Biology and "friends with benifits"

*This post is instead of the massive, many delayed post I had been working on about racial disparities in the US. I found that topic so depressing that, I decided to put up something about booty calls instead. Enjoy


Salon had an interview with the author of the study "Positioning the Booty Call on the Spectrum of Relationships", Peter K. Jonason of the University of South Alabama.

It is an interesting read, sure to anger all sorts of people. It is provocative, with out being particularly hyperbolic. But I think his comment at the end of the interview is what will make it most controversial:

As much as you want to escape your biology, there it is, in your face. Humans have the illusion that they can escape their biology, but we're just like any other animal, the difference is our leash is longer. It appears that we have all this freedom to make these choices, but we really don't.

This is really the crux of it. Not that we can not evolve, but that as a species we ignore the role our biology plays in even our most basic interactions. We lie to ourselves, and do a great disservice as well, when we think that we are better then we actually are. We ignore our "flaws" and pretend that they are purely an intellectual construct. They are not.

Maybe when we come to grips with that, we can actually make some forward progress.

All that being said, I found the paper amazingly interesting. Hopefully you will take the time to
read it and the interview. It presents human relationships in for more transactional sort of light.

-Cheers