How one judges an aspect of modern culture is really based upon their perspective. The perspective of an individual filters how the information received is understood. Pornography is an area of modern culture that is hotly debated; however, these debates can never be resolved because they are all based on the critics' perspective. Better argued opinions are simply chosen as "more right," often subjectively. These perspectives are merely more aspects of modern culture. How can one area of culture be objectively understood through the perception of another area of culture? The goal of this paper is to show that pornographic culture should be viewed, not with culturally biased perceptions, but with a scientific perspective; specifically that of evolutionary psychology. Doing so will reveal pornography to be a product of, and outlet for, our biological predispositions.
[...] To understand the characteristics of these mechanisms evolutionary psychology brings together many scientific disciplines, including evolutionary biology, cognitive science, behavioral ecology, ethnology (hunter-gatherer studies), social anthropology, biological anthropology, primatology, and neurobiology (Wikipedia). This interdisciplinary approach finds that what, today, is termed culture is ultimately the expression of evolved adaptive mechanisms. The behaviors which humans now exhibit were being selected for long before we were humans. At first glance this perspective seems to suggest that behaviors and culture should be the same everywhere. [...]
[...] For evolutionary psychology to shed any light on this genre, transexualism and transvestitism must be biologically based. I argue they are in fact biological as typified by Indian and Hopi transgenders, and hermaphrodites. There have been ethnographic reports on Hopi transgendered males who dress like women, marry men, and take on all the occupational roles of women. In India there is a whole cast especially for transgender males. Hermaphrodites are born into the Hijra cast and many men join it by excising their genitals. [...]
[...] Through different surveys he found that men preferred polyandrous pornography and content analyses revealed that pornography depicting multiple male on female was over twice as common as multiple female on male (Pound 456). This evidence provides a good explanation for some aspects of pornography. It shows that, with the help of capitalism, human's evolutionary psychology is shaping modern pornographic culture. Unfortunately, sperm competition only explains a limited range of pornographic culture. Incest porn is an area of pornographic culture which is hotly debated, but is waiting to be understood with evolutionary psychology. [...]
[...] Continuing to examine pornographic culture, and any area for culture for that matter, with evolutionary psychology will continue to give meaningful insights into the results of our humanity. Works Cited "Evolutionary psychology." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia Dec 2006, 04:13 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc Dec 2006 < http:>. Forberg, Frederick Charles. Manual of Classical Erotology Grove Press Gaulin, Steven, and Donald H. McBurney. Evolutionary Psychology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Guthrie, R. Dale. The Nature of Paleolithic Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Haig, David. [...]
[...] In Evolutionary Psychology the authors explain we can't be happy all of the and why we love our pets so much. There are also explanations for sharing, cheating, and many more. Although textbooks have already been written on evolutionary psychology it is still a relatively young science. Many areas of culture are left untapped. Almost all of modern pornographic culture remains unexplored, but cross- cultural evidence supports an evolutionary explanation for some aspects of pornography. If a behavior is found through time and across all cultures, there is a good chance it has an important biological basis. [...]
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