Sorry. See bold.
Quote:
Originally Posted by riotgrrrl
I think that humans are wonderfully complex creatures and I think that there are many reasons why people cheat. You've answered most of them towards your original post. Unhappy, missing something, bored, addicted to the thrill, downright greedy coming to my mind.
Nature v nurture. That's very interesting, but I like to believe that we've evolved from the need to spread the seed with as many people as possible. I did say, I like to believe! For me, someone who goes through life with multiple partners says more about their personality, and perhaps why they are never able to settle, than the need to spread seed. Why is it some people can be perfectly happy with one partner, and another never find the one? I think if it was just nature, then everyone would want to stray.
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So you saying that if needing more than one partner is a NATURAL trait, then this trait must be present 100%.
Most traits are not. They are distributed, and the distribution may vary depending on factors.
I believe that Norway does have some naturally blonde women. Africa - maybe not, but Norway does.
So the trait of being naturally blonde, while being natural, has a low incidence.
The trait of having dark hair, while also being natural, has a high incidence worldwide, but still not 100%.
In other words, like Payne, you are saying that sexual relationships are in some way
completely unique and do not follow any of the usual patterns that we have been able to observe so far in non-sexual areas. I have only been able to observe one such thing. Partner sex between man and woman can lead to reproduction. Well, assisted reproduction now exists, but for the majority of human history, partner sex between man and woman was unique in its capacity to perpetuate the species.
Does this uniqueness warrant concluding that in all possible respects sexual relationships do not follow common patterns of everything non-sexual in the world?
So far we have observed that having blonde hair or having schizophrenia, while being natural, is relatively rare, and having black hair or being mentally well, while still being natural, is relatively wide-spread, and it is OK. At the same time being non-monogamous is not natural because it does not have 100% incidence. Then what is natural? Only death, because the only thing that happens to everybody is death. The rest is uncertain, distributed, and not 100% prevalent. Even the thing that makes partner sex between a man and a woman of reproductive age unique, in my experience - procreation - does not happen to everybody. It has a set of probabilities that are associated with age and other factors.
Likewise, if all arrangements have costs and benefits, and monogamy is the ONLY arrangement that has no costs and only has benefits, it seems weird. Not necessarily outright impossible, but really weird.