Where does the desire to mate come from?

"Where does the desire to mate come from?"​

At one time I used to think that desire came from my loins. But now you have asked such a direct question, and now that I'm older, I'm going to have to rethink it.

 

bobcat said:
I'm sure the answer from believers is that it comes from God, so this would be a question for those who don't subscribe to that belief.
Many animals and fish either never see their young or abandon them shortly after birth, so it doesn't seem to be for them to love and nurture.
Why would any organism have the desire or instinct to reproduce itself?
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The sexual urge is based on hormones. Before the hormones start flowing during adolescence the animal is not interested in sex. Then in old age the hormones decrease and sex is not a pressing issue. Bonobo and human females can be receptive to sex year-round and this is unusual. Other animals have seasonal sex cycles. However, here is a very interesting fact
  • In the wild, rhesus monkeys have a seasonal mating cycle, with conception in the fall and winter.

  • In captivity, rhesus monkeys mate year-round, and females are receptive throughout their menstrual cycle.

  • During the menstrual cycle, female rhesus monkeys are most sexually active around ovulation AI
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In captivity, rhesus monkeys are more sexually active and bonobos are matriarchical. Bonobo are organized by females and the protection of others, rather than patriarchal and male-dominated. The important piece is the safety of the young. They saver every feels the more sexual they will be.

However, we should not underestimate the part hormones play in human females. Although a female human may engage in sex if her hormone level is at a low point in her cycle, it is less likely she will enjoy it. She is less likely to engage in sex when it is the wrong time in her cycle. When her cycle is at a high point because of age and where she is in her cycle, she will be like a cat in heat. She may resist the urge, but it is not easy.

Whom we have sex with depends to some degree on smell. Our noses make someone outside of our gene pool more attractive. Also, hormones determine with whom she will have sex. The characteristics of a man she finds attractive depend on where she is in her cycle. The more her hormones are active, the more she will desire an aggressive man and the more apt she is to cheat on her mate. However, when her hormones are low she will choose a nurturing man. A man who is more apt to stay home and help care for the young.

This is now open to more psychological and social issues and the importance of family organization to human survival.
 

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anyone mentioned the garden of Eden yet? - worth a try - there is a cue only for this one I imagine? - lovely story heh?
 
While each person is different, many people experience a higher sex drive during ovulation, or right at the end of the follicular phase, when estrogen is at its highest. One commonly found explanation for the increase in sex drive is the body's biological desire to reproduce.Jan 25, 2023
https://www.rochester.edu/uhs/ask-the-sexpert-sex-drive-and-the-menstrual-cycle/#:~:text=While each person is different,body's biological desire to reproduce.

Ask the Sexpert: Sex drive and the menstrual cycle​

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  1. gruntlabor
    • gruntlabor
    Huh? What you say? I guess I and every woman I know must be abnormal mutant freaks of nature then.


gruntlabor So how do you think things work?​

 
Joey said:
anyone mentioned the garden of Eden yet? - worth a try - there is a cue only for this one I imagine? - lovely story heh?
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I like the story of Pandora and the Box better. You know where Zeus punishes man by giving the first man the first woman, because Prometheus gave man the technology of fire. Zeus didn't want man to have that technology, like God didn't want Adam and Eve to have knowledge. Zeus gave Pandora a wedding gift. Prometheus warned against opening the wedding gift but she did open it anyway and out came all the mercies.

This could not stop man's progress but it slowed that progress down. Now doesn't the Pandora story make more sense? Zeus was afraid if man had the technology of fire he would discover all other technologies and then rival the gods believing they did not need the gods. Now doesn't that make more sense than the Adam and Eve story?
 
bobcat said:
I'm sure the answer from believers is that it comes from God, so this would be a question for those who don't subscribe to that belief.
Many animals and fish either never see their young or abandon them shortly after birth, so it doesn't seem to be for them to love and nurture.
Why would any organism have the desire or instinct to reproduce itself?
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Instinct. Pure and simple. As a living organism, we intrinsically understand that replication is essential.

