Thread: Survival Sex

Many years ago when I was a younger man I had an argument (the friendly sort) with my father over which was a greater driving natural force in human life, survival like eating shelter and safety, or sex mostly for procreation. I was arguing fro procreation and he for survival. He told me that I was till young and ruled by my loins and that when I got to be his age I would change my mind. I am now the age he was when we had that discussion and in over twenty years of thinking about the subject I haven't been able to give survival a lead in the debate, but neither have I been able to dismiss the matter as too unlikely. So I put it to you: Is mankind more driven to eat and survive or fornicate and procreate? I honestly don't know.

X

Originally Posted by xman

Many years ago when I was a younger man I had an argument (the friendly sort) with my father over which was a greater driving natural force in human life, survival like eating shelter and safety, or sex mostly for procreation. I was arguing fro procreation and he for survival. He told me that I was till young and ruled by my loins and that when I got to be his age I would change my mind. I am now the age he was when we had that discussion and in over twenty years of thinking about the subject I haven't been able to give survival a lead in the debate, but neither have I been able to dismiss the matter as too unlikely. So I put it to you: Is mankind more driven to eat and survive or fornicate and procreate? I honestly don't know.

X

I voted survival. The fact that you don't know tells me that you've always had enough to eat.

With two young daughters and a third kid on the way, I think you may have miscast the question. It's not whether we are most driven by the drive to procreate or the drive to survive. Rather, the drive to procreate is the greatest glitch in the programming of our drive to survive. Whether we live is merely a question of whether our drive to survive is sufficient to overcome the travails wrought by our drive to procreate.

Now excuse me while I go hunt some aspirin to dull the throbbing headache I have from being woken up at midnight and 5:30 and then being subjected to three hours of screaming and whining. Something about a pink pillow........anyone notice a pink pillow sitting around that doesn't belong there......I don't remember ever buying a pink pillow, but I don't remember buying 3/4 of the stuff in my house.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, reproduction rates up there with survival.

I don't think there is a pat answer.

It depends on the perspective you care to take. The continuum on the individualistic perspective runs from never reproducing because one is more concerned with one's own survival and doesn't give a damn about progeny. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a dead end.

The other end is the organism that devotes all its resources to reproducing and doesn't care what happens after the deed is done. This is pretty common in the insects, some mollusks and anadromous fish like salmon.

Thinking about human beings, things get more complicated. I think the reproductive drive is every bit as strong as the survival drive. Because our offspring require so much care for so long, you really can't separate the two. Plus, we are social animals so we attach importance to the well being of the group.

I picked survival in that, the sex drive (procreation) is the most basic means of perpetuating the species.

You know, it really depends upon many factors:

what are her measurements?
is she redhead, blond, brunette?
how old is she?
Does she have a full set of teeth?

Before we know the answers to these questions, it is hard to say whether we would put survival ahead of procreation. I think the hotter the woman is, the lower survival falls on the pecking order of instincts.


Matt

when I was younger(not that long ago) I thought I would die if I didnt get to procreate. (Oh,nooooo they're turning blue!!)air,water,food,shelter/clothing, procreation.so I am going for survival.

I chose survival. If i was lost in the woods i be more concerned with living them "gettin some" although im sure the thought would cross my mind a few times...

I pondered the question for a while, then decided to go with survival as there wasn't a BOTH option.

it depends entirely on whether I'm in the middle of the bottle of tequila, or at the end of it.