I feel.like we generally give women a pass on A LOT of weird behaviors about children.
That does include elevated attention to the genital area (seriously, why? Leave our genitals alone ffs), borderline fetishizing breastfeeding, and also a lot of other stuff.
Like, for example, I had several women independently telling me how baby feces smell nice and milky. Like, what the hell and why do y’all feel it’s appropriate for a casual conversation???
Or that they love to smell baby feet. Huh? Funny thing I first got those stories after seeing a TV ad (was a while ago) with a woman burying her face in baby feet.
I can only assume this is either a result of hormonal shifts throughout pregnancy, or that there’s plenty more female pedophiles than we knew.
I think it’s likely really surprising to learn/experience that feces of a breastfed baby (and to a lesser extent formula fed babies) don’t smell like shit. It’s natural to want to share a surprising learning. Might also be good to be forewarned the milky smell ends once normal food is introduced.
People are too weird about genitals. Our culture finds it so uncomfortable to talk to their sons about cleaning their penis that we started cutting the foreskin off to spare them the embarrassment.
Depends where in the world you are. In the US it was popularized by Dr Kellogg to curb masturbation. He also recommended a few drops of carbolic acid applied to young girls clits to damage the nerves and avoid what he called “abnormal excitement”.
Dude was opposed to pretty much anything even vaguely resembling pleasure, he invented corn flakes as a food to be as bland and tasteless as possible. The only reason they ever became a popular breakfast cereal is because of his brother adding sugar to them despite Kelloggs objections
‘cleanliness’ and ‘looking like their father’ were later justifications after the practice had already gained traction.
This doesn’t make it justifiable, but circumcision goes back a lot longer than our culture has existed. If Judaism had won out instead of Christianity, it could have been even more widespread than it is now. Some Muslim sects also mandate circumcision, and they could be the ones ruling the world.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a particular form of mutilation that transcends cultures.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a particular form of mutilation that transcends cultures.
a lot of mutilation goes back centuries for human history. You can pick up any variety of mutiliation and it’s been done, scarrification, penile subincisions, foot binding, skull stretching, i can keep going.
Just because it’s historically common and pervasive doesn’t mean we should consider it to be normal. The aztecs commited human sacrifice, and we think capital punishment is bad enough that we need to hide it away from the general public and make it “sterile” which in reality means using a completely botched medical injection process.
also what culture “should be” does not determine what it is now, i’m not sure the legality of naked baby photos to begin with tbh, i’m pretty sure they’re still considered to be CP, unless legally stated otherwise somewhere. They wouldn’t count as CSAM i think, since there’s not abuse going on, but arguably it might count as CP still.
About smell :
“In 2021, inhalation of hexadecanal was found to reduce aggression in men but to trigger aggression in women.[4] Hexadecanal is one of the most abundant substances emitted by human babies from their heads, which may be an evolutionary survival mechanism to induce mothers to defend the baby and fathers to not attack it. But it is not yet known whether the amount of hexadecanal emitted by humans is sufficient to affect other humans.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecanal
It would make sense. There are other behaviours that directly lower male aggression. Smiling and emotional tears.
Which is awesome for babies since non-human primate males are known to kill offspring of other males in order to get the mother in estrus sooner.
It’s also the reason women smile when nervous and cry a lot more. I suppose you have to if you lack offense and defence. E.g. estrogens slowing muscular and skeletal growth in the upper body. And growing hair enough for thermal regulation, but not enough to redistribute blunt forces. The reason beards exist is to protect the jaw.
Interestingly, the main motive for men to commit homicide is dominance seeking behaviour. Men are more likely to kill every age with exception of infants. Women’s main motives for homicide are self-defence first and jelousy second. Infanticide is almost exclusively done by women. Often their own too. Never trust a woman who had a miscarriage with your newborn or your pregnant wife. High prolactin, loss of child and stealing babies is not just a human thing.
I wonder how the willingness to kill your own (high risk and expensive) baby influenced human evolution. Since it’s the other way around in other primates. Recon it reduced rape to be merely a dominance thing rather than a reproductive strategy?
Yes humans, as animals, have many wild internal forces. Horrible cases of abuse (babies, infants, women) were most certainly the result of these. Such horrible stories are then (sometimes // in part) keept (in folklore // culture) and help to warn us about these internal forces.
