PZ Myers. 2005 Oct 09. National PornSunday, with fornicating fish. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/national_pornsunday/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Sunday, October 09, 2005
National PornSunday, with fornicating fish
If you didn't already know, Pharyngula does try to promote a healthy, sex-positive image of carnal activity, with the occasional explicit description of animals going at it. Here are few examples if you want to celebrate PornSunday with some real variety.
Lobster sex
Worm porn!
Octopus sex
Tentacle sex
How to evolve a vulva
Fish courtship and sex
Spider Kama Sutra
Penis evolution
Sex in the MRI
Remember, though, that just because spiders and squid do it their way, you don't have to. And you probably can't, anyway.
In case you hadn't noticed, it's National PornSunday! It's a strange event promoted by a couple of Christian ministers who seem to be disturbed by the "secret shame" of Christians who look at pornography, and are making a big noise about it. (I rather cynically suspect that they've discovered that sermons about pornography are a great way to pack the pews.) They cite some statistics that I presume are supposed to be shocking:
- Number of pornographic web sites: 4.2 Million
- People who regularly visit Internet porn web sites daily: 40 million
- Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home: 47%
- Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 65% male - 35% female
- 30% of unsolicited e-mails contain pornographic materials
- Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
- Porn revenue is larger than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
- US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC at $6.2 billion.
I can't vouch for those statistics, and they don't give their sources. There are some interesting contradictions there: if 47% of Christians claim pornography is a "major problem", doesn't that suggest that the figure of 40 million daily porn viewers is an underestimate? It's also not clear exactly what they propose to do about it, and they are simply implicitly assuming that there is a problem here.
If we assume their numbers are somewhat accurate, though, what is that problem? What they tell us is that people like sex. This is not a surprise. We're fascinated by sex, we're curious about our bodies, and we also have curious monkey-minds that are attracted to the forbidden. When I see that pornography is such a huge industry, and given that it doesn't and shouldn't harm the viewer, I think the proper response is to embrace it, not tell people they should shun it or feel guilty or take action to shut it down. Why not be open about it, and work to alleviate genuine problems within the industry, like the exploitation of women, its potential as vehicle for sexual harassment, and the psychological problems of viewers who are obsessive about it?
Personally, I don't find pornography that stimulating, and am not particularly interested in promoting it…but I do think it would be good for society if we did have a healthier, less guilt-filled attitude towards perfectly normal physical functions. For one thing, more open-mindedness about sex and reproduction might make pathological stories of parental abuse of their teenagers rarer. Instead of a day where we try to make people feel wrong about their normal interest in sex, I think we should make this a day where we feel good about it—a National HealthySexDay!
In the spirit of subverting PornSunday, here is a QuickTime movie of copulating zebrafish (730K), made by a couple of students in my lab, Matt Enke and Jason Ward. It's very short—only about 2 seconds long—but that's because I've cut out all the foreplay. The fish spend around 20 minutes nuzzling and chasing each other, and engaging in various displays that I'm sure the fish find very stimulating, but are rather cryptic to my mammalian eyes.
You may find everything about fish behavior utterly cryptic, so here are a few annotated frames from the short movie to help you puzzle out what's going on. Download the movie and follow along! Single-stepping through the frames will make it easier—otherwise, it's going to look like the fastest boink you've ever seen, and if you blink you'll miss all the fun.
The mating male and female start out swimming closely with one another, rising up towards the middle of the tank.
The loving pair swim in a tight pas de deux.
Suddenly, the two twist and swing their pelvic fins together. Notice the third fish following along attentively.
Money shot! The little arrows point to a few of the cloud of eggs that suddenly spurt out; the male also ejaculates simultaneously. The third fish's attentions turn to the eggs.
The female has jetted away quickly, while the male follows. Note the kinky, hungry female pointed to by the red arrow; she has risen up into the cloud of eggs and sperm and is about to suck one down.
