Daily Blague

¶ "Pas de Deux Of Sexuality Is Written in the Genes," by Nicholas Wade.

Several advances in the last decade have underlined the bizarre fact that the brain is a full-fledged sexual organ, in that the two sexes have profoundly different versions. This is the handiwork of testosterone, which masculinizes the brain as thoroughly as it does the rest of the body.

My spell-checker is unhappy with "masculinize." Otherwise, what's new?

¶ "Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek The Keys to It," by Natalie Angier.

Studies have indicated, for example, that women are likelier to fantasize about sex, masturbate, initiate sex with their mates, wear provocative clothing and frequent singles bars right around ovulation than at any other time of the month. Women obviously can, and do, have sex outside their window of reproductive opportunity, but it makes good Darwinian sense, Dr Wallen said, for them to have some extra oomph while they are fertile.

That's what I want: a PhD in Oomph.

¶ Funny man John Tierney claims that his work on the Flaw-O-Matic, first published in 1995, is corroborated by recent studies of speed-dating. The Flaw-O-Matic is the neural mechanism that accelerates the recognition that the person you're talking to isn't good enough for you.

Being able to make this distinction in a four-minute speed date, the researchers write in the April issue of Psychological Science, "suggests that humans possess an impressive, highly attuned ability to assess such subtleties of romantic attraction. In fact, the need to feel special or unique could be a broad motivation that stretches across people's social lives."

Three words, ending in "Sherlock." Who is funding this research? The people in Ms Angier's other piece, "Search for the Female Equivalent of Viagra Is Helping to Keep Lab Rats Smiling"? Jane Brody writes about "obsolagnium," the technical term for waning sexual desire. And there are three entries in the weekly column, The Claim:

¶ According to studies, timing and sexual position do not influence the sex of the baby.

¶ In studies, about 15 percent of women report having experienced multiple orgasms.

¶ Most men to not report any decrease in satisfaction as a result of circumcision. [There are studies here, too.]

What these articles take for granted is that sex is interesting to read about. I'm in no position to dispute that axiom; I did read most of these articles before picking up the first section of the Times and getting down to the serious business of saving civilization. I'd like to know, though, why sex is interesting to read about, when there's really nothing that can be done about it. Only Ms Brody's article contained useful information, and it was really too obvious to need reiteration: if you want to continue to have a sexual life in your later years, you have to stay fit and alert. Otherwise, your sexuality is not yours to fiddle with. You are stuck with it. You can only hope that it will not send you to prison or land you in a snuff film.

I suppose that sex research serves the useful purpose of dismantling the supports of traditional, patriarchal views about sexuality. Here's another nugget from Ms Angier's principle piece:

The results suggest that having a good set of sexual brakes not only dampens the willingness to commit rape or sexual abuse, but the desire as well, giving the lie to notions that "all men are the same" and would be likely to rape their way through the local maiden population if they thought they could get away with it.

What interests me is the sheer variety of sexualities, which mark us as individually as our tastes in music and habits of speech. "Individualism" has taken on a dark connotation recently, as if it were a belief in "me first." In fact, individualism is the accommodation of unique - intrinsically different - persons by a cohesive social whole that, ideally, has no agenda of its own, i e that has not been commandeered by one or more powerful groups of people who, to some extent, have suppressed their individuality.

The message conveyed by all of this writing is simple: There's nobody quite like you. Good luck finding a mate. Or even a date, for that matter.