A lot of what we dress around that is a human thing. But making more of ourselves is simply part of our DNA/genes.
 
VaughanJB said:
Instinct. Pure and simple. As a living organism, we intrinsically understand that replication is essential.

A lot of what we dress around that is a human thing. But making more of ourselves is simply part of our DNA/genes.
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I appreciate the reply, and perhaps I'm getting too inquisitive here, but it still leaves me with the original question. For me, the instinct to reproduce coming from instinct isn't very satisfying. I will try to re-phrase.

How does a single cell organism understand that it's reproduction is essential or necessary? Why wouldn't it just exist and die? Where does any desire to replicate come from? How could it, and why would it have any desire to replicate at all? Still puzzled. :unsure:
 
bobcat said:
I appreciate the reply, and perhaps I'm getting too inquisitive here, but it still leaves me with the original question. For me, the instinct to reproduce coming from instinct isn't very satisfying. I will try to re-phrase.

How does a single cell organism understand that it's reproduction is essential or necessary? Why wouldn't it just exist and die? Where does any desire to replicate come from? How could it, and why would it have any desire to replicate at all? Still puzzled. :unsure:
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I said before but want to add more to it now. A single cell doesn't know what it's doing. It just divides because that's what it does. The fact that it creates another cell is coincidental. But it's a coincidence that perpetuates itself. Human bodies do similar things. We produce insulin to process sugar. We don't have a desire to do that. We just do it. Like cell division, it's a handy coincidence that perpetuates the species.

Now with human sexuality, there is desire. For me that comes from sexual gratification and nothing more, and I don't believe I am alone in this. I never once wanted children. My ex didn't want children either, but we had lots of sex for no other reason than it was fun. While not true in my case, I suppose that many people are instinctive about wanting to procreate. I don't understand why, but I don't need to understand why for it to happen. But happen it will, instinctual or not, and unwanted pregnancies abound. I personally think sexual gratification is all that is needed to perpetuate humans. We can assign "higher meaning" to producing offspring, and that's fine, but unnecessary IMO.
 
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I keep occasionally opening this thread expecting amusement by some of our members that mostly just add jokes because it is an ideal title to do so if there was ever one. 😄
 
JustDave said:
I said before but want to add more to it now. A single cell doesn't know what it's doing. It just divides because that's what it does. The fact that it creates another cell is coincidental. But it's a coincidence that perpetuates itself. Human bodies do similar things. We produce insulin to process sugar. We don't have a desire to do that. We just do it. Like cell division, it's a handy coincidence that perpetuates the species.

Now with human sexuality, there is desire. For me that comes from sexual gratification and nothing more, and I don't believe I am alone in this. I never once wanted children. My ex didn't want children either, but we had lots of sex for no other reason than it was fun. While not true in my case, I suppose that many people are instinctive about wanting to procreate. I don't understand why, but I don't need to understand why for it to happen. But happen it will, instinctual or not, and unwanted pregnancies abound. I personally think sexual gratification is all that is needed to perpetuate humans. We can assign "higher meaning" to producing offspring, and that's fine, but unnecessary IMO.
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Thanks Dave. I think I'm probably asking something that just doesn't have an answer, at least in my mind. To me, cell division is different from mating desire between organisms. Single cells could learn to divide into multi-cell organisms without any desire to become male and female and be attracted to each other.

One could say that there is a genetic benefit for male and female organisms to mate, but how would they know that. It's hard to imagine that they somehow just figured it out.

Perhaps early organisms were somewhere between male and female and somehow the most successful were more gender specific. IDK
 
DNA based organic lifeforms with sexual reproduction, have evolutionary genetic advantages due to superior species evolving cellular mechanisms. DNA itself is bilateral and one might add at its essence, love is bilateral.
 

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