bhe Secret Haven

   Of all the splendidly ridiculous, transcendently fulfilling things human do ,it`s sex--with its countless permutations of practices and partners--that most confounds understanding. What  in the world are we doing? Why in the world are we so consumed by it? The impulse to procreate may lie at the heart of sex, but like the impulse to nourish ourselves ,it is merely the starting point for an astonishingly varied banquet. Bursting from our sexual center is a whole spangle of other things- arts, songs, romance, obsession, rapture, sorrow, companionship, love even violence and criminality- all playing enormous role in everything from our physical health to our emotional health, to our politics, our communities  our very life spans.    Why should this be so? Did nature simply overload us in the mating department , hot wiring us for the sex that is so central to survival of species, and never mind the sometimes sloppy consequences? Or is there something smarter and subtler at work, some larger interplay among sexuality, life and what it means to be human? can evolution program for poetry, or does it simply want children?    If there`s indeed much more than babies involved in the reasons for sex, were clearly not the first species to benefit from that fact. Even among the nonhuman orders, sex appears to be regularly practiced for a whole range of nonproductive reasons with  a wide range of community-building benefits. How else to explain the fact that homosexual behavior in more that 450 species?    So what gives? and don`t say simply that sex is fun .Just as there`s more sex than babies, there`s also more to it than fun.                                     

Leave a Reply