WOMEN AND POWER

UPDATED VERSION OF VOLTAIRE ESTRUS QUOTE

WOMEN AND POWER

Posted originally on August 6, 2022; updated Aug 13, 2022

Analyze this one: “Whatever special power women possess, if any, arises from their privileged position in the estrus system architecture.–Voltaire”

(Refer to several of my previous posts on this question. Look for the key word “estrus.”)

OK. What might we say? The “estrus system architecture” can refer to the way the estrus system works. In mammals, including humans, the female ovulates and thus becomes sexually receptive (not necessarily sexually needy or urgently sexually needy) only a very small percentage of the time. For example, a female elephant is in estrus only two weeks every two years, or about 2% of the time. This “translates” under what mathematicians might call ergodicity, to only 2% of any given local group of females being in estrus at any given time, AT MOST, because there is also additional “time off” due to pregnancy, rearing of new young, and so on.

Suppose then for example that there are 50 females and 50 males in a local geographical region. Almost always, there is only at most ONE sexually willing female and 50 sexually needy males. This means that there is a HUGE mismatch in sexual supply and demand which always favors the female. She will always have a very large supply of competing potential partners, frankly, desperate to get to her to the point that those with the greatest chance (the largest and strongest) will fight to the death for that chance. Thus the life of a typical male is one of frequent, or even nonstop, very dangerous and strenuous combat, because there is often or always about one female around ready and 50 males contending for her. But the female lives under no such burden, and has an essentially unlimited supply of sexual partners at all times, usually never needing to contend with any other females for sexual partners.

THAT is the architecture of the estrus system. Why might this architecture be relevant to humans in some way? Well, to begin, the consequences of this architecture in individual male phenotypes is that the desire structure of the male must be designed to be always very needy (e.g., with substantial suffering and frustration if he does not succeed in having sex) AND activated to its fullest urgency by the simple presence of ALMOST ANY female phenotype in his detectable vicinity. He never can know when or if there will be such a female around, and so must be always in this state; further his ultimate full activation, in terms of sexual need and tension, is controlled and leveraged solely by the presence of such potential females, not by anything in his internal scheduling. HIS activation principle is HER.

But SHE need not be designed with any such activation principle. In fact she must be designed to be at the very least neutral and, frankly, devoid of any sexual desire entirely during her periods of non-estrus, i.e., about 98% of the time. About 98% of the time she objects to sex and may well find it repulsive. Furthermore, whatever limited form of desire she may experience during that rare time when she does go into estrus need not be designed into her with any real urgency because she will always be surrounded by a plentiful supply of partners. Either she can pick and choose, or the males will pick for her by their battles which ultimately choose a “winner.” Further still, he fullest activation of sexual “desire,” or merely “receptivity,” has NOTHING TO DO with male phenotypes at all. It instead has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ONLY HER CALENDAR, her biologically designed “schedule.” She need neither find any particular male more attractive than any other, nor find any male phenotype attractive in himself at all. Her less extreme feelings about sex depend only on her OWN INTERNAL CALENDAR. In brief, HER activation principle is DEFINITELY NOT HIM.

One can see immediately that the architecture of the estrus system DEMANDS a profound difference in the form, degree, and entire structure of the sexual experience between males and females. How might this have “evolved down to humans”? I’m reminded of what one female roommate of mine once said, perhaps expressing unwittingly the way in which everything just explained MAY INDEED carry over to humans: “Women DO NOT HAVE A SEX DRIVE.” Looking at the above features and structures that MUST BE in our evolutionary history, how could these profound differences NOT persist in some way in humans? Even though the human female may not show the same strong difference in sexual preferences as a function of her calendar, scientists say it is still detectable to some degree. And the essential IMMUNITY TO SEXUAL DESIRE from her evolutionary history must still be there in some deep way, and her desire, such as it may or may not actually be, should be very much less dependent, or possibly even NOT dependent, on activation by HIM, or by comparison of HIS relative superiority or inferiority over other potential males. When she looks at him, that is simply NOT what happens. Of course she may have some OTHER female-specific needs and desires around this whole thing, since male support, effort and commitment to her as she raises her offspring is so crucial to the statistical success of her efforts in those directions. Her “being in love” may have a lot to do with these OTHER needs, which may play a part in triggering her willingness to offer sex to a particular male.

Hmmm. Do these realizations and possibilities ever make you consider the cause of “the world’s oldest profession”? Or, how about, why is there so much more flow of money and labor from men to women than the reverse? Is it that men are inherently good and generous? I doubt it. The still persistent reality of a woman’s privileged position in the architecture of the estrus system appears to be evident, and may be the basis of most female sexual power, or frankly, most female power period. Note though a human variation: Human males strongly prefer only a small percentage of females, generally the young, sexy ones, who are always a small minority of the overall female population. Most females, even most young or nubile ones, are either only barely attractive to males or not sexually attractive AT ALL. Consider that “stick female” from high school with the ugly face, or the very fat ones, or the 90-year old wizened, obese one. Do you really want to have sex with THEM? So, this gives the “sexy ones” a great deal of power, given the other realities we’ve just considered.

Well, hmmm again. Samuel Johnson might have been branded the greatest writer in English of all time were it not for his bad luck of having Shakespeare around. Samuel Johnson wrote this very interesting little sentence: “Women have so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.” Passing over the “political correctness” of what the law, and culture too, back then may have done, there’s something catchy about that proclamation, then and now. I wonder if he could explain things the way we just did. I don’t think Darwin was born yet. But, who knows? DO women have then a biological form of power, at least some of them? What do YOU think, readers? (If my blog even has ANY readers….ha!)