The Big Book, notes

Following are extracted notes from a rottentomatoes.com forum thread where people critiqued and commented on The Big Book. I have presented notes from EmptySea, Neumdaddy, summersnow, and myself. Read on if you want more sexual food for thought:

EmptySea:

Additional thoughts that fit your model:

One example of sexual competition that you haven’t built on much is the male trait seen in lions, bears etc. to kill off the young of their species that aren’t likely carry their own DNA so that they themselves can reproduce with the mothers of those offspring and so that their own offspring will face less competition. While humans don't exhibit this trait on an individual scale, it has been practiced trhoughout history on a 'tribal' scale. War, the many attempts at committing genocide or ethnic cleansing, even segregation are examples of this behavior.

It’s difficult to say this without offending many…so I’ll say it anyways – the structure and model of growth of many (all?) of the major religions also fit into the ‘sexual’ model that you’ve described: “top dog: hierarchy”, geared towards growth by encouraging reproduction, banning birth control, constant recruiting, persecution of non-believers etc. are all comparable to sexual competition.

Neumdaddy:

pinksuezo:

interesting... racism and institutionalized religion as inherently sexual.

why contact lenses when you can have unattractive glasses, huh? lenses can be more of a ***** to take care of, and are much more expensive. what*ever* could drive you to take a more difficult route?

noom, yeah theres more at work than sex. my perception of that was why i made these things laws, and made sex #3, mentioned a #9, and, most importantly, made a universal search for meaning #1.

i think its maslow, who categorized and ranked people's drives, so look him up. also, i did say all was sexual, but that was dramatic. still, what i meant for sure was that sex is a whole lot more influential with us than we think. of all our drives, it is not the most important, but it is the one that influences our daily life in the most and most "colorful" ways, and keeps us the busiest. it is life, quite literally, and is the game we play that keeps us distracted from the greater meaning of rule #1.

#1, to me, is what we call the quest for god, enlightenment, nirvana, the tao, "the quest for power, meaning, and purpose," etc. i believe that is our true basic drive.

finally, contact lenses are vain. worst 800 bucks i ever spent. btw, if you have lenses, pls dont feel bad or offended! we r all sexually concerned (i think).

posted by frodos_hobbit_lover: " I mean, after reading that I feel like I am a horndog! haha. We r horndogs!" excellent. i feel great when ppl whove read this seem to loosen up in their attitude toward the importance of their own sexuality.

pinksuezo (again):

quoting mr gurdjieff: "all that befalls a man, all that comes out of him, all that he creates. it all just happens."

everything u and i create, is the result of what created us, our environment, the sun, dirt, every voice weve heard and read. so, yes, i wrote it all, and its all just the world pouring itself through in me, to you, and so on. *OooOOoOooo*

videogames are a form of training, or conditioning, involving domination, whether it b of others or the a.i. why do u think videogames r mo popular with males?

EmptySea:

Actually, far more of the development of human society has been driven by sexual competition than you'd realize. I don't think there's a single observation by Pink in his story that's been overstated, and as I pointed out earlier there are more examples of sexual competition at work that he has excluded from his piece. Remember that sexual competition works at both an individual and a family (expandable to tribal/national) level. If fact, I'd argue that the law of sexuality takes priority over the law for the search for universal meaning - that's why history is full of relatively pacifist, non-expansionary cultures getting obliterated or assimiltaed by more expansionist, aggressive cultures (i.e. Aztecs dominating pre-europe central america, europeans wiping out native americans, australian aborigionies and others). that ought to stir up the pot a bit.

While I don’t disagree with your belief that humans have a great desire to be loved, I think that you’ve put the cart before the horse. The whole reason that we desire love IS a product of sexual competition - not having sex - but continuing our own line.

The theory of sexual competition applies like this: Every living thing wants to pass on its' own DNA to the next generation. In our case, human reproductive strategy has evolved in such a way that we have a very small number of offspring in whom we invest an incredible amount of time and energy. In most cultures we practice monogamy, and both parents or a collective of adults work together to raise our children. We are also tribal or social creatures who have lifelong bonds with closer family members. The feeling of “love” is the response mechanism that we’ve developed as a species to help build the family & social bonds that we need for optimal reproductive success. Similarly, being loved is necessary for self preservation. If you aren’t included in the family, the tribe or society, you just can’t compete or survive, and neither can your kids. Having others love you guarantees your inclusion in the group. Sex came first as a means of keeping our DNA going though countless generations and many, many millions of years. Love came later as we established social order and as our reproductive strategy became one of “few kids, lots of investment”.