Wasn't that beautiful and fun? I suspect my fish are also happier and better adjusted than any gang of repressed Puritans you can find.
If you'd like to see this sort of thing going on in your house, I'll mention that healthy, well-fed zebrafish, Danio rerio, are routinely frisky. Their sexual behavior is on a circadian rhythm, and they respond to dawn's light with regular orgies, every day. It's easy to stimulate—get up early and turn the light on in your aquarium—and it's easy to spot, with very excited fish darting about and tangling up in wild slippery balls of roiling sexual activity.
It's also a good marker. When my fish stop having sex every day, I know that they are feeling stressed or ill or exhausted or aren't getting their proper nutrition. And when I see people afflicted with repressive Christianity that turns sex into a shameful activity, I can't help but make the comparison with a disease.
(crossposted to The American Street)
Posted by PZ Myers on 10/09 at 12:00 PM
Godlessness • Science • 2 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
Godlessness • Science • 2 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
- Every Sunday is Porn Sunday! In fact, it doesn't even need to land on a Sunday!
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Geez, zebrafish males are all minutemen.
#: Posted by on 10/09 at 12:33 PM
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Yes, we're fascinated by sex all right. Just a couple weeks ago, my husband and I were lucky enough to spot a couple of orb weaver spiders in the midst of courtship. We couldn't help but watch. It was a very tenative affair. The male both really wanted the sex, and really didn't want to get eaten. It was fascinating, and I knew what it was thanks to your Spider Kama Sutra page.
Now I can also thank you for the fish porn.#: Posted by on 10/09 at 01:23 PM -
"people like sex"
I didn't like sex until I found Pharyngula, but now I'm Porn Again! Lemme at that cephalopod porn!#: Posted by on 10/09 at 01:26 PM - Nice video and photos. I think I'll download them and save them for later. Is that healthy?
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Heh heh....
This brings to mind a rather amusing visit with some *very* religious in-laws a year or two ago. These in-laws are *extremely* fundamentalistic -- the entire house was filled with religious posters, knick-knacks, etc., with pictures of Jesus and Biblical verses adorning the walls almost everywhere you looked. The kids were at the time attending a private church-school, the father was a youth minister/teacher at the church, etc. etc.. All the family's social activities revolved around the church. Kids were not allowed to watch TV, and DVD's/videos were *always* pre-screened by the parents before the kids were allowed to watch them.
We spent the night at their house; we slept in the den/entertainment room where they kept their PC. The PC -- hooked up to a cable-modem and left on 24/7 -- was Dad's toy (kids were allowed to use it only under strict supervision).
Well, I woke up very early the morning after we arrived, and not having anything better to do, decided to check some of my favorite subversive web-sites while every one else was still sleeping. The first web-site I visited was juancole.com. But as soon as I typed the letters "ju", the browser's history/auto-complete function offered up "juicyboobs.com"! Whoa! I quickly found out that no matter what I typed into the URL window, the browser's history feature would offer me a rich assortment of dirty website URL's (some with which appeared to have embedded user id's). There were dozens and dozens of XXX web-sites in the browser's history cache. At that point, I decided that the PC was just too radioactive and found myself a day-old newspaper to read instead. (Amusing note: right next to this PC with god-knows-how-many dirty pictures in the browser cache was a bookshelf packed with religious books, including some well-known anti-evolution titles and most of the "Left Behind" series).
Now both kids were 7-8 years old at the time, so I know that it wasn't a matter of a hormone-soaked teenager poking around the naughty corners of the web. It looked like the very strict, fundamentalist youth-minister father had quite a little "midnight-fixation" with porn... This wasn't just a matter of a quick peak now and then at playboy.com -- this was *serious* porn-surfing action.#: Posted by on 10/09 at 01:33 PM -
Did they get those stats from the porn industry itself? Because pornographers exaggerate the size of everything.
