SEX

See, I got your attention! I can see your eyes lit up when you saw the word SEX. This three letter word attracts people like magnets. That is the power of the word; it makes the world go round. Now that you are here, I won’t disappoint you, let’s talk sex.

“Birds do it, bees do it, and humans since the dawn of time have done it.”

Even though speaking of sex is a taboo in many societies, it sells like hot cakes. In fact, even hot cakes do not sell close to as much as sex. It runs a billion dollar porn industry. Every second ~28,258 internet users are glued to pornography. Even though pornography is said to be a product of Victorian England, we find numerous forms of erotic arts in many ancient cultures, specially India. The history of prostitution goes all the way back to antiquity. We find it mentioned even in the 3700 years old Code of Hammurabi. So why is sex so attractive?

It is the single most enjoyable act on earth! Good try, but it does not really give the full answer. It only modifies the question to, why is sex such an enjoyable act. 

No sex no us, more sex more us. A very good answer. But we must not forget that sex is not the only method available to life for reproduction. Asexual method of reproduction came first and is still seen in flatworms and many microbes. May be even asexual method of reproduction gave the same pleasure. So whenever the asexual you felt the urge you could have reproduced. It would have been more effective as we could have saved a lot of time (and money) involved is finding (and maintaining) a partner (and mating). Not only sex drains out our precious nutrient resources, it also means, compared to asexual reproduction, the chances of replication of individual genes are halved. So, the question comes back, why is sex so attractive?

The answer lies in our good old philosopher Charles Darwin’s famous quote “survival of the fittest”. However, the answer did not come from human beings but from some genetically modified yeasts. A study done on them showed that the yeasts reproducing sexually were more hardier and had better chances of survival under stressful conditions compared to their asexual counterparts. 

"Bingo! Sex indeed is beneficial" 

It also gives genetic diversity to the offspring. This simply means that there is plenty to choose from. A sexually reproducing human being can have a choice of an Indian, a Chinese, an African or a white-skinned partner. However, the unfortunate (and virtual) asexually reproducing human being won’t have that choice. That choice helps in immune system diversity to keep ahead of parasites and pathogens. Evolution preferred sexual organisms compared to the asexual ones. 

Different people get different amount of pleasure during sex, which might be hereditary. In that case, people who got more pleasure had more sex and hence had more children to transfer their genes. On the other hand, people who got less pleasure, had less sex, and hence had less children to transfer their genes. Thus, with time, those people who got more pleasure dominated, and the ones who got less pleasure perished. That's how human beings became sex-maniac. 

"The pleasure associated with sex is a nature’s way of helping us survive"