A world without men? Are they really necessary?

[mismused]

delete

 

[rgraham666]

Speechless.

There was a book I read years ago entitled "Gender Genocide" where men were on the verge of extinction. Women made a point of hunting them down and killing "the pigs".

They used all the genetic techniques offered here. It wasn't helping.

It wasn't just men who were dying off, but the whole human species. It couldn't continue to exist with half of it gone. It worked about as well a yin without the yang.

And women are just as guilty of the sins that you lay at men's feet. We're less different than you suppose.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Maybe it's just coincidence, but I teach kindergarten and my gender ratios are way off: about 18 girls and 6 boys. I think I need a sherry just from the awful implications! Good thing I'm bi.

 

[Liar]

Doesn't look like any diatribe, no.

Can't find any discussion topos though. First of all, "It has been proposed" doesn't tell me much. It has also been proposed that dinosaurs bones are put into the ground manually by Gawd almighty.

What is it that now, all of a sudden, would change the genetic development in such a drastic way, as to break the spieces off from how mammals have functioned since they came into existance? (some 130 mil. years ago or earlier but thaqt's the first fossile reference to them I can find at short notice)

Any scientific reference for this, or is it just one step up on the plausibility scale of science fiction from morlocks?

The reasons? Consistently weakening sperm; a woeful Y chromosome where a father passes on mutated genes to his offspring whereby he, the offspring, will be infertile -- the instances of this are recurring regularly and decimating the Y chromosome, or so they say

Eh... Common sense tells me that a mutation causing infertility will null and void itself since it by definition can not be passed on.

 

[Zayrina]

I did a web serch on the topic and could not find anything. Do you have any online references?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Ursula LaGuin did a book (Lefthand of Darkness, I think) where the entire planet was inhabited by men. Once in each man's life they would metamorphisis into a woman to procreate. LeGuin wrote this was the only time in their lives when they were really whole. I barfed

 

[yui]

This screwy-ish.

Sorry, but I'd want to play with men, regardless of their ability to procreate. It's not always a case of needing, per se; I’d mostly just want one or two or a slew of them because I typically like them rather well.

 

[AchtungNight]

I take this opportunity to plug the excellent comic series "Y the Last Man" which is about the thread's topic.

 

[SeaCat]

Before any jump on this right off the bat as another anti-men diatribe, please read it all, or go somewhere else where your blood pressure won't jump astronomically.

It has been proposed that the male of the species will disappear in about 500 more generations. Using conservative number of 25 years between generations (or is that liberal?), that comes out to 125,000 years. The reasons? Consistently weakening sperm; a woeful Y chromosome where a father passes on mutated genes to his offspring whereby he, the offspring, will be infertile -- the instances of this are recurring regularly and decimating the Y chromosome, or so they say -- or possibly mDNA (female mitochondria) affecting males at formative times in the womb to influence them to become homosexual (not intentionally on the part of the women themselves, but something in the "natural" fight between male/female chromosomes).

Before anyone says, "Well, that's a long time away," be aware that the effects will surely be felt much sooner, and more than cause a stir.

There are a couple of things that are being looked at. One is an Adonis chomosome with no Y chromosome. There are xx males (since the SRY (Sex determining Region on the Y chromosome) has been found elsewhere other than in the Y chromosome at times.

Another possibility would be to simply eliminate men anyway. There is said to be only one obstacle to be overcome to effectively do this, and that is the "imprinting" that is done whereby each "contributed" set of chromosomes erases some genes; female/female may erase the same gene, and thereby keep them from replicating/being copied by the other set of genes not now affected by the "opposite" partner. Lesbians are likely to like this option should it ever come to pass (I can just hear the clarion call of the churches). If men are still available, or become available as they are now, their daughters so conceived are said to be able to conceive in the "normal" way.

Invitro fertilization is said to have provided the rationale for this.

Should this become possible, the "species" could go on forever since mitocondrial DNA does not have the problems of the Y chromosome, and many benefits could possibly be incurred.

There are many things that can be looked at in this thread. For those posters who like theads like this, and what they can offer intellectually, or the possible knowledge into what the future may hold (besides war, etc.), have fun, and let your imaginations fly, and your research flourish. In your considerations, you may wish to stay away from what the "churhes" would say so as not to start a war that would deviate from what this thread can offer.

