Culture, Darwinism and Sexuality: in Three Instalments.

The Afterbirth: Culture

Culture. It’s a living, growing, speeding organism. Like genetic material it evolves, it’s passed down generations and it is something stable in terms of concept. Our perceptions change, with knowledge comes paradigm shifts. for instance, our perception of beauty has evolved. From the voluptuous women of Peter Paul Rubens in the 1600’s to the slender, large breasted women in FHM today. Beauty and the way we view the body has certainly changed dramatically. “Beauty’s” popularity depends on the perceptions that are formulated at any given period in time. It is reliant on the predilection of the majority. There are those who favour the slender, those who prefer a larger build and those who seek non-mainstream beauty such as individuals with piercings or tattoos.




We adorn ourselves, paint ourselves, and even modify ourselves to either conform to the modern standard of beauty or to oppose it. The body, like art, is a means of conveying an idea. We do this in an attempt to inform strangers that we are who we are. Our minds are not what shape others’ views of us but our bodies. They cannot see our minds, only the shell that holds them. We portray our minds through our bodies to establish an identity. It is a dismal fact that there might be a beautiful mind that is never discovered or explored because it is hidden behind a too plain exterior. This is what is meant by the term “cultural trappings”.

Culture, Darwinism and Sexulatity: in Three Instaslments.

Reason for birth: Darwinism



If we take a biological standpoint, we can see how natural selection plays a large part in culture and breeding. Natural selection falls into Darwin’s theory of evolution. Those that do not meet the criteria to survive will die out and subsequently so will their genes, those that survive will obviously reproduce. In regards to animals this is a theory that is quite sound. In human terms this is a sadly something that does not happen. The stupid do not die out, (nor does racism or prejudice.), they reproduce because they are too stupid to understand how contraception works. Those who are intelligent and have the means to further society and it’s culture seldom breed for they know unto what they will release their progeny; Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. In the wise words of Harvey Danger, “Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding, the cretins cloning and feeding”.

But can the smart man outrun the rat? “They also aspire to a higher place in society’s pecking order, but in so doing force others in the rat race to run faster to keep up.” (Economist, 23/12/2006: 13). It is eternally running for fear that we will become genetically and culturally obsolete and die out. And thus is the process of evolution and natural selection.

Culture, Darwinism and Sexuality: in Three Instalments

Beginning at the birth: Sexuality

The human brain enters the world predominantly blank, save a few basic functions. The limbic system functions allowing the brain, person to feel emotion, but how does it communicate these emotions. It must be taught. Corporeal characteristics emphasize that our minds are connected to our bodies which determine how we feel or respond when exposed to certain stimuli other than sensory, like words from someone we care about. The body is, as many postulate, the housing for the soul, simply the casing for our minds. The sex of the body and the gender that is formulated are separate entities. The body is born with the sex determined, gender is what we learn through our environment during our existence. The previously assumed gender roles were linked with the sex of the human, however, through time we have seen that gender and sex have become estranged though not entirely. Sexuality in itself can be seen as a gender distinction, one that was previously unacceptable but is potentially a product of biology and environment. Could homosexulatity, indeed any degree of our sexual nature be genetically predisposed?

“J. Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard also studied the gayness between MZ1 twins, DZ2 twins, and non-related adopted brothers. They examined how many of the sample population examined were gay and how many were straight. They found that 52% of MZ twins were both self-identified homosexuals, 22% of DZ twins were so, and only 5% of non-related adopted brothers were so.”

(Johnson, 2003), (1. Identical twins, 2. Fraternal twins).

Genetics and human studies only accomplishes so much. This is still only correlation, making it an inexact science therefore not wholly reliable. In the case of transvestites and transsexuals it is not a case of “gender confusion” as some antiquated psychologists may phrase it, because gender is something learned. These are the people who are truly free. Culture and society have not shaped their minds to the conventional mould, nor do they fear the consequences of freedom of expression. Think of everything you were ever taught growing up. All the toys that were bought for you...dolls for girls, race cars for boys, pink for girls, blue for boys...who we are reeks of predestiny. But times are changing and this is becoming less of a problem. Children are more often than not left to their own devices, to teach themselves. Therein lies the hope for a more accepting race of humans for tomorrow.

The Ballet

I don't have time for a proper post but I felt obliged to put something up here. I wrote this one day and after I read over it when it was finished I realised someone else was using my hands...

And then they started. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was like they were completely separate entities even though they were joined at the waist.

They sang like angels and moved like devils, in the end they just sank back into the mould that had birthed them and all they were became ashes.

They had left no legacy, they had never even started something that might be recognised in some reporter’s sad, unpublished journal somewhere ages and ages hence. Nothing was left, not a trace of their existence or their fabulous accomplishment.

What comes from nothing is always nothing. But in between the emergence of nothing from nothing a small glimpse of something can be seen. When one is privy to that kind of immense, immeasurable beauty, there is never a word in the vernacular accurate enough to describe this phenomenon. It’s like the birth of the messiah but then the child dies upon entering the world. The potential for something that might save, inspire, nourish. Then it suddenly dies like a lost opportunity or the train that’s missed by a hare’s breath.

Appreciating that is the hardest task of a human being. Seeing something that we would devote our entire lives to disappear in an instant, almost before we could recognise it, not hating this thing is the hardest duty we may have the misfortune and the blessing to endeavour. When we stop hating it we learn to look at it as we might a piece of fine art that we can’t quite understand through all the pretension. We know it’s good, we like it for our own reasons, but the pretension surrounding it obscures our ability to love it.

Think of the ballet. See the dancers, weaving, spinning, turning and leaping, taking their cues. The costumes swirl like wine in a connoisseur’s glass. The sequins sparkle and entrance you. You can’t think on anything except the dancers, their hair knotted tight. The eyes in their soft porcelain faces never lift to meet yours. You yearn but they do not look up. Not even a stolen glance. It begins to burn you, but you can’t move because watching them is the closest you can get to their beauty without breaking them. Delicate little animals, nothing can be said to them or around them, dancing to music like deaf mutes, unspeaking graceful bodies, soulless.