Biologists Do It In Their Genes

Thanks to some dude at Binghamton U in New York, we now have a reason other than our Daddy issues to be promiscuous. It’s in our genes.

Seriously, there was science involved! Beakers and test tubes. Lab coats. Cotton swabs. Sexy, right? Apparently. Science guy Justin Garcia has found a link between a variant of dopamine-receptor-affecting DRD4 and drinking, jumping out of airplanes, and casual sex.

Headline: Science supports sex, drugs, rock and roll.

Justin ‘Bill Nye’ Garcia goes on to moralize his discovery by asserting that this proven predisposition is no excuse for partying and infidelity. Peruse the Internet for ‘slut gene’ and you find a plethora (that’s right) of outbursts at its isolation. Easy now, prudes. Social evolution is in our midst. Which is not to say that morality is devolving – quite the contrary. Think about it: ‘mores’ is Latin for ‘customs’, extrapolated from generations past. “The moral person lives in terms of his or her emotions and needs unless and until this interferes with the rights and interests of others” (hey thanks, http://www.enlit.net/morality.htm). I think we can all agree that infidelity is unacceptable. Eroding the values of others is cruel. Morality, unlike promiscuity, is not biological. And while genetic determinism might be a fashionable excuse, notandi sunt tibi mores (inside-joke alert: ganesh, ganesh). If Bio328 taught me anything, it’s that animal behavior is the evolved result of interactions and environment. An environment with a moral compass that replaces instinctual promiscuity with monogamy. So while some of us may be genetically predisposed to one-night-stands and infidelity, probity keeps it in check. We express our biology in the context of our 21st century society.

Wait a tick. 21st century society where commitment is all but scorned? Canada in 2010, where 50% of marriages end in divorce? Where 99% of the men in this city own various remixes of the played-out track ‘I Just Don’t Want Anything Serious Right Now’ by I’m An Ass-Hat featuring Madame Ex? What exactly is the morality that Dr. G is trying to preserve here?

Despite that little bit of scorned-woman sass (haha? Oh), I’m no cynic. I believe in a thing called love, and maybe someday it’ll come back into style. But I’m not about to let an outdated and inapplicable socio-cultural paradigm negate the existence of DRD4 and the high-risk/high-reward behavior that quenches it. If I want to, I’m going to jump out of a plane, dammit. And when I land, I’m going to want to go up again. In the appropriate company, I’m going to drink. And after making it through that awkward phase of never-drinking-again and noon, I’m probably going to include beers in my regularly scheduled programming. And the same goes for sex. If guys are out there sailing on the coattails of their sexuality in this modern context, refusing to cuddle and heading to a place with no phones for days afterwards, I don’t have to commit either. If I don’t want to, that is… (Ouch, my feeling.)

Obviously, morality has evolved enough to prompt geneticists like Justin Garcia to search for a biological explanation of the impulsivity and hyper-sexuality that rages today. If it stands that I will be judged on my morals, such adjudication would only be negative in contrast to popular conduct. Conduct that today, for all intents and purposes, is teeming with uncommitted sex. With deductive reasoning on my side, it follows that any prevalence of a ‘slut’ gene is socially acceptable in this 21st century morality. I’m golden.

The ‘slut’ gene? More like the ‘awesome’ gene. Tell your friends.

Tick Tock Biological Clock

I had some quality time with a calculator today and discovered that there are less than 1,000 days left until I turn 30.

Not to panic! The Internet tells me that 30 is the new 20! That's 10 extra years I've got to accomplish things. 7 years into it, I'm feeling good.

But there is one thing I wasn't when I was 20 that, with less than 3 years to go, I am now: single (ish).

I look down. I look back up. I'm on a stool at my kitchen counter on a Saturday morning. I did not just close the door behind some chiseled bachelor who does that thing I love. Nay, I'm alone and in sweatpants. Eating cold lasagna for breakfast (don’t judge, it's delicious). A glance in the mirror tells me I’d better wash the dye out of my hair (oh, the upkeep!) before I take my dog for a run in the mud… and by 'run' I clearly mean 'quick pee' because there is lasagna to be snorfeled! Sitting here, basking in my solitude and reading an article about how women over 35 are sold into marriage in 'post'-war Iraq, I'm suddenly saddled by the thought that I myself might hit 35 and still spend Saturday mornings eating leftovers straight from the pan. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it’s just not what I had envisioned for myself when I was 20.

