Something I picked up on the links somewhere.

[Gorax]

It's in one of the articles that are listed in the links part of this site. There was a comment section, and someone commented this:

"Peter Vokac remarks:

Your instinctive "asexual" role has a Big Picture aspect. It is one of the ways that our species regulates over-population. The mystery though is, just exactly HOW does it work upon individuals in an over-populated society? Are we NOT so autonomous as we think we are? Is "predestination" more than a fundamentalist religious theory?"

The whole "asexuality is the human race's response to surpopulation" aspect made a lot of sense to me. It made me think a lot though . . .

I remember in high school biology class, they told us about the theory of evolution. In the animal kingdom, the fittest animals transmit their genes to their offspring, while the animals who aren't as blessed with genetics get left behind in evolution. (I think the theory went something like that anyway, I was never the most studious person in class hehe)

If we go by that theory, it would mean asexuals are some of the least physically and mentally developped people, which isn't true.

After reading that post, I thought about myself. I have good genetics, I would be excellent for reproduction if I was sexual. But I'm not. So why does asexuality happen?

[bard of aven]

Well, "fittest" does not necessarily mean physically and mentally developed. I think it means something more like best adapted to thrive in the environment in which it finds itself. Fitness for survival in the middle class of most developed countries does not necessarily involve a great deal of brains or brawn. On of the greatest accomplishments of the human species may be to have raised things like sucking up and fast-talking to the level of a survival skill.

In some species, what makes them fittest to survive is not brains or muscle or looks but things like ability to camoflage, or fly better, or keep perfectly still, or bright red coloring, or tasting bad.

But when the time comes, they still have to either be good looking to their mates, or able to simply force their attentions on them, and they have to have the physical ability. I am assuming most asexuals are attractive and capable, just unmotivated.

I am just happy enough to have developed the survival skills I need in this environment to keep myself going. I am extremely unmotivated towards passing on my genes.

As to why asexuality happens, who knows? But it does. Along a similar line, a gay friend of my once retorted a fundamentalist street preacher by saying "If God really hated fags, he wouldn't keep making so many of us." New members are constantly being added to the various ranks of humans unwilling or unable to reproduce. Do we serve some other important purpose in the furthance of humankind, or is god or nature or whatever producing the same sorts of nonreproductive varients for no known reason? Wish I knew.

[VivreEstEsperer]

Actually, when I heard that theory of "population control," I felt somewhat flattered - we're the choses ones..lol. It's like whoever's up there thought we were the only ones who could handle something like asexuality (which is intrinsically neither good nor bad, a fine trait to have in fact, but the thing is that society doesn't see it that way).

It's almost like we're one of the elite. :)

Kate

[AVENguy]

From what I understand evolution is a good deal more complicated than "survival of the fittest," and theories about it are getting more complicated as we speak. "Survival of the fittest" is kind of like saying "survival of whoever survives," so it's not really saying anything. I personally find the entire population control theory of sexual orientation a tad constructed and dubious, I'm pretty certain that such trends existed in most species (when the giraffe population got too dense they started having more gay baby giraffes) I would have heard about it.

-AVENguy, who tastes bad AND is spikey.

[Artemis]

The evolution of genes which reduce sex drive isn't such an odd idea. If you need to survive long enough to pass on your genes and protect your offspring until they are old enough to look after themselves then you need to be able to do things other than simply have sex. If your sex drive was so high you never noticed the predators, hardly ever went out looking for food, and didn't keep an eye on your children, because you were so busy chasing mates, you probably wouldn't live too long and neither would your kids; so it makes sense to have mechanisms that keep sex drive in check. Maybe asexuals have just ended up with an excessive amount of these? Who knows, that's just a theory I've made up!