Dispatches from the war between the sexes

5 thoughts on “Dispatches from the war between the sexes”

1. This is amazing!! I wonder if women just select the sperm from the “best” male or also select the “best” sperm from a given male?

2. It really opens up a large can of words/worms…..also provides a women a weird defense against rape.

3. Yeah, but if the sperm selection is done based on DNA programming within the woman, this selection would be not be done consciously. For example, the sperm from the rapist could be biologically preferred while the woman herself hates the man who has raped her. On the other hand, maybe hormones play some role whereby the stronger the hormonal response, the more receptive the woman is to selecting sperm from that particular man.

4. Right. Maybe I’m thinking upside down. I wonder if a rapist’s sperm is carrying a chemical messenger either designed to overpower the DNA selection or is detectable by DNA selection. Because rape is definitely a breeding strategy for men and has been for millennia, so one would think there might be, at least for some women, an inbuilt response to allow choice.

   The whole back and forth of the reproductive arms race is a bit like a chess game between closely matched opponents, sometimes.

5. Maybe a woman’s selection process only works with the sperm available at the time of ovulation — taking the best of what’s available. Also, it may be possible that the selection process that evolved over time for women can actually say “No” to some men’s sperm. If this is the case, I hope they are not married and trying to have children. This would be an entirely different category of compatability — for the unfortunate, biologically incompatible.