#: Posted by on 10/09 at 02:25 PM
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As long as the male has the female home by midnight, what's the harm? Unless her dad does an egg count--how embarrassing! She better hide that "Dry T-shirt" trophy too...
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"I'm Porn Again!" I love that.
I think caerbannog points out the true engine behind the porn industry (no pun intended). The more forbidden something is for an individual the greater the appeal and temptation, and it’s no secret that pornography is just as “rampant” among the Religious Right as it is with everyone else - perhaps more. If the U.S. suddenly abandoned its Puritan sensibilities and hang-ups over sex, the porn industry would be in big trouble. - Fish are an excellent choice for subverting Porn Sunday, PZ--compared to them, tetrapods are so vanilla.
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Seems to me that the existence of a powerful sex drive helps to prove evolution rather than divine creation.
Would an omniscient God, intent on designing a successful human species, really have created mankind with a procreation mechanism that is so corrosively contrary to God's plan and morals?
The fact that sex is so addictive is a proof point for evolution as opposed to creation.#: Posted by on 10/09 at 03:26 PM -
Well, from the paper of the town I was born in:
((BLacklisted item found?? A LINK to a newspaper article?))
it notes that there, too, a couple of churches are doing it.
In this article, Shadowy Obsession Now a Sermon Topic they state (formatting pretty much their's):
A 1989 study by Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, "Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Consideration," examined the impact of non-violent pornography on traditional values about marriage and family.
They exposed participants to pornography during hourly sessions over a six-week period.
Survey on family values
After one week, participants were asked to complete a family values survey.
Results found that endorsement of marriage as an important institution fell from 60 percent in the control group to 39 percent in the treatment group. The treatment group also wanted fewer children.
You know, there is so much left out of this summary of the research, one can't even think it of any value.#: Posted by John M. Price on 10/09 at 03:48 PM -
If women are far more likely than men to have multiple partners, casual sex, and extramarital affairs, who are they having all this sex *with*? I can only think of two likely explanations:
- There's even more Hawt Girl-On-Girl Luvvin' going on than even the porn industry would have us believe.
- Somebody has invented an activity that only counts as 'sex' for the female partner, not the male. (Or, more seriously, reporting bias to that effect.)#: Posted by Geoffrey Brent on 10/09 at 04:43 PM -
The chief complaint I have about pornography on the web is that it's not erotic. It tends to be quite clinical -- a real turn-off for most kids, I'd think -- and unromantic completely.
So why bother with it?#: Posted by on 10/09 at 05:32 PM -
It's very short—only about 2 seconds long—but that's because I've cut out all the foreplay.
Now, if only would could use science as an excuse for that with women...#: Posted by on 10/09 at 06:06 PM -
Zebrafish? No black-&-white striping, no brushy manes, no hooves? Are you sure you're working with the right species? (Besides, how could fish evolve from zebras? There ain't no transitional fossils!)
Meanwhile, you should prepare yourself (and yr lawyer) for a federal visit:
U.S. Attorney's Porn Fight Gets Bad Reviews
[by] Julie Kay, Daily Business Review, 08-30-2005
When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.
Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?
The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.
Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local law enforcement officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office. They say there are far more important issues in a high-crime area like South Florida, which is an international hub at risk for terrorism, money laundering and other dangerous activities.
His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections.
Acosta, who told the Daily Business Review last month that prosecuting obscenity was a priority for Gonzales, did not return calls for comment.
... The Mississippi-based American Family Association and other Christian conservative groups have pressured the Justice Department to take action against pornography. ...
Sources say Acosta was told by the FBI officials during last month's meeting that obscenity prosecution would have to be handled by the crimes against children unit. But that unit is already overworked and would have to take agents off cases of child endangerment to work on adult porn cases. Acosta replied that this was Attorney General Gonzales' mandate. ...
