"Are we designed to be sexual omnivores?"

I loved this talk. Take a few minutes and watch it. This guy, Christopher Ryan, is quite an interesting person. 

There are a few sentences in his talk which I really like to quote:

"To argue that our ancestors were sexual omnivores is no more a criticism of monogamy than to argue that our ancestors were dietary omnivores is a criticism of vegetarianism. You can chose to be a vegetarian but don't think just because you made that decision bacon suddenly stops smelling good."

"It's time we move beyond Mars and Venus because the truth is that men are from Africa and women are from Africa."

I also liked the quote mentioned in the video by E. O. Wilson:

"All that we can surmise of human kind's genetic history argues for a more liberal sexual morality, in which sexual practices are to be regarded first as binding devices and only second as means of procreation."

I didn't know much about Female Copulatory Vocalization in other primates. Ryan doesn't explain much about it in this talk. I read about it after watching the video and realized wow! It is really interesting how correlated FCV seems to be with promiscuity in different ape species. You might find this article by Ryan in Psychology Today informative. 

Well, I will end with this quote by Arthur Schopenhauer that Ryan mentions answering the question at the end of the talk: 

"Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."

I liked this quote a lot. I finally found a saying to convey what I generally think about free will through it!

I have started to read about this whole concept of Victorian morality more. I might write about it in future... 

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Such a great few months it was for movie lovers. I really liked American Hustle as I did like the previous movie by this guy David O. Russel; Silver Linings Playbook I mean. I just lovvve both Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. I've only seen these two movies by Russel so far but thinking to watch some other ones. Anyone in!??! In this post though I'm going to write about her. 

Well, I guess almost everyone knows the premise. A guy falls in love with his OS. After all it is sci-fi and you can find some scenes that seem really too unrealistic or superficial. Some people might find some scenes a bit creepy too. I agree the scene the guy and his OS named Samantha, "had sex together" to me was a bit stupid maybe. He could have worked more on that scene or even could have totally escaped from putting his foot in that puddle. For example he could let them talk about some last night that they had sex without showing anything, just dialogues and then leave the rest to the audience imagination*. 

Something else is also interesting to me. So before having sex with the OS, one night the guy can't fall asleep and all he has to do is take his phone and find someone random online and they would talk a bit to turn each other on and then masturbate. Something very similar to what some people do in online chatrooms these days. I doubt if anyone finds what happens in that scene very weird. It's not allien since we have been exposed to something very similar for quite a while. Interactive porn websites and channels are there to turn people on... Later in the movie, almost the same thing happens with the OS. They talk and have sex. The OS is way more normal and believable than the girl he talked with on the phone a few nights before. Samantha won't ask him to "choke her with the dead cat by the bed"!!! 

It's interesting and weird at the same time that we find it important whether the female voice talking to the guy belongs to a human or an OS. It's all about our mindsets, right!? It's ironic how calling someone totally random and talking to them is not alien to us just because we have been practicing something very similar for a few years now. It's amazing to me how our moral and social paradigms can change over the course of a few years but it's hard for us to foresee and connect to a small perturbation to the imperatives we have at the moment.  

Overall I really liked the movie. It was a bit long for me. Though I have this problem with most of the movies! Joaquin Phoenix did a great great job. He almost carries the whole load of the acting for the most part of the two-hour movie.  

I talked with a friend afterwards and he mentioned an interesting point. The fact that you never know how technology is changing human relationships, intimate and sexual relationships included. Then he gave a good example. That there are people these days who argue having a pet** is what many people need not having a baby. That if you don't want to continue living through passing on copies of your genes for whatever reason you've got, you still can meet some of your needs with less work and effort. You can still love a creature which would love you back and would depend on you. Some emotions are going on there between you two and after all you don't have to send them to school or college. Maybe one day human emotional relationships change in a way that they would be more fulfilling to us while less time and energy consuming comparing to what we are used to these days. You never know what future brings mankind or maybe the other way around, you never know what kinda future mankind creates or both! 

Watch this video. I really really liked it. They talk to public figures and ask them about their thoughts on the movie and emotional intimate relationships in general. It's interesting to hear what they think. You can find a comedian, an author, a psychotherapist, a producer, ... Don't miss it!

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*/ Maybe a little bit out of context and maybe not, Abbas Kiarostami, the international well known Iranian director has a great quote which I really love: 

"I want to create the type of cinema that shows by not showing. This is very different from most movies nowadays, which are not literally pornographic but are in essence pornographic, because they show so much that they take away any possibility of imagining things for ourselves. My aim is to give the chance to create as much as possible in our minds, through creativity and imagination. I want to tap the hidden information that's within yourself and that you probably didn't even know existed inside you."


**/ On a different note I remember how I was impressed by a part in Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", where he describes the emotional relationship between a human and a dog. There is a very nice movie based on the book, which I strongly recommend. As always at least to me the book is way more interesting but one cannot deny the good quality of the movie.