Despite pressing snooze on ye ol’ biological clock these past few years, I’ve finally settled in to the fact that I do want a husband and kids. I think many young girls start to plan out their matrimonial futures from an early age – thanks, MASH – and, being a child with a strict schedule thanks to hard-working (and divorced) parents, I had it all planned out. By the time I was 7, I had, quite logically, planned to be married at 27 (woops), and have 2 sons and a daughter by 32 (yikes). That family portrait also included 2 big, goofy dogs and a wonderful, goofy husband whom I would grill steaks and bake pies for precisely because he didn’t need me to. All nested in a modest but comfortable home. Oh, and of course with a cabin by the water and a chalet on the slopes. Apparently 7-year-old me thought 27-year-old me would marry that werewolf dude from True Blood (inside joke alert: or, Ryan Reynolds). When I was 20, there was still time. When I was 20, I was still following that 7-year-old's plan.

27-year-old me turns to my childhood dreams and says "PSYCH!"

Today, calculator in hand, I have a rough sketch of my reconfigured goals – a few blobs and doodles, really. Career goals, adventure goals (Harley Iron 883, you will be mine), philanthropic goals, and family goals. Like kids. With a husband. I would be lying if I said I’m not window-shopping for one of those. Not that I’m out there in the dating world in a white frilly dress standing at the end of some petal-strewn carpet [retch], but, for me, there’s only so far I can go with someone (emotionally, I mean… quiet, you) if it’s not going to go to there.

20 years ago the average age of marriage was 22. Now, it's 29. That's almost 30 (yay, math). Sociologically speaking there are numerous contributing factors: cost of living, a larger percentage of the population pursuing graduate and post-graduate education, more social options, and a greater acceptance by society to remain available. Accomplishing all the evolved societal 'norms' (a university degree, a house, a car, a job) now requires such a greater commitment of time, it's no surprise that commitments of the heart have been subsequently delayed.

Sure, here I am writing a blog about being single, having professed that I would like to not be one day. About aging and sitting around in sweatpants. Here I am simultaneously reading articles about women in my age-bracket in the Middle East, cringing at their plight. But, even mowing down on cold lasagna, I don't feel like some used car, selling for cheap to make room on the lot for the new 2011s – now with heated seats and locking differential (look it up, boys). Because paramount on my smeared, crumpled list of reconfigured goals, there’s one that’s content with whatever happens, at any age. Whether or not I fall in love again, whether or not I have children. I am settled with my life as I've lived it, as I continue to live it, as I will live it tomorrow. With the possibility of being single at 35. 45. Forever more. Sincerely – not that whole ‘I’m, like, totally enjoying being single!’ delusion that sticky chicks tell nice guys all the time; meanwhile, they’ve got dog-eared back-issues of InStyle Weddings piled on their bed-side table.

Singledom has its great points: discovering and cultivating interests all your own (no golf, thank God); concentrating on yourself and working through all the kinks left by the last ball-&-chain; being completely and utterly selfish in the best way possible. But being in a relationship is also really nice: regular sex. Not that that’s the only thing, but while the other aspects of a relationship are just not there (thanks to my rad hetero life-mates), sex is the only thing I’m actually missing. (Aaaaand there it is – the sex talk. SHOCK!)

If that’s the only thing, that’s not bad! And I don’t need a life-plan to find it (inside joke alert numero dos: thanks, Von). Reviewing my methodology from 20 years ago, I have deviated. I've substituted, edited, amended, and deleted full portions of that map. Those blobs and doodles have no clear path from one to the other. The reality is that I don't have a life-plan anymore. In fact, I don’t need a life-plan at all. I've accomplished things I could never have imagined at 7 years old. Actually, I take solace in the fact that my best-laid plans as a child have not come to fruition. Wouldn’t that be boring?! Not that it’s exciting to have debt and a few broken bricks on the career path, but taking each day as it comes and living it is thrilling. And when I’m 27, single, and thrilled, then I must have done something right.

Besides, time flies when you’re throwing your alarm clock across the room.

Paglia vs. Gaga - Gaga 1

In the Sunday Times, Camille Paglia asks if Lady Gaga is the “end of sex”. Obviously, just no. If details of Bill and Monica’s sexy encounters, if an aging Mick Jagger, if Camille Paglia herself didn’t kill our generation’s collective sex drive, Lady Gaga certainly won’t – and nor is she the harbinger of a slow slump into anti-eroticism. Camille Paglia envisions our generation, enamoured with glowing cell phone screens, with more limber texting thumbs than, well, limbs, so dehumanized that we can no longer read each other’s faces, much less have sex.