So I guess it doesn't matter if you can prove those fish are over 21...#: Posted by on 10/09 at 06:08 PM -
Interestingly, there is a blog with plenty of photos of nude women that links to Tangled Bank. Have any other hosts noticed this? It's almost a playboy among blogs.
#: Posted by GrrlScientist on 10/09 at 06:33 PM
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"we also have curious monkey-minds that are attracted to the forbidden"
with 4.2 million porn sites I don't know how you would classify it as forbidden...#: Posted by the amazing kim on 10/09 at 09:05 PM -
I regularly waste money chatting with nude ladies at peekshows and flirt4free. My girlfriend's and my schedules don't coordinate very often, so i use porn chat to occupy my time until i can have the real thing. I really should own stock in the Kleenex company.
#: Posted by on 10/09 at 09:58 PM
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One of the unfortunate legacies of our history is this nasty streak of Puritanism that keeps rearing its ridiculous head. It's not merely quaint, it's a form of pathological misanthropy.
-jcr#: Posted by on 10/10 at 02:50 AM -
For one thing, more open-mindedness about sex and reproduction might make pathological stories of parental abuse of their teenagers rarer.
Theodore Dalrymple would disagree. One needs to read several of his essays to get the point.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_oh_to_be.html
A single case can be illuminating, especially when it is statistically banal—in other words, not at all exceptional. Yesterday, for example, a 21-year-old woman consulted me, claiming to be depressed. She had swallowed an overdose of her antidepressants and then called an ambulance.
....
My patient already had had three children by three different men, by no means unusual among my patients, or indeed in the country as a whole. The father of her first child had been violent, and she had left him; the second died in an accident while driving a stolen car; the third, with whom she had been living, had demanded that she should leave his apartment because, a week after their child was born, he decided that he no longer wished to live with her. (The discovery of incompatibility a week after the birth of a child is now so common as to be statistically normal.) She had nowhere to go, no one to fall back on, and the hospital was a temporary sanctuary from her woes. She hoped that we would fix her up with some accommodation.
She could not return to her mother, because of conflict with her "stepfather," or her mother's latest boyfriend, who, in fact, was only nine years older than she and seven years younger than her mother. This compression of the generations is also now a common pattern and is seldom a recipe for happiness. (It goes without saying that her own father had disappeared at her birth, and she had never seen him since.) The latest boyfriend in this kind of ménage either wants the daughter around to abuse her sexually or else wants her out of the house as being a nuisance and an unnecessary expense. This boyfriend wanted her out of the house, and set about creating an atmosphere certain to make her leave as soon as possible.
The father of her first child had, of course, recognized her vulnerability. A girl of 16 living on her own is easy prey. He beat her from the first, being drunken, possessive, and jealous, as well as flagrantly unfaithful. She thought that a child would make him more responsible—sober him up and calm him down. It had the reverse effect. She left him.
The father of her second child was a career criminal, already imprisoned several times. A drug addict who took whatever drugs he could get, he died under the influence. She had known all about his past before she had his child.
The father of her third child was much older than she. It was he who suggested that they have a child—in fact he demanded it as a condition of staying with her. He had five children already by three different women, none of whom he supported in any way whatever.
The conditions for the perpetuation of evil were now complete. She was a young woman who would not want to remain alone, without a man, for very long; but with three children already, she would attract precisely the kind of man, like the father of her first child—of whom there are now many—looking for vulnerable, exploitable women. More than likely, at least one of them (for there would undoubtedly be a succession of them) would abuse her children sexually, physically, or both.
She was, of course, a victim of her mother's behavior at a time when she had little control over her destiny. Her mother had thought that her own sexual liaison was more important than the welfare of her child, a common way of thinking in today's welfare Britain. That same day, for example, I was consulted by a young woman whose mother's consort had raped her many times between the ages of eight and 15, with her mother's full knowledge. Her mother had allowed this solely so that her relationship with her consort might continue. It could happen that my patient will one day do the same thing.
