keyser_soze

I only read the first few, so forgive me if I repeat someone else. The study doesn't support the assertion in the least. However, there are more than a few instances in the animal kingdom of animals or insects that behave in bizarre manners(read behaviours that can get them killed) in order to meet a goal. Some of these are caused by predatory diseases or the like, but one could make a highly speculative case for "accidental" forgetting of the pill leading to the end cause(procreation). It would only be speculative, and might not even be worth study, but it does have a certain logic to it. I know a lot of women who became pregnant while dating, or early in the marriage that while they were quite "on top of it" so to speak with several partners, they just seemed to go "stupid" with their chosen mate and ended up pregnant. Could there be a link between the perception that they have found a suitable mate, and the act of "forgetting" to prevent the procreation that is so obviously built into our genetic urges?

abe smith

Daleth in post @ this thread of
04 June has said
"... my libido is highest just before menstruation (when it's absolutely impossible to get pregnant)... "

YEE-OWWW!, woman! There may be a number of good irrational reasons for this "MISTAKE" you've made here; but frchrisesake, JUST *BEFORE* YOUR PERIOD is the time when YOU ARE MOST-LIKELY TO GET PREGNANT ( unless, all sorts of reasons not). *\JUST BEFOREyour period is the time AFTER YOU"VE OVULATED and that OVUM is on its way downstream to meet any stray SPERMATOZOON on its way UPSTREAM!
Your zooming libido at that point is TRYING TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU GET SOME GUY"S DICK into your vagina to shoot you his wad & make you a Mother!
Any woman who SERIOUSLY DOES NOT want to get pregnant this month had better keep her wits about her! and assume that unless she does, and unless she ACTIVELY ACTS TO PREVENT IT, she's going to get hit! For your own sake, get the facts straight!

Daleth

abe,

Ovulation occurs mid-cycle, and the egg only lives for 24 hours or thereabouts after ovulation. I've studied fertility at great length, albeit a few years back. After you've ovulated, you've got 24 hours to get sperm to the egg. That means you've pretty much got to be inseminated BEFORE ovulation due to how long it takes the sperm to travel to the egg. Sperm, on the other hand, can live up to 5 days in a woman's body, so pre-ovulation sex should not be considered safe if you're trying to avoid pregnancy. I have a pretty textbook cycle, so my egg is about 2 weeks dead by the time my period starts.

Thank you for your concern. I do appreciate it, but it's misplaced. If you're in a position to be teaching anyone about their fertility, please do read up on it, because the information you're presenting is potentially quite dangerous. Planned Parenthood's page on charting fertility has good direct information on the menstrual cycle.

Dal

The Lone Ranger

That's a point worth keeping in mind. Sometimes very simple "triggers" can elicit remarkably complex behaviors.

In many cases, at least, this is because there are specific neural pathways which, when activated, cause quite complex behaviors.

In humans, for instance, when one learns something by repetition so that it becomes "muscle memory," what you're doing is laying down and strengthening neural pathways that, when activated in the future, will automatically cause the complex behavior in question to occur.

For example, to type a "T" on this keyboard, I don't have to look at the keyboard to find the "T" key, nor do I have to picture it in my mind, nor do I have to try to figure out which finger is closest to the proper key. Because I'm a trained typist, all I have to do is make the decision to type "T", and the proper neural pathway will be activated that causes the proper muscles to be contracted in the proper sequence.

Some of the complex behaviors that can be elicited by the proper trigger are simply astounding. I read not too long ago (I think it was in Timothy Ferris' Coming of Age in the Milky Way, but I'd have to check) a case of a university professor who suffered a massive stroke that left him in a nearly vegetative state. One day, someone happened to mention in his presence a theory put forth by a professional rival of his. Suddenly, this man who could barely speak delivered a very animated speech denouncing the theory in very specific terms. Apparently, he had denounced the theory so many times in his career, that it was only necessary to mention it in his presence in order to trigger the speech.

What parasites can make their hosts do is similarly astonishing. The rabies virus, for instance, somehow not only makes its host salivate copiously, but somehow makes its host behave in a very aggressive manner. Infected animals go out and bite other animals, and so spread the virus in their saliva.

Juvenile horsehair worms parasitize terrestrial arthropods. Adults live in water. When a juvenile nears adulthood, it somehow triggers a compulsion in its host to seek out water.

Many parasites spend part of their life cycle in one host, and part of the life cycle in a different host. Their problem: how to get from one host to the next.

Some trematodes infect first snails, then birds. Normally snails stay on the ground, but some trematodes, when they're ready to get from the snail to a bird, somehow alter the snail's behavior so that it climbs up a plant or other object and sits out in the open, where it's easily seen by birds.

Normally, mice avoid cats. It has been shown that wild mice will avoid areas where cats have lain, presumably because the mice can detect the cats' body odor. This is, of course, unsurprising, since mice that don't avoid cats will probably have short life expectancies in the wild.

The parasitic protist Toxoplasma lives in mice and other rodents, but can reach sexual maturity only in the gut of a cat. Mice infected with Toxoplasma behave normally in almost every respect. They don't go wandering out into the open where they might be snatched by a raptor, for instance, but they not only don't avoid the scent of cats, they're apparently attracted to it.

As one researcher put it, the human equivalent would be some sort of parasite that causes an irresistable urge to go to the nearest zoo, climb into the polar bear exhibit, and try to French kiss the biggest, meanest bear there.

"Weird" doesn't begin to describe the way that parasites can alter the behavior of their hosts.

Cheers,

Michael

keyser_soze

That was my perception biologically, I was just carrying it into human genetics. I know this behaviour is also common in chimpanzees, who are rather sexually promiscuous. The whole being a picture that once you accept that humans are just another species of animal...then it might very well follow that the act of "forgetting" might be a built in program.