For those inclined to simply poke fun at things, or thead jack, well, it is a free Literotica, so do as you see fit, but others may like to kick a few things around first. Consideration?

ETA: There is said to be a novel by a biologist/journalist with regard to one of the possibilities mentioned here.

PW/OFC.

Mis,

I would be highly interested to see/hear where this information is coming from. The concept is different but not unlikely, but I would like to see the scientific information.

There are lower groupings of animals which are Polymorphic, but they are lower groupings. Somehow I don't see the Human Race going this way.

I have read several sci-Fi books on this subject, and while they were interesting none of them directed their attention to the science behnd the proliferation of the female species.

Cat

 

[3113]

Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula LaGuin did a book (Lefthand of Darkness, I think) where the entire planet was inhabited by men. Once in each man's life they would metamorphisis into a woman to procreate. LeGuin wrote this was the only time in their lives when they were really whole. I barfed

Actually, that's not quite correct. The main character is a human being who refers to all the aliens as "he" but in reality they're all "it"--neither male nor female. At certain times they go into heat, as it were, and take on a sex at such times, male OR female. And then they can procreate.

The idea for LeGuin was to (1) explore a species where everyone on the planet had been both mother and father--they'd all experienced childbirth as well as fathering a child, (2) explore the underlying assumptions of gender stereotypes.

The story is really about how the human protagonist learns to get past gender stereotyping.

It was an interesting experiment for a book at that time, and made LeGuin famous, but she often said her major mistake was having all the aliens refered to as "He" rather than some neutral word like "Sah" because readers of the book mistakenly thought that the aliens were always male and turned female.

 

[3113]

Any scientific reference for this, or is it just one step up on the plausibility scale of science fiction from morlocks?

Eh... Common sense tells me that a mutation causing infertility will null and void itself since it by definition can not be passed on.

LOL! Thanks Liar, I couldn't have put it better myself.

Unless we get some solid science backing this, I seriously doubt this is anything more than one of those strange, alarmist, scientific myths that pop up now and then.

 

[R. Richard]

Ursula LaGuin did a book (Lefthand of Darkness, I think) where the entire planet was inhabited by men. Once in each man's life they would metamorphisis into a woman to procreate. LeGuin wrote this was the only time in their lives when they were really whole. I barfed

I would have laughed. Each man could, at best, replicate himself. Inevitably, some men would not successfully replicate themselves. The species would dwindle into extinction.

 

[Seattle Zack]

125,000 years from now, aren't we going to have our consciousness implanted into robots when our bodies give out? There's no way to imagine what scientific leaps will take place in a hundred years, let alone a hundred thousand. We'll be able to create our own children, by manipulating their genes to create every trait we desire. Crude reproduction by natural random selection will be a thing of the past.

Science has only had about 6,000 years to work on this mystery we call the universe. Give it a little credit. Got a long way to go.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Here's a story by Joanna Russ on the subject; "When It Changed"
And an essay afterwards, I edit to say.

Comments?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

125,000 years from now, aren't we going to have our consciousness implanted into robots when our bodies give out? There's no way to imagine what scientific leaps will take place in a hundred years, let alone a hundred thousand. We'll be able to create our own children, by manipulating their genes to create every trait we desire. Crude reproduction by natural random selection will be a thing of the past.

Science has only had about 6,000 years to work on this mystery we call the universe. Give it a little credit. Got a long way to go.

The only reason we have sexes now is to facilitate genetic mixing which drives evolution. If you can do that in a test tube then either sex or both are expendable.

But Zack's right. To think that we'll have men and women and lesbians and procreational or even recreational sex as we now know it in 125,000 years is kind of narrow-minded.

Kind of like Austrolopithecenes sitting around speculating about how great the flint hand axes will be in 125,000 years.

 

[mack_the_knife]

Far more of immediate concern is the ability we already possess to select our offspring's gender with some facility. In certain cultures, which will remain unnamed, male children are FAR more prized than female. If such a technology becomes affordable, could this not lead to whole generations with a huge male population percentage among those cultures.

The question becomes - who are all these highly valued young men going to marry?

In fifty years, the more balanced viewpoint cultures may have to spend huge amounts of energy and effort to beat back the ravening hordes after their women!