My patient was not just a victim of her mother, however: she had knowingly borne children of men of whom no good could be expected. She knew perfectly well the consequences and the meaning of what she was doing, as her reaction to something that I said to her—and say to hundreds of women patients in a similar situation—proved: next time you are thinking of going out with a man, bring him to me for my inspection, and I'll tell you if you can go out with him.
This never fails to make the most wretched, the most "depressed" of women smile broadly or laugh heartily. They know exactly what I mean, and I need not spell it out further. They know that I mean that most of the men they have chosen have their evil written all over them, sometimes quite literally in the form of tattoos, saying "FUCK OFF" or "MAD DOG." And they understand that if I can spot the evil instantly, because they know what I would look for, so can they—and therefore they are in large part responsible for their own downfall at the hands of evil men.
Moreover, they are aware that I believe that it is both foolish and wicked to have children by men without having considered even for a second or a fraction of a second whether the men have any qualities that might make them good fathers. Mistakes are possible, of course: a man may turn out not to be as expected. But not even to consider the question is to act as irresponsibly as it is possible for a human being to act. It is knowingly to increase the sum of evil in the world, and sooner or later the summation of small evils leads to the triumph of evil itself.
My patient did not start out with the intention of abetting, much less of committing, evil. And yet her refusal to take seriously and act upon the signs that she saw and the knowledge that she had was not the consequence of blindness and ignorance. It was utterly willful. She knew from her own experience, and that of many people around her, that her choices, based on the pleasure or the desire of the moment, would lead to the misery and suffering not only of herself, but—especially—of her own children.
This truly is not so much the banality as the frivolity of evil: the elevation of passing pleasure for oneself over the long-term misery of others to whom one owes a duty. What better phrase than the frivolity of evil describes the conduct of a mother who turns her own 14-year-old child out of doors because her latest boyfriend does not want him or her in the house? And what better phrase describes the attitude of those intellectuals who see in this conduct nothing but an extension of human freedom and choice, another thread in life's rich tapestry?
Lack of sexual freedom is not the problem above. Elsewhere we find that 40% of children are born out of wedlock in England.
Also see:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-all_sex.html
Is this going to be a question of ideology - i.e., some Christians are concerned, and they must be wrong? - or are we going to look at the actual evidence of what happens? - Those are terrible stories, but they don't suggest to me that open-mindedness about sex and reproduction is the problem. Drug addiction, crime, and a lack of responsibility are the issues. Being sex-positive does not mean we encourage children to run out and get pregnant by a drug addict.
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are we going to look at the actual evidence of what happens?
Let's look at the actual evidence. You've drawn a correlation between desperate, compulsive sex and child abuse, but I am not sure that the causality lies exactly there, nor that it is unidirectional even if it does. Perhaps another factor causes both--how do you establish causality in this case? For example, do other mothers who don't act out sexually otherwise abuse their children? And are there mothers that act self-destructively sexually, but make sure to protect their children from it? The presence of either of those would dilute your correlation.
And even if you do establish the particular causality you imply, what does any of that have to do with sex-positivity? I do not see anyone here advocating acting destructively and self-destructively out of sexual compulsion, but rather constructively out of freedom and openness and respect for others; your model is of something entirely different, if not even opposite. Do you really not see the distinction between the two? -
Elsewhere we find that 40% of children are born out of wedlock in England.
In Sweden this figure is more than 50%, if I remember correctly. It's not because there are a lot of single parents, but because a lot of couples just don't marry. -
"If women are far more likely than men to have multiple partners, casual sex, and extramarital affairs..."
And yet males form 65% of visitors to porn sites...
I've read somewhere that a larger percentage of women are having sex with a smaller percentage of men, leaving most guys with a smaller number of women. In most polygynist species (remember, in ancient times polygyny was common among humans), a smaller number of males have access to a larger number of females, leaving most males with less females to sate their desires.#: Posted by on 10/10 at 07:25 AM -
'Open-mindedness' equates to the 'sexual freedom' (sic) discussed above in about the same way that the study of ballistics and medicine equates to drive-by shootings.
