity. At the age of seven, every male Spartan was sent to military and athletic school. These schools taught toughness, discipline, endurance of pain (often severe pain), and survival skills. At twenty, after thirteen years of training, the Spartan became a soldier. The Spartan soldier spent his life with his fellow soldiers; he lived in barracks and ate all his meals with his fellow soldiers. He also married, but he didn't live with his wife; one Athenian once joked that Spartans had children before they even saw the face of their wives. The marriage ceremony had an unusual ritual involved: at the end of the ceremony, the man carried his wife off as if he were taking her by force (this did not mean, however, that the status of women was bad in Sparta, as we shall see later). Only at the age of thirty, did the Spartan become an "equal," and was allowed to live in his own house with his own family—although he continued to serve in the military. Military service ended at the age of sixty. Source

What are we looking at here? A eugenics programme dedicated to producing the toughest, most disciplined citizens possible. Homosexuality has little to do with it, except perhaps to reduce aggression and promote bonding between males under extreme competitive stress, the same function it serves (according to researcher Janet Mann) in dolphins:

Sociosexual behaviour among Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins and the development of male-male bonds (PDF file downloadable at link)

The explanation for homosexuality among human warrior castes (samurai were into it, too, incidentally) probably has much to do this kind of thing, or with sex play as dominance-and-submission behaviour, which we are told occurs commonly among male social primates and more generally among social animals. Homosexual behaviour occurs throughout the animal kingdom as well as in humans; it does not invalidate -- or, indeed, relate to -- my thesis.

Originally posted by Astyanax
What a difference in content, tone and manner from your earlier post! Allow me to express my warmest appreciation – and no, I am not being in the least sarcastic.

Not sure how to take that since my last post was more biting and I expected you to bite my head off after reading it, I thought my previous post before it was more "generous". Maybe you misread the first post in the wrong light, you were in a different mood, or it is just plain difficult to decipher one's intended message without the tone of voice coming across...or you are being sarcastic. I would have been saying the first post in a very calm fashion, and the latest previous post in a more frustrated manner (due to your response). Again, I partially agree, glad you see sometimes attractive people can be moronic. I could also post photos of unattractive scientists, (I will use a list of dead scientists for convenience) but I admit some of them are old enough that it is hard to tell how they used to look, and aside, (you think Carl Sagan was attractive?! I'm not a gay guy but I wouldn't of guessed he would be on someone's handsome list). I will say he is dressed nicely in the photo, nice jacket Carl. In the list you will see those who one may term as "ugly" and some who are average, and some, yes possibly attractive. I will maintain that you get all types of intelligence with all types of people, whether they happen to "look good" or not, so we probably have a stalemate as far as I'm concerned.

www.stevequayle.com...
www.stevequayle.com...

I have heard other people with other theories, such as "blacks that came over in slavery to the US tend to be athletically superior, whites on average are both physicallly and mentally average, and orientals have a superior mental intellect when compared to the other two groups, but they are often physically inferior (or less robust)". I think I can agree with those theories a little more than yours. However, I will say each person is different, those are only overall generalities. I think what you are talking about concerning physical beauty spilling over or translating over to mental "beauty" is again, an overall generality.

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