 

[matriarch]

The general concept of rapidly declining male fertility levels has been in the news for a few years, I remember reading several articles on this topic. The decline has been causing a lot of worry for the future, and there's research going on to try and find out why. I believe fish and crocodiles got a mention, but I'm still looking to try and find the reference.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Remember in the 80'ies, when media was telling us that there were more women than men in the world, and therefor women had to fight each other to get a man before the other did, and women were encouraged to get married asap, or they might not end up married at all?

I have no numbers, but a lot of women believed this crap, and rushed of to find a man, ANY man, to marry, because they were afraid that they might die childless and alone.

I believe this kind of "news" is another attempt to frighten women off the career path and into marriage, with the shivering hope that said women will also choose to be housewives instead of married career women.

To add another bit of gender balance info to the discussion, I read that there are typically more girls born than boys during peacetime, whereas the pendulum swings over to the boys' side during wartime. Like, Mother Nature compensates for the loss of men during wars by making more boys being born. This ofcourse sounds rather improbable, because if it was true then Sweden would have nothing but girls, and USA would have nothing but boys...

 

[Liar]

I would have laughed. Each man could, at best, replicate himself. Inevitably, some men would not successfully replicate themselves. The species would dwindle into extinction.

Um... wouldn't that be based on the assumption that each man can only make one replica?

If not my previous statement applies:
Common sense tells me that a mutation causing infertility will null and void itself since it by definition can not be passed on.

 

[Liar]

Kind of like Austrolopithecenes sitting around speculating about how great the flint hand axes will be in 125,000 years.

And look at them axes now. Got hybrid engines and internets-tubes and exchangeable ass ticklers and stuff. Spiffy as damn, and just as Grok Jr predicted. Grok Sr and his "Why son, dem will be bigger, or course." prophecy can go fuck himself.

 

[NoJo]

As people here have noted, this is an old sci-fi theme.

Sexual reproduction is actually a puzzling phenomenon to Darwinians. Once it emerged, the evolutionary advantage of having two sexes (increased diversity in the gene pool) ensured its future. But how on earth did it emerge in the first place?

I suppose we have enough human sperm in the world right now that we could build a large warehouse of the stuff and keep huminity going for a few million years, with women themsleves providing the eggs and the incubators (we're not even close to creating artifical wombs).

The rate of genetic variation would decrease slightly (because half of the gene pool, in the sperm bank, would be static), but I'd guess that would be compensated by the increased efficiency of the selection process.

 

[Liar]

As people here have noted, this is an old sci-fi theme.

Sexual reproduction is actually a puzzling phenomenon to Darwinians. Once it emerged, the evolutionary advantage of having two sexes (increased diversity in the gene pool) ensured its future. But how on earth did it emerge in the first place?

One might wonder why the Intelligent Design posse doesn't use that as an arguemnt then instead of that damn eye, then. Probably because it's got the word "sex" in it and they fear to catch perv cooties from saying it.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

I watched this with my daughter on the Most Extreme on the Discovery Channel one night. It was a very informative, but short piece. I don't know if that is where you saw this too, but when I saw it made me think - - it won't be allowed to happen. . . by then we'd have our fingers so into human cloning our government wouldn't allow the male species to become extinct.

I can believe it is happening though, the causes *shrugs* no clue, but the ratio of men/women is a gap that is growing and the ladies are winning.

From my understanding ( a news bit on Good Morning America years ago ) Natural blondes are disappearing also. . .

We are all creatures created by either a God you chose to believe in or not. . .or we are creatures of that evolution theory. . .if evolution than we are just like the animals, eventually we too can suffer the effects of the world around us and parts of our races can go extinct.

 

[NoJo]

One might wonder why the Intelligent Design posse doesn't use that as an arguemnt then instead of that damn eye, then. Probably because it's got the word "sex" in it and they fear to catch perv cooties from saying it.

ID people spend most of their time focusing on the rotating flagellum in certain bacteria, the only known time when a wheel mechanism has evolved naturally, which is also puzzling to Darwinists.

The problem for Darwinists is that the evolution of any adaptation has to be gradual.

 

[rgraham666]

If I may? I'm going to be a bit of a language asshole here.

Please don't use 'species' to describe male and female. It really bugs me and to my mind increase the culturally imposed divide between us.

'Male' and 'female' are genders. 'Human' is our species.