About intergender relations it is necessary to remember that it is the whole species, and not just the genes that reproduce. Humankind appears to have been very precariously balanced for ecological survival until the neolithic revolution. The high degree of homogeneity of our genes suggests that we are all descended from a few thousand individuals, who must have come close to dying out all together.
Birth is so infrequent and so hazardous, and dependency so long that there needs to be mechanisms that on balance bond not only parents together but older members of the larger family group to maintain some culture and expertise.
Another point I would make is that men and women, are fascinated by the idea of trust and deception, but these sort of articles implies that we are primarily either being honest, or being deceitful. In fact many actions take place in an intuitive context in which certain aspects of them are partly conscious to the individual and partially not in the forefront of consciousness. We often do not really know why we are attracted to one another.
At 26/04/01 00:11 -0400, you wrote:
>>http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999667
>>Sex, lies and monogamy
>>
>>At the heart of all long-term relationships lies a fundamental deception
>>- disguised fertility
>>
>>Exclusive from New Scientist magazine
>>
>>Women only stay with men for security, and men only stay with women for
>>sex. It's a cynical view of human relationships, but researchers now say
>>it is the driving force behind the evolution of monogamy - and women
>>started it. By offering sex all the time, females in monogamous species
>>disguise whether they are fertile and trick males into sticking around.
>>
>>In most species, females only have sex when they are fertile. This is
>>because sex takes energy, and carries the risk of disease. But it also
>>means males can easily tell which females are fertile, so they don't
>>waste time on mates that won't get pregnant.
>>[snip]
>
>***** The FABULOUS kingdom of GAY animals
><http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1999/03/cov_15featurea.html>
I quick web search revealed a longer and more thoughtful New Scientist review on this book too:
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990807/queercreat.html
My understanding is that this type of research suggests that same sex intimate behaviour is recognised in many species, and is therefore "natural". I think the evidence also suggests that the frequency of this behaviour is usually heavily skewed towards heterosexual contacts. But there is no clear cut off point. This is completely comfortable for no-one on the spectrum.
IMO tenderness and competition are closely inter-related and may mingle with dominance rituals which are important in most traditional societies for regulating social behaviour.
Evolutionary psychology can undoubtedly be applied in a simplistic reductionist manner. But if interpreted in the context of the whole community, and realising there are no neat boundaries that nature has to make, it has lots of suggestive points to make. The book "Evolutionary Psychiatry: a New Beginning, by Anthony Stevens and John Price (1996) suggests that one of the tests of evolutionary psychology is whether it can address the issues of sado-masochism and homosexual behaviour. My impression was that they did, and reasonably plausibly given the limited scientifically structured data.
Chris Burford
London