(sorry I know I don’t have the exact words)
i believe it makes biological sense that if a women kills babies from rape, this, over many generation, would reduce rape. But again, this is something that is beyond my knowledge.
It does. We also evolved embryo wasting. A measurement to reduce non-viable pregnancies. Except it also tends to dispose of potentially healthy embryo’s. They used to think 70% was wasted. But now they think it’s between 40 and 60%.
This is a good thing, since it also enables more monogamous behaviour. More sex with the same guy = greater chance at conception. And reduces both male/male and female/female competition. So basically more coop-mode for everyone. Sucks only women suffer the drawbacks of this perk.
Not only that. Paternal care is something other primates lack. But men did develop paternal care as prolactin levels in the brain increase when men see their baby. Paternal care interestinly enough, isn’t just a back-up parent in case the mom dies during labour. It’s invaluable. Especially to boys who prefer to learn from their fathers.
On top of this, we also have meno- and andropause. Where people lose fertility. This is only seen in two other species. Both matriarchies where the leader is determined by her experience. Orca’s and elephants. Sticking around while not competing with her own children is amazing. It’s why we live so long. Fun fact. Male orcas only live 30 years, but female orcas live somewhere between 60 and 90 years. Makes that “women live 3 years longer than men on average” seem insignificant huh? In any case. Love your grandparents.
Anyhow. It’s no surprise that forced mating is so common in nature, but not that common in humans. We are doing well despite rape still existing.
It’s an illustrative comment though. Our society teaches us not to view women as predatory, and to always view men as such - so that creates the difference between a woman talking about baby anatomy and a man talking about baby anatomy.
I feel.like we generally give women a pass on A LOT of weird behaviors about children.
That does include elevated attention to the genital area (seriously, why? Leave our genitals alone ffs), borderline fetishizing breastfeeding, and also a lot of other stuff.
Like, for example, I had several women independently telling me how baby feces smell nice and milky. Like, what the hell and why do y’all feel it’s appropriate for a casual conversation???
Or that they love to smell baby feet. Huh? Funny thing I first got those stories after seeing a TV ad (was a while ago) with a woman burying her face in baby feet.
I can only assume this is either a result of hormonal shifts throughout pregnancy, or that there’s plenty more female pedophiles than we knew.
I think it’s likely really surprising to learn/experience that feces of a breastfed baby (and to a lesser extent formula fed babies) don’t smell like shit. It’s natural to want to share a surprising learning. Might also be good to be forewarned the milky smell ends once normal food is introduced.
Nah, it was rather in a context of how cute and nice-smelling babies are, not that it was an immediate new discovery
People are too weird about genitals. Our culture finds it so uncomfortable to talk to their sons about cleaning their penis that we started cutting the foreskin off to spare them the embarrassment.
Depends where in the world you are. In the US it was popularized by Dr Kellogg to curb masturbation. He also recommended a few drops of carbolic acid applied to young girls clits to damage the nerves and avoid what he called “abnormal excitement”.
Dude was opposed to pretty much anything even vaguely resembling pleasure, he invented corn flakes as a food to be as bland and tasteless as possible. The only reason they ever became a popular breakfast cereal is because of his brother adding sugar to them despite Kelloggs objections
‘cleanliness’ and ‘looking like their father’ were later justifications after the practice had already gained traction.
This is so screwed, too.
Like, I was once tasked to explain to my nephew how to properly clean a penis at, like, age of 7. C’mon, parents, what are you there for?!
Just literally teach it alongside cleaning every other body part, what’s the issue? Why should another man show this in particular to your kid?
This doesn’t make it justifiable, but circumcision goes back a lot longer than our culture has existed. If Judaism had won out instead of Christianity, it could have been even more widespread than it is now. Some Muslim sects also mandate circumcision, and they could be the ones ruling the world.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a particular form of mutilation that transcends cultures.
a lot of mutilation goes back centuries for human history. You can pick up any variety of mutiliation and it’s been done, scarrification, penile subincisions, foot binding, skull stretching, i can keep going.
Just because it’s historically common and pervasive doesn’t mean we should consider it to be normal. The aztecs commited human sacrifice, and we think capital punishment is bad enough that we need to hide it away from the general public and make it “sterile” which in reality means using a completely botched medical injection process.
also what culture “should be” does not determine what it is now, i’m not sure the legality of naked baby photos to begin with tbh, i’m pretty sure they’re still considered to be CP, unless legally stated otherwise somewhere. They wouldn’t count as CSAM i think, since there’s not abuse going on, but arguably it might count as CP still.
