Krasilov, 1997. Metaecology-23. The Bound One (conclusion). The Golden One

Lambs. Aphrodite. Chained.

V. A. Kravchenko. Metaecology. Kyiv: Paleontological Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1997. 208 pp. Part 23.

Chained (conclusion). Golden.

Golden (conclusion). Homo. Die!

Outside of European civilization, various forms of family organization have been preserved to our time, in particular polygyny and polyandry (among Tibetans), but the tendency towards monogamy seems to be manifesting everywhere. It is characterized by a general tendency to reduce sexual dimorphism, against the background of which, however, periodic fluctuations occur, associated with the restructuring of the social system and aesthetic attitudes, the biological basis of which we will try to clarify further.

For now, let us note that the restructuring of sexual psychology against the background of the transition from one family structure to another is an extremely long process, proceeds at an uneven pace, and leaves behind atavisms that complicate sexual behavior and do not contribute to mutual understanding between spouses. The male stereotype of sexual behavior includes both the preservation of marital relations—to ensure the advantage of one's own gametes, and the desire for episodic "stolen" connections to participate in gamete competition. If a man's marital infidelity can be considered a relic of polygyny—a natural desire to increase genetic contribution to the next generation through a female harem, then a male harem does not provide similar advantages for a woman. Conception by one partner is usually sufficient, but the instinctive desire to invest one's genes in different combinations (for their reliable preservation) stimulates at least its periodic replacement. Along with this, female marital infidelity has another stimulus, only indirectly related to gene preservation—a subconscious desire to have two men (Anna Karenina dreamed almost every night that Karenin and Vronsky were her husbands together), which comes from distant ancestors and, due to its antiquity, is extremely persistent.

In the last century, society girls got married as they could, more often by their parents' will, but they took the choice of a lover very seriously. They were not attracted by quantity. A lover could count on the same (if not more) constancy than a husband. This explains the exceptional stability of the lover's triangle—a figure that runs through generations. After all, the scheme of two men is based on a very ancient stimulus—care for offspring.

The family adopted the care of offspring as an additional function, which over the course of evolution became the main one. V. S. Solovyov, in his treatise on love, denied the scientific view of this feeling as a means of procreation. For the higher we climb the evolutionary ladder, the less the power of reproduction shines, and the greater the power of sexual attraction (examples from the life of fish, birds, mammals are given). Thus, love and reproduction are not in a direct, but in an inverse relationship: the stronger the former, the weaker the latter.

Nevertheless, the philosopher mistakenly rejected the common Aphrodite. Reproduction is not only (at the upper rungs of the evolutionary ladder, not so much) conception, but also care for offspring, which is inversely related to fertility and directly related to love. Historical development proceeds from forms with mass reproduction to forms that show increasing care for fewer and fewer offspring.

Isolated observations of parental care in fish (mostly by males) develop further up the evolutionary ladder into an increasingly common phenomenon, increasingly requiring the efforts of both parents. Even dinosaurs, the ancestors of birds, had nesting territories, and if they didn't incubate, they certainly guarded the clutch, and then gathered the newborns in a "nursery" under the supervision of an adult.

In general, care for offspring is inversely related to their number (this is easy to explain: the parental energetic and pedagogical capabilities are limited, and the more offspring, the less input into each). The preservation of the pair after conception is primarily a result of the inertia of sexual feeling: the stronger it is, the longer the inertial period. Thus, the strength of sexual love is directly related to the care of offspring, which is based on the redirection of sexual feeling, its transformation into parental love.

