Sexuality
The past few years have seen the rise of sexual involvement between individuals not in committed relationship. Studies in recent years have shown that at least half of all college students have had a sexual encounter without getting into a relationship with their sexual partner. Such an encounter is what may be termed “casual sex” i.e.Individuals having sex with people that they hardly know or people that they are not in a relationship with. Casual sex has become so common amongst young adults particularly those that are in colleges across Canada this even despite the intrinsic social, physical, emotional and health risk that comes with engaging in it.
The prevalence rate of casual sex among young Canadian youths is at an all time high and yet the knowledge of the process of these relationships is minimal. According to Garcia & Reibar 81% of college students have engaged in some form of hookup and of this 34% had casual sex. (Garcia & Reibar,2010)The culture today may be blamed for this as there has never been a shortage of examples encouraging such uncouth behavior that has promoted uncommitted and premarital sex. The leading source of such behavior is our media.
The biological determinist conception may also be referred to as genetic determinism. The biological determinist conception refers to the idea that an individual’s behavior is predetermined by the genes or a physiological component that they possess (Newman). The biological determinism theory is one that arose in the early 19th century by Stephen Jay Gould. This theory was later taken up in 1892 when August Weismann and Francis Galton suggested in their discussions that traits are inherited, and as such, there is a chance that undesirable traits such as criminality and clubfoot may be prevented. According to Weissman in his germ plasm theory genes were contained in the germ cells and he believed they were inheritable (Normile).
This then brings us to the question, is having casual sex encounters as a result of biological determinists, is getting involved in random hookups instilled in an individual’s genetic makeup. A study was carried out to try and explain blondes lose their virginity much faster as compared to blondes, the study involved 380,000 people, and in these findings, it was discovered that 38 genes influenced just how much promiscuous people were. Even though the study applied showed the relationship between hair color and promiscuity it proves that genes have an effect on a person’s behavior.
Although social factors seem to take the day when it comes to casual sex, we cannot rule out the fact that there are different genetic qualities in our bodies that seem to impact how much an individual may engage in casual sex. From an evolutionary perspective, casual sex has numerous reproductive advantages for men because it offers them a chance to sire more genetically diverse children as they have the chance to reproduce more women. As a result of this evolution...