Ok, clearly this picture may be the biggest "What the fuck?!" you have ever seen. Its called tentacle porn and its big in Japan. Squid and octopus are seen as symbols of lust in Japanese culture. No, it does nothing for me. At all.
Clearly, sexual behavior is done in a lot of very different ways around the world. That's just part of being human, I think. The basic "in out, in out" is the same all over the planet but everyone has different thoughts on the subject. Human beings are very fluid, versatile creatures, which has helped us over the millenia to overcome unexpected challenges. Different experiences in different parts of the globe lead to very different cultures. Clearly.
This difference of approach to sex can both confuse and improve our understanding of human behavior. Do we as a species instinctively know how to have sex? In my American culture, it would seem like we do. Then again, we are surrounded by sexual metaphors, jokes, images and innuendos. We learn quickly and at a fairly young age. (I was attending sex education classes at age ten.) Other countries have more more strict ways of dealing with sex, if they deal with it before the act at all.
China is very much an example of a country with little to no sex education. This seems counter productive, considering China's notorious One Child Policy, which tries to limit and even reverse that country's huge population. The Chinese government has had no problem in the past with forcing abortions on women that have more than one child, so it was surprising to hear that that nation's 13 million abortions every year is a cause for concern for Beijing.
As with American women who have abortions, the majority of Chinese women who have had them are in their 20's (62%) and single. Unlike American women, half of the Chinese abortion seekers didnt use any form of birth control. "Sex education needs to be strengthened, with universities and our society giving more guidance," said Peking University professor Li Ying. That may sound like something you might also hear in America, but the facts are different in China. A survey of callers to a hotline found that only 17% knew about the existence of sexually transmitted diseases and 30% knew how to prevent pregnancy.
The college age generation is now more sexually liberal than even slightly older Chinese, but have no more formal sex education. College student Hu Jing entered college a virgin and by the time she and four of her room mates had graduated, all of them had had sex. One of the girls had three abortions in one year. When Hu and her boyfriend first tried to sleep together, they knew to use a condom, but didnt know how. She tried to learn about contraception from an ancient Chinese poem.
What's this got to do with evolutionary biology? Just my thoughts: Here in the US, birth control usage is common. This makes it difficult for researchers to find out what would happen in a place with a "pre industrial" society, one that is closer to the world that our ancestors evolved in. China provides such a place. Contraception seems like it may as well not exist. Take the woman that had three abortions in one year, just because she and her boyfriend likely knew nothing about birth control. This young, probably healthy woman managed to get pregnant three times in one year. Another on a message board claimed to have had four abortions in a year. This should say something about the ease in which young people can procreate, as well as their desire to do so even after several abortions. They certainly dont seem effected by Post Abortion Stress Syndrome.
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