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Originally Posted by Chalice Yao  Without biological urges and instinct, you'd get Spock. Any kind of thrillseeking, indulging in pleasures, the thrill of power, sex, getting territory, securing your home and income, finding partners .. the good feelings you get are all biological rewards for doing the 'right stuff'. Which isn't necessarily the right stuff socially in all of those cases and situations. |
Mother Nature has no interest in morality or ethics, just in results. Did you spawn viable offspring? The twist for humans (and other pack animals) is that the "you" is not necessarily the individual. Our survival strategy broadened to "Did your group spawn viable offspring?"
So we have this potential conflict of interest between what the individual wants and what the group wants. The whole weight of current cultural norms gets slammed down over us and some individuals fit the ideal model of a group member better than others. The worse the fit, the more difficult it is to moderate your behavior.
Speaking as a gay person, it's not easy to completely subordinate our own emotional/erotic fulfillment because what we want doesn't please society. Some of us come out despite the "self-destructive" fallout from society that wrecks careers and estranges us from family. I'm fortunate to live in an era when that external pressure is loosening up a bit.
Conversely, this is an era when powerful men are losing the societal approval for "womanizing", a behavior they used to indulge with impunity. Why would stifling that drive be any easier for them than it is for me?