(Untitled)

[golgibody]

WATER BABBY 2: RETURN OF THE WATER BABBYI don't understand why the nerve endings that make uterine contractions hurt haven't been selected against. I mean, heart and diaphragm and stomach contractions don't hurt, and that's not even touching on voluntary muscles. And you'd think it would be a disadvantageous trait in the wild for some women to be

Comments

[revolves]

I... assume the fact that early female humans were pregnant all the time might have something to do with it, even though the state of pregnancy isn't particularly advantageous to the species' fitness: pregnant women are slow and their cries for double strawberry fudge ripple ice cream before it was even invented would surely call the sabretooths to their camps. 8Db

THREADJACK

[lokogato]

Actually there is reasonable evidence that early human women practiced a number of methods to avoid being pregnant all the time, including breastfeeding for a longer period of time, early abortion, and primitive birth control of some sort. The archaeological record seems to show that during the hunting-and-gathering period, women typically spaced out their children -- if they had any -- by about four to five years. The pregnant and barefoot phenomenon is actually a consequence of settled agrarian culture! Even then, women usually found various ways to space out their childbearing enough to make it adaptable.

Uhm ... /random dump of shit I learned last year in school that I never get a chance to talk about fna;slkfdjf

Re: THREADJACK

[golgibody]

WHICH THEN makes you wonder why female bodies can get pregnant so often in the first place.

............. I just typed 'why female bodies can pregnant so often.'

Re: THREADJACK

[thethunder_said]

LOLOLOLO THIS IS A DAMN GOOD POINT. Life would be easier if we just had periods of heat! Though idk if that would mean that nobody would be interested in sex outside of those periods. I suspect society would be a lot more peaceful but a lot less sexually pleasurable in that case. Baw

Re: THREADJACK

[golgibody]

Yeeeah, I don't think most animals with heat cycles have sex for pleasure unless the female is in heat. IT'S A TOSS-UP I guess. And you know pregnancy cycles would still be regular (and probably frequent) if we just went into heat, and there would be less flexibility.

That makes sense, but idk, two years still isn't very much if it's every two years.

Re: THREADJACK

[thethunder_said]

EH BAW BAW and yeah hahahaha that's true, super on-the-clock pregnancy cycles. Not that that'd necessarily be bad. But then you run the risk of male humans developing barbed penes like tomcats have.

YEAH ... but then again I think fertility (and lifespan for that matter) was a briefer period then? Given poor nutrition &c

Re: THREADJACK

[golgibody]

I don't think heat cycles necessarily imply barbed penes. That's just cats.

This is probably true. Then again, if your lifespan is shorter it'd still be a significant percentage of your life. . .

GUESS WHO IT IS KRRKRKK

[deathrattling]

SOUNDS LIKE A REASONABLE EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE, THOUGH. Though apparently human males already have sperm that's designed to try and kill other male's sperm, so.

That's depressingly true. I mean their lives weren't terrific to begin with, lolol, short brutal and nasty and also babby.

Re: GUESS WHO IT IS KRRKRKK

[golgibody]

OKAY SEE we wouldn't need it then.

Ours are long and boring and also babby. I think it's a toss-up.

Re: THREADJACK

[thethunder_said]

* And by during hunter-gathering times I actually mean "up until the late 1800s".

[golgibody]

That makes you wonder why people even exist. I guess the men would put a lot of effort into protecting the pregnant women so their genes can live on and stuff, but there's only so much you can do for a pregnant woman being chased by a sabretoothed tiger.

[thethunder_said]

(ASSUMING THEY EVEN KNEW PATERNITY omfg I need to get more sleep and threadjack less)

[golgibody]

They wouldn't need to know paternity if all the males protected all the females. Kind of like how in some animal groups, once babby is born it is cared for by everyone, because babby is babby regardless of whose babby it is.

AND GO TO BED, JESUS.

[thethunder_said]

THIS IS TRUE although sadly I think the actual case was that if the sabre-toothed tiger attacked whilst they were unaware the men ran like shit and women had to figure out what to do themselves. HENCE RECENT TREND OF FEMALE-BASED THREAT RESPONSES BEING DIFFERENT FROM MALE RESPONSES. If they were prepared I think they just appeased the beasties with old people and chilluns. U REMEMBER THIS FROM KOLMAN CLASS RIGHT.

No, I woke up really early and was like WHY.

[golgibody]

I don't really remember that. And that's definitely not evolutionarily advantageous, so I'm skeptical.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[thethunder_said]

LOLOL WHAT, THE CAVE SLEEPING PATTERN? When hunter-gathering tribes found a cave to set up camp in and be prepared they slept with the old and the young out at the cave mouth so hopefully the nomming beastie would be appeased by their flesh and not rampage any deeper into the cave and kill the adults of childbearing age, thus leaving enough people to continue to propagate the species! As for men running like shit, that's the fight-or-flight thing lolololo apparently recent studies have shown that women have a markedly different response to the same kinds of fear/threat stimuli used to determine fight-or-flight, probably evolved because they did have to defend themselves as a matter of course. Fact of the matter is that in such a society I imagine pregnant women would be a drag for everyone, not to mention the babby she carried would be a useless extra mouth to feed, so I don't think they were particularly valuable ...

EXACTLY LIKE THAT YES