1 result for (book:notp AND session:769 AND stemmed:speci)
[... 8 paragraphs ...]
(9:35.) It is not natural, then, for men to fight over women. This is a purely cultural, learned behavior. In terms of history as you understand it, the species could not withstand such misapplied energy, nor could it have withstood such constant antagonism.
Each species is involved in a cooperative venture, upon which ultimately all earthly existence rests. You project your present beliefs backward into history, and you misinterpret many of the conditions that you observe in the natural world. This cooperation that I speak of is based on love, and that love has a biological as well as a spiritual basis. Your beliefs, for example, cause you to deny the existence of emotions in animals, and any instances of love among them are assigned to “blind” instinct.
To some extent the churches as well as the scientists are responsible, but priests and scientists are not some foreign people, thrust upon you. They represent various aspects of yourselves. The species developed its own kind of consciousness, as it found it necessary to isolate itself to some degree from its environment and the other creatures within it. As a result, the religions preached that only man had a soul and was dignified by emotional feelings. In its way science went along very nicely by postulating man in a mechanistic world, with each creature run by an impeccable machine of instinct, blind alike to pain or desire.
The love and cooperation that forms the basis of all life, however, shows itself in many ways. Sexuality represents one aspect, and an important one. In larger terms, it is as natural for a man to love a man, and for a woman to love a woman, as it is to show love for the opposite sex. For that matter, it is more natural to be bisexual. Such is the “natural” nature of the species.
Instead, you have put love into very definite categories, so that its existence is right only under the most limited conditions. Love goes underground, but springs up in distorted forms and exaggerated tendencies. You have followed this course for different reasons at different times. Neither sex is to blame. Instead your sexual situation is simply another reflection of the state of your consciousness. As a species, presently at least in the Western world, you equate sex and love. You imagine that sexual expression is the only one natural to love. Love, in other words, must it seems express itself exclusively through the exploration (humorously and deeper), in one way or another, of the beloved’s sexual portions.
This is hardly the only limitation placed upon love’s expression, however. There are innumerable books written with instructions, each proclaiming the said methods to be the proper ones. Certain kinds of orgasm are “the best.” Love’s expression is furthermore permitted only between members of the opposite sex. Generally speaking, these individuals must be more or less of the same age. There are other taboos, involving racial restrictions, or cultural, social, and economic ones. If this were not enough, large segments of the population believe that sex is wrong to begin with — a spiritual debasement, allowed by God only so that the species can continue.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
Creativity rides the tides of love. When love is denied its natural expression, creativity suffers. Your beliefs lead you to suppose that a natural bisexuality would result in the death of the family, the destruction of morals, rampant sexual crimes, and the loss of sexual identity. I would say, however, that my last sentence adequately describes your present situation (with dry humor). The acceptance of the species’ natural bisexuality would ultimately help solve not only those problems but many others, including the large instances of violence, and acts of murder. In your terms, however, and in your circumstances, there is not apt to be any easy transition.
[... 11 paragraphs ...]
In the social world as in the microscopic one, cooperation again is paramount. Only a basic bisexuality could give the species the leeway necessary, and prevent stereotyped behavior of a kind that would hamper creativity and social commerce. That basic sexual nature allows you the fulfillment of individual abilities, so that the species does not fall into extinction. Man’s recognition of his bisexual nature is, therefore, a must in his future.
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
Male and female are each members of the human race — or species if you prefer — so these divisions were made in the species itself, by itself. They are the result of distinctions arising, again, as the species experimented with its line of consciousness, and brought into being the appearance of separation between itself and the rest of the natural world.
[... 6 paragraphs ...]