This entire argument collapses if you believe that Humans were created by god in an “as is” state. If that is the case, then god certainly created humans with the ability to love, and the need for sexual reproduction was added in just to keep the species going. Under this scenario, love DOES become the primary ‘law’, and sex is secondary.

At this point, I’m gonna jump out of this conversation, ‘cause now we’re into theology, and I don’t want to go there. I will read any reply though.

pinksuezo:

now, in response to frodos hobbit luva's request, heres some more notes on sex, for any1 who may care:

Nooton and Or-ooell: mentioned in the story, they are, respectively, Isaac Newton and George Orwell. "Nooton" was the guy that died a virgin. Orwell, author of 1984, wrote in it that aggressive, mob-like, political marches and declarations of the importance of one's own group are massively-scaled sexually-influenced behaviors.

Illustrations: I made several drawings for the big book of sex. two that have a point, i explain here:

neumdaddy:

You COULD say that, but I wouldn't agree that it applies to "most people". You're right, though, in the beautifying of holy images. Most people know Jesus to be some long brown-haired, bearded, light-skinned man. He was an Arab. (note: he meant to say a Semite.) Darker-skinned. However, the amount of sexual influence in these beautifying of images versus how much it is to praise the one they worship is undetermined, and only a guess.

summersnow:

Amen

Also, I do think that you need to consider the gender differences in this circumstance. You are speaking primarily as a male. Often women place far less importance on sex than males (I am speaking in generalities here, don't jump on me). Guys are just hardwired to be more domineering and aggressive, due to that their main purpose of communication is to obtain and maintain power. Women place far more emphasis on relationships. Sex falls into a catagory or part of building a relationship.

Here's a question: If you met someone that you thought to be the one true love of your life, yet knew that they would be physically unable to ever have intercourse, would you still consider marrying them?

pinksuezo:

ok i wont jump on u. first, ill admit i am speaking primarily as a a male. its the basis of my experience, and what lil understanding i have of the society of women is what little i can observe, and nothing based on personal experience.

second, about women placing far less importance on sex than males, u need to b careful about saying that, i think. its true that women can easily reject males and their horny approaches more easily than it can happen the other way around. i think thats just a natural bioadaptation for females to "pick out the wheat from the chaff" to improve the quality of their mate, but does *not* mean that females are any less affected than males by the sexual drives. shopping, makeup, dressing well, and social bonding between females are all sexually inherent behaviors, in my opinion, that i can draw right off the top of my head.

summersnow:

As a woman, I think that a lot of the behaviors that you describe stem more from a need for acceptance than a desire for sex. A lot of the time, women will give in to pressure from guys, because they want to be accepted by them. They also want to appear as attractive as possible so that men will place value on them.

Emptysea:

Theory of sexual competition 101:

Women have a greater stake and greater responsibility towards their offspring, thus, they'll have a tendency to be more conservative when it comes to sex. They have to ensure that they have a mate who will stick around & help out ie. be a good provider. They will also want a mate who's going to pass along the best genes possible for their childre's success (i.e big, strong, tall, rich, powerful, intelligent are all desireable qualities). Realistically, women can't just pump out kid after kid and successfully raise them. Thus, women are relatively more pickey about who they'll mate with and when they'll do it.

Males on the other hand can successfully continue their genes by having sex often and with as many partners as possible. A man could father dozens of bastard children with just as many partners. His genes would be carried by many, many children to be passed down to future generations. Thus, men tend to be horndogs that can and will bang anything (although we can and do control that urge).

Extremes among either sex don't work. Women who are frigid won't have any kids. Men who are complete cads (the term for a man who father children out of wedlock, then don't support them) are destructive to society, and are often held accountable by legal and or moral rules (i.e. child support, "do the right thing & marry her", etc)

Because it takes many, many years and an incredible investment of time, resources and effort to raise human children, most cutures incorporate the preferred reproductive strategy for women - monogamouns relationships that are supposed to last a lifetime. There have been some cultures that have found bigamy acceptable, but only for those males with sufficient resources (i.e. wealth) to properly support all their children.

So Snow, when you say: "Guys are just hardwired to be more domineering and aggressive, due to that their main purpose of communication is to obtain and maintain power. Women place far more emphasis on relationships." your observation is not only correct, but is also a great illustration of the theory of sexual competition in action.

pinksuezo:

"acceptance," "value"? 1st law for me, chicky, though our ways of approaching it may be off-target most of the time.