I literally started my comment by saying that doesn’t justify it.
yeah, i just wanted to provide a few more examples i suppose.
Likely some instincts playing a prank. A lot of mammals lick their baby’s shit.
TIL but I don’t know if I’m happy about it
Thanks for the share though!
About smell :
“In 2021, inhalation of hexadecanal was found to reduce aggression in men but to trigger aggression in women.[4] Hexadecanal is one of the most abundant substances emitted by human babies from their heads, which may be an evolutionary survival mechanism to induce mothers to defend the baby and fathers to not attack it. But it is not yet known whether the amount of hexadecanal emitted by humans is sufficient to affect other humans.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecanal
It would make sense. There are other behaviours that directly lower male aggression. Smiling and emotional tears.
Which is awesome for babies since non-human primate males are known to kill offspring of other males in order to get the mother in estrus sooner.
It’s also the reason women smile when nervous and cry a lot more. I suppose you have to if you lack offense and defence. E.g. estrogens slowing muscular and skeletal growth in the upper body. And growing hair enough for thermal regulation, but not enough to redistribute blunt forces. The reason beards exist is to protect the jaw.
Interestingly, the main motive for men to commit homicide is dominance seeking behaviour. Men are more likely to kill every age with exception of infants. Women’s main motives for homicide are self-defence first and jelousy second. Infanticide is almost exclusively done by women. Often their own too. Never trust a woman who had a miscarriage with your newborn or your pregnant wife. High prolactin, loss of child and stealing babies is not just a human thing.
I wonder how the willingness to kill your own (high risk and expensive) baby influenced human evolution. Since it’s the other way around in other primates. Recon it reduced rape to be merely a dominance thing rather than a reproductive strategy?
Yes humans, as animals, have many wild internal forces. Horrible cases of abuse (babies, infants, women) were most certainly the result of these. Such horrible stories are then (sometimes // in part) keept (in folklore // culture) and help to warn us about these internal forces.
(sorry I know I don’t have the exact words)
i believe it makes biological sense that if a women kills babies from rape, this, over many generation, would reduce rape. But again, this is something that is beyond my knowledge.
It does. We also evolved embryo wasting. A measurement to reduce non-viable pregnancies. Except it also tends to dispose of potentially healthy embryo’s. They used to think 70% was wasted. But now they think it’s between 40 and 60%.
This is a good thing, since it also enables more monogamous behaviour. More sex with the same guy = greater chance at conception. And reduces both male/male and female/female competition. So basically more coop-mode for everyone. Sucks only women suffer the drawbacks of this perk.
Not only that. Paternal care is something other primates lack. But men did develop paternal care as prolactin levels in the brain increase when men see their baby. Paternal care interestinly enough, isn’t just a back-up parent in case the mom dies during labour. It’s invaluable. Especially to boys who prefer to learn from their fathers.
On top of this, we also have meno- and andropause. Where people lose fertility. This is only seen in two other species. Both matriarchies where the leader is determined by her experience. Orca’s and elephants. Sticking around while not competing with her own children is amazing. It’s why we live so long. Fun fact. Male orcas only live 30 years, but female orcas live somewhere between 60 and 90 years. Makes that “women live 3 years longer than men on average” seem insignificant huh? In any case. Love your grandparents.
Anyhow. It’s no surprise that forced mating is so common in nature, but not that common in humans. We are doing well despite rape still existing.
I am male and I did like sniffing my baby’s head. Interesting.
I’m going to go with “Yes”
women are pure. they can talk about a baby’s genitalia and it’s cute. if a man wants to be a kindergarten teacher, though, whoa, pedophile alert!
all of em eh? The moment you identify male it’s gone I guess, and vice-versa
I think you’re conflating fun facts about our anatomy and human bodily processes with something sexual.
It’s an illustrative comment though. Our society teaches us not to view women as predatory, and to always view men as such - so that creates the difference between a woman talking about baby anatomy and a man talking about baby anatomy.
You are again talking about the comic strip, valid.
@Allegro took it in a whole different direction, which I think is false