Daze Reader

Newitz on slutty voles

http://www.dazereader.com/24000525.htm "Sex, Drugs and Stupidity". Annalee Newitz ponders the recent meadow vole promiscuity/monogamy experiments (background) and the creepy prospects for drug and gene therapy to modify human behavior.

This experiment, like all such experiments related to the sexual predilections of animals, has as its implicit goal the unraveling of a human mystery. Why do some humans want to have sex with only one person at a time, while others prefer more? If these neuroscientists could prove that nonmonogamy might be eradicated with a little extra vasopressin uptake in the brain, it's undeniable that they've happened upon a huge drug market waiting to happen. People who value sexual faithfulness more than the integrity of their brains might insist on gene therapy for their future spouses. Perhaps parents who feel that monogamy is the "right" way to live could get their kids' brains altered right off the bat.

What's scary is that the experiments worked. The altered meadow voles exhibited what the scientists defined as "monogamous behavior," which is to say they chose to mate with a vole they'd mated with before even though another hot little meadow vole was waiting for them in the cage next door. Although most of the scientists who worked on the experiment have been careful to tell the press that their discoveries have no bearing on human behavior, most humans seem to think they do. Already I'm finding myself reading articles with headlines asking, "Are swingers slaves to genes?" and "Should men get gene therapy?"

 

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