xerox writes:
The possible answers are 1) a loss of sexual interest, 2) loosing interest in the partner, 3) both... a) one as a function of the other or b) as a function of something else.
Off to a better start, xerox, but you forget another scenario here:
her losing sexual interest in
him. I suspect most men - in fact, anything human - can detect the less-than delighted responses to repetitively monogamous sex. In the case of lost enthusiasm on the part of women, it is written off to a lack of enthusiasm for sex itself. This in itself is a protective thought for men; it becomes a situational license to roam.
A glance at the surprising results of modern paternity testing ought to make it perfectly clear that neither men nor women are completely suited to the breeding model upon which socio-patrician concerns base themselves. In fact, the tendency to 'wander' on the part of women is the patrician's greatest concern, and hence the heavy-handed social system of breeding control (whose is whose). Her punishment for stepping outside of this configuration cascades down through numerous social forces still kept, irrationally, in place. There are many names for women who share an appetite for partner variety, but none of those adjectives is "normal." This, we seem to think, is the "nature" reserved only for men.
Perhaps those DNA tests indicate more than whose is whose: perhaps they reveal a program of genetic variety that is
natural (i.e. not-thought/unconscious) for women to pursue (more than one father for her breeding capacity), just as many here tend to consider male sexual appetite as 'unconscious.' If women are considered, as they are often considered,
naturally more monogamous than males, then why the great difficulty keeping this whole control of sexual access and breeding practices in place? Oh, right! Someone wants to tell me it's because
women are incapable of ethical and moral thought and action. "Moral" as in - you are remanded to one partner, little missy, whereas myself . . . well, my 'higher morals' make it natural for me to variously roam . . . .
I would imagine that any right-thinking male would take pause over the very situation of modernity with which he takes exception. Her access to resources/livelihood without his historic interference places a great and substantial crack in the foundation of patrician breeding practices.
She is not stuck with
him anymore - not just for her shelter, sustenance, and social inclusion, but for the
identity of her children. Yet this thought tends to terrify the modern man, who still sees her sexuality in need of his control, because it is
he who needs to know whose is whose; he who demands systematic access. And he, who is rewarded by following the rules of patriarchy by finding a socially sanctioned hole in which to repeat himself
ad nauseum . . . .
Then one wonders at a 'loss of interest?'
Luckily for him, his social system will permit him sexual access that flies under the radar, too, as long as he's discrete (pornography, prostitution, sex-slave market, etc.). Law enforcement takes it in turns to wink and look the other way.
Men and women alike suffer from innumerable dissatisfactions from this operative model of social
order. Its sheer repetitiveness is of the sisyphusian variety of spirit-crushing activities. Can't remember where Nietzsche pointed this out (so I paraphrase): identifying differences is intellectual child's play, compared to the seeing of the samenesses in things.
xerox:
A male mouse with one female mouse, will go at it and then his sexual interest will suddenly fall off sharply. Introduce another female and his sexual interest is again piqued. This can go on idefinately and the male mouse never looses interest in sex, as long as its having sex with a different female.
Patriarchal "science." You want to see a wave instead of a particle; you'll see a wave. This male mouse does not go on "indefinitely." He responds to the estrus cycle of the female, just as every other mammal does.
Except the human. His great social ordering of sexual access to suit his appetite and identify his young is the leviathan under which he also crushes himself; and he takes everything else with him - women and children - as he goes down . . . .
I might venture a thought that the human species - out from under these patrician practices of breeding obsession and
more aligned with the sexual nature of females (cyclical, varietal and not constant) could even-out a world population and back the species off from its
fateful patriarchal hangover of multiply, multiply, multiply . . . . fuck, fuck, fuck . . . .