Well, Paglia, you aging biddy, you’re wrong. Our generation is having sex, and, as far as I can tell, a lot of it. And while quite a bit is… less than stellar, quite a bit is, well, quite good. The popularity of Lady Gaga does have something to say about our sex lives, but not what Paglia thinks it does.

Sex has been packaged and sold to us our whole lives. Well, not sold – sex has been the plastic package wrapped around other products we’re supposed to buy. As such the sexual images that are everywhere have really very little to do with sex, at least not any sex I’ve ever had. Stiletto heels, lingerie, lips, hair, nails – at least these are things I can somehow associate with sex – but look around, and so much else is really incompatible with the actual experience of having sex. For example, the bodies we see are ludicrous – even with (way more) gym time, surgery, spray tans; even if I had unlimited money and time to spend on making myself look like the person marketed to me as the ideal, I would fail. Most marketing images are retouched beyond any relationship with reality. People with ribs and, you know, elbows (not to mention body fat or pores) cannot look the way women and men in magazines look. I think we know this.

The kinds of sex we see are also ludicrous. Have you ever tried to have sex wearing the kind of shiny apple red lipstick ol’ what’s-her-name sports (ed. note: Leighton Meester) in that (god-awful) music video? Not so hot, 5 minutes in. We don’t have sex in piles of fur, we don’t have sex with pneumatic robots, we don’t have instant orgasms, or fall in love during sex, or fail to sweat (or smile). We don’t have sex on the beach, at least not without a towel (are you fucking kidding me?). Sex doesn’t ruin us, and it doesn’t save us. We aren’t porn stars, we don’t DVDA, we don’t have sex with the pizza delivery guy. That dude smells like pepperoni. Come on.

The sex that is sold to us is beyond ludicrous. Its relationship with actual sex is tenuous, and we know it.

That is the point of Lady Gaga. Her point is not that wearing stilettos and bondage gear to the gym, or a sparkly bra to a baseball game, or ripped fishnets, embellished underwear, and a half-off gold bomber jacket at the airport (the AIRPORT) is sexy. Her point is that it is ludicrous, ridiculous, doesn’t make sense. That it is not sexy. Like, in fact, most of the images of sex we are sold. The outrageous sex we see everywhere has ceased to be titillating, to be sexy, to be, really, anything. Madonna alluding to BJs is not shocking. Nothing is shocking. Lady Gaga is not trying to shock, but to show us how inured to shock we are.

Frankly, Ms. Paglia, you forgot about irony. You dear old thing, you forgot about that now most pedestrian of isms: post-modernism. Gaga may be no Warhol (and, being of Generation Y(awn), I’m bored with both), but she is saying something. And what she is saying is that you have nothing left to say.

Lady Gaga shows us that the public consumption of sex, that sex as commodity, has Escherized itself out of existence. There is no bustier left unturned. She shows us that we’re post-Goatse, post-2G1C, post-Britney and Madonna making out at the VMAs, post-Paglia herself. Gaga shows us that shiny, consumer, packaged sex, that shock sex, that the erotic as product is dead. But isn’t the flip side of that coin that real sex, actual sex, is alive?

Paglia compares Gaga to early Madonna, whom she holds up as an epitome of boundary-pushing sexiness. But Madonna wasn’t really talking about sex – she was talking about our reaction to media portrayals of sex and female sexuality. She was trying to show us how repressed we are. Gaga is showing us how unrepressed we are. How little there is left to say on the subject of public sex. How we have no reaction to commodified, packaged, sex-as-product. Gaga is showing us that the death of sex is dead.

Sex can never die. Like death and taxes, sex is with us. It has to be. Madonna wasn’t sex, just like Britney wasn’t (even post virginity). Sex is between you and me. It is personal. It is real. It is not plastic, it is not packaging, and while it can be sold (we know, Camille, we know), it is not a marketing tool. To use it as such is ludicrous.

Thanks for the lesson, Gaga.

(Photo courtesy of: http://gagadaily.com/2010/06/lady-gaga-attends-baseball-game/)

Fade To Black

For 26 years, I had been a blonde. A bubbly, voluptuous bombshell, let’s say (ha!). On the eve of my 27th birthday, I dyed my platinum hair raven black. Soon after, I began to realize that what I had done was not only an aesthetic modification, but a social adaptation as well. Who has two thumbs and loves social experiments? This girl.