So, who *are* 'those intellectuals who see in this conduct nothing but an extension of human freedom and choice, another thread in life's rich tapestry'? While people disagree greatly about the causes and proper remedies for such behaviour, I'm having trouble thinking of any intellectuals who would see this story as anything other than deplorable. I smell straw, which is a pity, because up to that point he's making a lot of sense.#: Posted by Geoffrey Brent on 10/10 at 07:26 AM -
There are some interesting contradictions there: if 47% of Christians claim pornography is a "major problem", doesn't that suggest that the figure of 40 million daily porn viewers is an underestimate?
Not if you remember that it takes much less than "daily viewing" for Christians to consider it a "major problem." (Honestly, I'd bet that even if there was only one daily viewer, a large percentage of Christians could be convinced that it is a "major problem.") -
Well, 40 million may visit pr0n sites daily, but, if 47% of Christians think it's a big problem, maybe they difference visit them weekly or something. I occassionally indulge in visiting such websites, but it might be more a twice-a-week thing than a once-a-day thing. If I were a conservative Christian type, I might consider that a problem while still not being among the 40 million daily visitors.
I have to say, the XXXChurch site is pretty well done. I also think that some liberals (e.g., Amanda, whose post directed me here) get a little bit carried away in their enthusiasm for pr0n. I mean, much of it is fine, high-quality entertainment, but I don't think the industry needs unpaid promoters (it sorta reminds me of when McDonalds or something makes use of unpaid conservative activists to promote their products because the activists think something like, "well, those Supersize Me-watching liberals don't like it, so I MUST promote it!"#: Posted by on 10/10 at 09:56 AM -
a mother who turns her own 14-year-old child out of doors because her latest boyfriend does not want him or her in the house
Which intellectuals ... see in this conduct nothing but an extension of human freedom and choice, another thread in life's rich tapestry?
I think most people, intellectual or not, would see this as serious psychopathology.#: Posted by on 10/10 at 11:41 AM -
With the recently released photos of the giant squid, the titilating details of squid sex have been making the rounds. The latest article is "Love is a battlefield for the giant squid", which ties the subject into the Right's reaction to the March of the Penguins movie.
Here's the money quote:
[Squid (s)expert] O'Shea says he's working with the Discovery Channel to make a documentary about the lives of squid - one unlikely perhaps to be embraced by the religious right the way March of the Penguins has been.
Yet in their way, the giant squid uphold admirable family values, since they risk life and limb to spawn the next generation. Of course, just as penguins have been caught in gay unions, so some male squid have washed up with sperm injected into their arms. "Homosexuality is rife among cephalopods," O'Shea says.
But these squid probably aren't really gay. They don't have the luxury of expressing a sexual preference. They're just horny, he says. "And it's really dark down there."
#: Posted by on 10/10 at 05:05 PM - Man, I think you've totally missed the boat. This ministry is all about helping those who are addicted. They're not out to tell everyone that they are wrong and should feel guilty. Another point is that, you mention we should not shun our feelings of sex and our body... but we should not use porn to exploit that. We should not go to something or someone else besides our wife. It's unhealthy. It breaks the relationship. The point of this particular ministry is to simply get the word out, they let the church and other ministries worry about follow up and have relationships with other ministries that do that, like http://www.pureonline.com. They aren't out to force a guilt trip on someone, just be available to help those who are addicted and know they need help.
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We should not go to something or someone else besides our wife. It's unhealthy. It breaks the relationship.
Says who? -
I would assume the 47% "major problem" stat and the 40 million daily views have a simple explanation that harmonizes them...
... the "major problem" consists not only of web porn, but of non-web porn.
Like, oh, Playboy, or videos or ...#: Posted by on 10/30 at 02:56 AM