Sex and evolution: companion web site

In class today we watched Why Sex?, a film from the seven-part PBS series on evolution. PBS has produced a companion website where you can review some of the key lessons of the film and explore more about the relationship between sex and evolution.

In particular, I encourage you to read Matt Ridley’s essay, The Advantages of Sex. How do Ridley’s arguments relate to assigned readings from last week?

You can also search the Evolution Library at the PBS site to find excerpts from the film, including segments on the Red Queen, songbird infidelity, sweaty t-shirts and human mate choice, and chimpanzee and bonobo sex.

What did you understand to be the key lessons of the film? Are there particular points that you found interesting, compelling, or overstated?

Reaction paper guidelines online

As you know, the first reaction paper is due on Friday, September 19. The general scope of the assignment is explained in the syllabus, but full details on the assignment are now online. Simply go to the syllabus and scroll down to the section about the reaction papers. There you’ll find a link to the full guidelines (in PDF format). Or you can jump straight to the PDF from here.

Event: Gainesville’s Stomping Out AIDS

A colleague from the Alachua County Health Department shared a note with me from the organizer of an upcoming community event, “Gainesville’s Stomping Out AIDS.” The event will take place on December 6, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. Organizers are seeking individual volunteers and groups to participate. See the full note below for details.

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Who hyped Gardisil?

One of the goals of this course is to help you think critically about how you know what you think you know about human sexuality. Among other things, this goal means learning to think critically about how the media covers news related to sexuality. That issue is the focus of a recent post on the New York Times Well blog, in which Tara Parker-Pope considers the media’s role in hyping Gardasil as “the only cervical cancer vaccine.”

Parker-Pope points out that, lately, the media has questioned Gardasil’s efficacy and the way it was marketed. But a new report from a branch of the conservative Media Research Center suggests that media observers weren’t always so critical. On the contrary, the report argues that the news media, not just the drug’s manufacturer, helped to stir the hype over Gardasil.

Read the full report and leave a comment to share your thoughts. What role and responsibilities do the media and pharmaceutical industry have in disseminating information about sexuality?

Sexy Song of the Week: I’m a Slave 4 U

britney Before the babies, the baldness, and the breakdown, no one can deny Britney Spears was the Princess of Pop. If there was any modicum of girlhood innocence in her early hits, all the, uh-hm, gloves came off with her 2001 Britney album. The frustrated pop star was publicly and professionally articulating that she had matured into a self-assured woman. The first single off the album was the dance track “I’m a slave for you.”

Spears opens the song with “I need to do what I feel like doing, so let me go.” She croons about being unable to control herself around her paramour and expressing her sexuality through dancing. The chorus extols: “I’m a slave for you. I cannot hold it; I cannot control it. I’m a slave for you. I won’t deny it; I’m not trying to hide it.”

The original video is set ambiguously at sunset or possibly at dawn in a very steamy, urban high rise building. Britney, glistening with sweat and wearing a pink thong on the outside of her leather pants, dances suggestively with a scantily clad, equally sweaty troupe. However, it was Britney’s unforgettable 2002 VMA performance that took the primal theme of “I’m a slave” to the next level. Repositioning the setting from the urban jungle to the tropical jungle, the stage production features a lion, dancers in tribal costumes with body paint, and, at one point, Britney gyrating with a giant, yellow anaconda.

Aside from being visually and audibly sexy and sensual, this song can be linked to the themes in this week’s readings. In your textbook Carroll describes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding human sexuality, from social learning to psychological to biological. (You can refer to the chart on pg 38). And de Waal and Diamond interestingly compare the sexual habits of non-human primates.

Discussion: Use this blog post to comment on the content of the song and videos, but also ponder themes in the reading. Why is the nature-based, primal analogy Britney presents so convincing and pervasive? (Think Duran Duran’s “Hungry like the wolf?”) Are we a slave to our biology? To our needs for reproduction and resources? Why are we attracted to certain types of partners? Or are we a slave to something else that is culturally learned or cognitive? Which of the theories examined do you find most interesting or convincing and why? (Also, aren’t you just pulling for Britney to finally make a great comeback?)

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