While I’ve heard testimonials from similarly-morphed women that their friends and family opined strongly (and negatively) on the subject, everyone in my immediate circles, both men and women, were supportive and positive. Whether or not they actually believe that it suits me or they’re being kind, I’m just going to take the compliment naively! They knew me as a blonde, and they know me as a brunette now, but I’m still the same person and that’s the only thing that has changed.

Ah, but perhaps not the only thing. Now, with people who never knew me as a blonde, I have found a marked difference in my social interactions. And having had no metric of comparison for the first 26 years of my life, the variation only became notable when I, now a brunette, was asked the question: “So what’s it like with guys now that you’re no longer blonde?”

Yeah, what is it like with guys? I hadn’t thought about it. We’ve all heard that gentlemen prefer blondes (and for the sake of argument, I’m going to lump all men in the ‘gentlemen’ category, even though rifling through my ghosts of exes past reveals no regular superior standard of conduct), but having been a blonde my entire life I wasn’t sure if that was true or not. An experiment looms.

Stand back, I’m about to do science!

Aim:
To determine if blondes really do have more fun.

Hypothesis:
If gentlemen prefer blondes, then brunettes get the short end of the [Freudian slip].

Equipment:
Feminine wiles and a box of Garnier Nutrisse.

Variables:
Control: Blonde hair.
Test: Black hair.

Method:
Let me back up. Biologically speaking, men tend to have darker hair than women. It could be argued that men prefer women with fairer and therefore more feminine hair because attractiveness has been contextualized in terms of gender. Similarly, as a sub-clause of beauty is youth, another point for the Blonde Squad could be that blonde hair often darkens as people age. It’s not surprising, then, that such an experiment could be based on evolutionary theory. To test this, all that needed to happen was to revisit my relations with men once as a blonde, now as a brunette. The same bars, the same clothes, the same jokes, the same fabulous posse. Granted, they weren’t the same guys and they weren’t the same nights, but hey, I’m no scientician.

Results:
The type of guy I tended to attract as a blonde was the typical dude – liked sports, cars, beer, women, and probably blasted Alt-Rock from the speakers of his Jeep. Nice dudes, good intentions for the most part. I fell in love with some of them, and was lucky enough to be loved in return sometimes too. But, obviously, relationships ended and people moved on. And if I review them with complete disregard to any complications therein (and it’s my blog so I can do that with no comments from the peanut gallery, thank you very much), reducing it to base needs/wants reveals that what was lacking was some sort of edge. I just never would have guessed that the one lacking it was me.

In researching this topic (nerd alert), I came across one study hypothesizing that blondes are more aggressive ‘due to constantly being harassed’. As a blonde, there are so many tired generalizations to be experienced, however peripherally. The dumb thing, the man-eater thing, the sticky slut thing... I hadn’t realized I was being pigeon-holed with every move I made, but I see now by its absence that when I was blonde I was evaluated on these things solely because of my hair color. Furthermore, I was probably responding to that sort of contact and judgment with aggression. Form of: vehement rejection. Cat-call me? Fuck off. Lovely.

Now, both men and women treat me with much more respect. Women approach me more, and with a smile instead of the hostile air of feeling intimidated. Men look me in the eye instead of 12 inches lower; they open with a non-sexual comment instead of the lewd remarks to which I had grown accustomed. As a brunette, there are now presumptions that I might be intelligent, I might not steal your boyfriend, and I might not put out on the first date (I said ‘might’). And it’s not that the cat-calls are gone. With similar frequency, now those sorts of comments have an air of deference: I hear ‘You’re beautiful,’ and my response is a much more likable Thank you. My new-found edge is that I’m much more appealing, even to myself.

Conclusion:
Whoa now, what just happened? All of a sudden this is a personal op-ed piece? What happened to measurable science? Well, friends, life just isn’t as easy as 3.14159265... We’re social animals, us humans. We act, we react, we interact. If I, as a blonde, felt like a piece of meat, I don’t as a brunette. And so my own poise is affected thusly. A chicken/egg argument, perhaps, but I sincerely feel as though the ‘respect’ came first. I continue to attract men in no smaller numbers, albeit a new type of man. Goodbye to Civics and popped collars; hello to tats and [gasp!] conversation. And so, I must conclude that my hypothesis was wrong.

Gentlemen, in fact, do not prefer blondes, and brunettes have way more fun.

Besides, a fair complexion is a recessive allele in the inherited genotype. I may be faking being a brunette, but I certainly feel preeminent.

(Credit where credit is due: many facts in this experiment were taken from my memories of university lectures. And, of course, Wikipedia. Photo from: http://myhairisemo.blogspot.com/2009/11/dye-black-hair-blonde.html. Thanks, Internet.)

