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What’s Sex Got to Do with Family?

The Graduate Center, CUNY
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Frankystein123 Avatar
Frankystein123
Posts: 2
Posted: 10.23.09, 07:29 PM
How can the parents be so ignorant as to the real cause of this tragedy? It was clearly the homophobic sentiment of the classmate of the victim that resulted in his death, not the boy's "flamboyant" expression of his sexuality. Really now, are you going to tell the kid that being gay is taboo and he should presented to be heterosexual instead?
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James - Ireland Avatar
James - Ireland
Posts: 4
Posted: 11.12.09, 01:26 PM
On Darwinism, reproduction, and sexuality.

There are a couple of errors in Elizabeth Grosz's account of the relationship between sexuality and reproduction and its treatment by evolutionary biologists.

Firstly, Darwin’s followers, which is a rather odd way to describe evolutionary biologists, have indeed considered the issue.

The Israeli scientist Amotz Zhavi named the apparent paradox of the increased threat that sexual activities can pose to an individual’s life “the handicap principle”. The British biologist Richard Dawkins has endorsed it. The late William Hamilton pioneered investigation into the “why” of sexual reproduction. Thus it is inaccurate to claim that biologists since Darwin have ignored the obvious questions surrounding sexuality and reproduction.

Secondly, the argument presented that because there is more to sexual behaviour than reproduction that it follows that there is no link between the two – in the speaker’s words “At the level of most species the link between sexuality and reproduction is utterly contingent, random, and accidental” – is not valid.

Put simply, while there can be sexuality without reproduction, there cannot be reproduction without sexuality.

It is only human technology which is capable of breaking the link. In other words, while Grosz’s contention is not true when looking at evolutionary history it might be very true in the future.
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