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Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by yamrzou on Sunday July 24, 2022 @01:41PM (#32215764)
> Happy to alter beliefs based on evidence that target this specific notion: that it is not subcultural.

I won't address your particular example (“guys like drawing dicks on things”), but a similar one that I'm sure strikes you as cultural as well: the sex difference in toy preferences and play behaviour. The following is an excerpt from the book Perspectives in Male Psychology by Louise Liddon and John Barry, which argues that it's not subcultural:

“Some of the most intriguing evidence supporting the biological basis for sex differences in toy preferences comes, unexpectedly, from animals. There is a large body of evidence in animal research finding strong effects of prenatal and perinatal exposure to sex hormones on a range of sex-related behaviours, including juvenile play (Meyer-Bahlburg et al., 2004). Even more intriguingly, some research has found that male monkeys spend longer than females manipulating toys that move (wheeled toys or a ball), whereas female monkeys make more contact with a doll and cooking pot (Alexander & Hines, 2002; Hassett et al., 2008). Most intriguing of all is research that finds a sex difference in how primates play with objects: young females tend to play with objects as if they are nurturing an infant, and young males play with the same objects with more vigour, often as a weapon.

Compelling evidence for a biological basis for play behaviour comes from a 14-year study of ‘stick-carrying’ in Ugandan chimpanzees (Kahlenberg & Wrangham, 2010). These chimps tend to use sticks to signal aggression, to find food (e.g. taking honey from a hole), during play or as ‘stick-carrying’. This latter behaviour accounted for about 40% of stick-related behaviour, and was initially puzzling for researchers. The behaviour was observed to be most common in juvenile females, compared to weapon use, which was most common in males. The researchers noted that stick-carrying sometimes involved cradling of the stick, and the behaviour always occurred prior to the female’s first birth and ended when the female became a mother. The researchers concluded that stick-carrying is a form of play-mothering. The sex difference in stick-carrying appeared to be spontaneous and without any teaching by adult chimps, making social learning an unlikely explanation.

The overall explanation for the sex differences observed in these various human and non-human animal studies is that, in general, males are naturally predisposed to activities such as hunting and building, and females are naturally predisposed to nurturing the young (Hines, 2005). Extrapolating this evidence to humans, when boys are playing with cars this could be an expression of an innate tendency to track moving objects, as might be done in hunting, and when girls play with dolls this could be an expression of an innate tendency to nurturance and mothering.”

Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by heavenlyblue on Sunday July 24, 2022 @02:24PM (#32216186)
Humans have not been hunter-gatherers for 5 thousand years now. This is approximately the time it took to make wolves into dogs, domesticate cats, etc. You can’t possibly assume everything men/women do is related to that time when we were primal humans because there was already thousands of years of evolution that separated us from those people.
Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by spfzero on Sunday July 24, 2022 @05:08PM (#32217747)
Interesting argument. Wolves and dogs are behaviorally almost identical. Domestic cats and wild cats are as well. If you've ever been around feral cats or stray dogs, you know to stay well clear of them, as they revert to wild behavior pretty quickly. Their domestic performances depend on their living experience being carefully controlled by humans.
Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by inglor_cz on Sunday July 24, 2022 @05:22PM (#32217876)
5 thousand of years aren't nothing, but they aren't that much either, at least when it comes to the course of human evolution. We seem to be anatomically indistinguishable from people who lived not 5, but 50 thousand years ago.

There are obviously some newer adaptations (the ability to digest milk as adults in certain populations, or even sickle cell disease in West Africans), but they seem to be the exceptions to the rule.

Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by D-Coder on Sunday July 24, 2022 @09:09PM (#32219507)
Reproductive cycle for humans is about 15 years. Dogs: two years. Cats: one year. So they have had a few times as many generations to evolve.

(All numbers approximate.)

Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by benj111 on Monday July 25, 2022 @04:34AM (#32221887)
You've obviously never had a cat or a dog if you think all (any?) Of their natural instincts have been bred out.
Re:Porn use and men's and women's sexual performance by imtringued on Sunday July 24, 2022 @04:35PM (#32217431)
You're right, we are beyond melee weapons, real grown men play with guns.