The First Time

Sex. Of course we'd start off with sex. It's on everyone's mind these days. If you're having it, if you're not having it, when you'll have it next, and that always awkward how you can avoid having it with that guy you've been out with twice now... Without riding on the coattails of every social commentator out there, sex actually is everywhere. And why not? It's just so... FUN.

Sex has become perhaps the only one of 4 measures of compatibility that can, in one fumbling episode, trump the remaining 3. Social connection? Woo! Emotional connection? Aw. Spiritual connection? Amen. But lacking that physical connection? No, I don't want brunch - get out of my bed. And maybe it takes more than one time to test the waters. Maybe a little less wine, maybe a little more stretching beforehand to really get into the 'motion of the ocean' [cringe]. (Maybe a Gravol?) Besides, it's true that it's not the size of the [insert naval penile euphemism here] that matters. Only women with no emotional depth need, uh, girth.

So what is it, then, that fires off those synapses? That makes one neuron say to the other: 'Holler!'? Drum roll please...

Balls. Actual testicles. No, seriously - a man. And we don't mean of the ass-hat variety, although going through our recent trysts, you'd never guess... We mean the confidence to be a man and take control. Check it: we love to fuck (men, not each other... Hey now). We do it often, and with vigor. Sure, we're still delicate flowers, but if one more guy asks 'Is this ok?', so help us... Yes, we are confident. Yes, we know what we want, and we know what we like, and we know what we need. And don't worry, we'll tell you. We'll point this toe and raise that knee and ruin a clean set of sheets. And in our professional, spiritual, emotional, and social lives, we've got it all covered! We take care of business, of ourselves; we're successful; independent; if we want something, we go out and get it. We make every attempt to crash through that glass ceiling with a smile and a great push-up bra. But sometimes, sometimes we just want to be taken care of. Sometimes we want to feel, well, like women.

(I must pause here to exclaim that we are feminists of the truest sort. We, all of us, advocate for equality, choice, and the evolution of women's rights. We respect and love other women, and we respect and love men. Each of us has been lucky enough to enjoy at least one long-term relationship, and while we may not be desperate to get back into another one, we're all enjoying our current varied states. Some of us are in relationships, some of us are in love; for others 'it's complicated!' The point here is that just because the role of women in society is shifting, that doesn't mean that we want to fill the role of men, that we don't still want to be women. In fact...)

In this month's Atlantic there was an interesting article titled "The End of Men: How Women are Taking Control - of Everything." In all the tired analogies depicting women driving 425HP+ cars glossing their lips in the rear-view [how did they get into my car without me noticing?!], men were portrayed whimpering in the dust. Women, for all our past struggles, have necessarily developed support networks and niches in society since before our suffragist foremothers. Groups that have either been created organically, or displaced men in that role. There has been an interchange between men and women; whereas men once brought home the bacon to their apron-clad wives, now more and more men are ceding the bread-winning to their partners, are taking paternity leave, are in the very least collaborating on the important decision-making of the household. Even in areas of our own lives that were once filled by men, we have taken matters into our own hands. Like sex. Sex for procreation is no longer imperative thanks to in-vitro; sex for pleasure has long been in solitude. But what we can't recreate with a battery-powered oscillator is the rest of the, er, package - a man. Although surely some biometric lab is out there somewhere perfecting a prototype, we want a man who will fix the dishwasher (because Lord knows we're too damn busy to wash dishes by hand); a man who will kill spiders, rest their hand on the smalls of our backs, and at the same time that they recognize our vulnerability (and yes, it's there! Just don't tell anyone...), make us feel safe.

And of course, in order to make a man feel like a man, we, as women, need to let him! Sure, we'll make supper when we can. We'll clean house, ask him how his day was with sincerity, let him hold the remote. We might bear his children. We'll love him and honor him, protect his feelings and support him to the best of our abilities. And in daily banter: Can you change my oil, sweetheart? Would you mind opening this jar for me, babe? Could you hang this closet door, honey? While it's possible (nay, probable) that we could do those things ourselves, frankly it doesn't behoove us to fully negate the rubric: 'the fairer sex.' Especially when it comes to when we most desire a man: sex.

So, guys: man up to hot, sweaty, raw, and maybe a little bit dirty sex.

We'll still continue to climb corporate ladders. We'll actually write blogs about enjoying sex. We'll take the reins from 9-5, but afterhours we still need a man.

Just one that can change our flat tire, and then sit in the passenger seat while we floor it and apply fresh lipgloss.