Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Pas de Deux of Sexuality

All known, all known, but very concise and well presented in yesterday's NYTimes. Best thing I've read this week! Interesting excerpts:

I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men"

"[...]the systems for sexual orientation and arousal make men go out and find people to have sex with, whereas women are more focused on accepting or rejecting those who seek sex with them"

"Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth. [...] scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth[...] whereas for females, some are probably born to become gay, but clearly some get there quite late in life"

my favourite (though this evolution is far slower than one may think :-)):

"It’s popular among male academics to say that females preferred smarter guys [...]. Such genes will be quickly selected in males because new beneficial mutations will be quickly apparent"

and of course the very predictable ending:

"Who can doubt it? It is indeed desire that makes the world go round."

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