Beyond the bounds of European civilization, various forms of family organisation have survived to this day, including polygyny and polyandry (among Tibetans); yet the tendency toward monogamy appears to manifest universally. It is accompanied by an equally general tendency toward the reduction of sexual dimorphism, against which backdrop, however, periodic oscillations occur that are linked to the restructuring of the social system and of aesthetic norms — the biological underpinnings of which we shall endeavour to clarify in due course. For the moment, let us note that the restructuring of sexual psychology in connection with the transition from one family structure to another is an extraordinarily protracted process, proceeding at uneven speed and leaving atavisms that complicate sexual behaviour and do not promote mutual understanding between spouses. The male stereotype of sexual behaviour includes both the maintenance of conjugal relations — to secure an advantage for one's own gametes — and the pursuit of episodic "stolen" liaisons in order to participate in gametic competition. If male marital infidelity may be regarded as a vestige of polygyny — the natural drive to maximise one's genetic contribution to the next generation through a female harem — then a male harem confers no analogous advantage on a woman. For childbearing, one spouse is in general entirely sufficient; yet the instinctive drive to embed one's genes in various combinations (for their reliable preservation) provides a stimulus for at least periodic partner replacement. Alongside this, female marital infidelity has one further stimulus, only indirectly related to genetic preservation — the subconscious desire to have two husbands (one dream visited Anna Karenina almost every night: she dreamed that Karenin and Vronsky were both simultaneously her husbands), a desire rooted in remote ancestors and, by virtue of its antiquity, extraordinarily tenacious. In the previous century, society ladies married as circumstance dictated, more often at their parents' will, yet they were very deliberate in their choice of lover. Quantity held no appeal for them. A lover could count on the same (if not greater) fidelity as a husband. This explains the exceptional stability of the love triangle — a figure that persists across generations. For at the foundation of the two-husbands schema lies a very ancient stimulus: care for offspring. The family took on the care of offspring as a supplementary function that, in the course of evolution, became primary. Vladimir Soloviev, in his treatise on love, vigorously objected to the natural-scientific view of this feeling as a mere means of reproduction. For the higher we ascend the evolutionary ladder, the weaker is the force of reproduction and the stronger is the force of sexual attraction (he supports this with examples from the lives of fish, birds, and mammals). Consequently, love and reproduction stand not in a direct but in an inverse relationship: the stronger the one, the weaker the other. And yet the philosopher was wrong to dismiss the plebeian Aphrodite. Reproduction is not only (at the upper rungs of the evolutionary ladder, not so much) the begetting of offspring, but also the care of offspring, which stands in an inverse relationship to birth rate and in a direct relationship to love. Historical development moves from forms characterised by mass reproduction toward forms displaying ever greater care for an ever less numerous progeny. Observed only occasionally in fish (where the male, as a rule, assumes the key role), the protection of offspring becomes, higher up the evolutionary ladder, an increasingly common phenomenon, ever more frequently demanding the efforts of both parents. Even the dinosaurs, ancestors of birds, possessed nesting territories and, if they did not incubate, certainly guarded their clutches, thereafter gathering hatchlings into "nurseries" under the supervision of an adult individual. In the general case, parental care stands in an inverse relationship to the number of offspring (this is readily explicable, since the energetic and pedagogical capacities of parents are limited, and the greater the number of progeny the smaller the investment in each one). The persistence of a pair after conception is, in essence, the result of the inertia of sexual feeling: the more powerful that feeling, the longer the inertial period. Therefore the force of sexual love is directly linked to care for offspring, which is based on the redirection of sexual feeling and its transformation into parental love. Already in birds, sexual selection is often made with an anticipatory view to incubating eggs (if this is done by the male, then the female's choice falls on the fattest individual; cf. M. Petrie: Science, 1983, 220, 413-414). In the female, a powerful stimulus toward promiscuity also arises: all males that have entered into a sexual relationship with her will care for her offspring. As insurance, there should be at least two. The female strives to acquire a second mate, but rejects a third and subsequent ones so as not to impede conception (I.R. Hartley, N.B. Davies: Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B, 1984, 257: 67-73). The inertia of sexual attraction must suffice for the entire period of offspring dependency on parents. Therefore, in human evolution, the prolongation of childhood (the infant is born premature due to skull enlargement and remains dependent on parents longer than other species) determined the tendency toward the strengthening of sexual love, which in turn stimulated the individuation of humans as a precondition of their marital uniqueness — their indispensability as spouses. Since time immemorial, calls have sounded to put an end to family bondage. Is a person not sufficiently burdened by natural heredity, constrained by social role, bound by obligations to God? Why add these further bonds — lifelong dependence on another person, self-limitation, jealousy, the ingratitude of children? Does not marriage contradict the human being's primordial striving for freedom? Undoubtedly it does, for a singular bond is added and one degree of freedom is subtracted. Yet simple arithmetic does not exhaust the substance of the matter. The family affords the individual the opportunity to create a personal microcosm — a system in which he is at least partly liberated from the depersonalising pressure of the social macrocosm. The family shields against sexual competition, guaranteeing genetic immortality. Moreover, it allows the embedding of personal cultural genes in offspring, whereas the supplying of cultural genes from communal funds yields a more standardised product. Already Aristotle, objecting to Plato's proposal to abolish the family in the ideal state, noted that people in such a state would cease to distinguish relatives and would enter into unnatural amorous relations with them. Indeed, the special relations between kin developed on the basis of incest prevention, and kinship love opposes sexual love as a brake upon incestuous drives. Already among primates this mechanism operates such that unrelated males and females reared together experience no mutual attraction (cf. C. Weller, Folia Primatologia, 1990, 54: 166-170, and others). The habituation effect, which not infrequently complicates marital relations, may be connected less with the cooling of feelings than with the development of kinship love, which suppresses sexual love. Nevertheless, the four-to-five-year cycles of marital love, manifested in one way or another in the lives of most married couples, correspond to the duration of childhood in our ape-like ancestors (the chimpanzee reaches sexual maturity at around five years of age), serving as a reminder of the conservatism of the amorous feeling, which has absorbed the entire history of life and does not permit the human being to sever ties with his evolutionary past. The Golden One If Plato placed Aphrodite in fifth position, he may have had personal reasons for doing so (the matter concerns not only sexual preferences, but also the fact that Aristippus, a favourite of this goddess and likewise a pupil of Socrates, settled very comfortably at the court of the Syracusan tyrant, while Plato was expelled from there and even sold into slavery). In any case, Paris held a different opinion. Compelled to choose among three beautiful goddesses, he awarded the apple to the most beautiful. His choice, however, was not entirely disinterested — as his reward, the most beautiful of women chose him in return. Sexual selection is possible on the condition of diversity among potential partners, and this diversity in turn arises as a result of sexual reproduction (genetic recombination). All sexually differentiated animals possess sexual preferences — which is love in its elementary, germinal form. The nature of sexual preferences is not always obvious. In particular, preference may be given to some rare hereditary trait that might be regarded as a deformity. The primary meaning of such preferences may be linked to the prevention of close-kin mating: one chooses a differing, dissimilar individual, with whom close kinship is least probable. Selection on the basis of rare traits is common among fruit flies, but occurs in humans as well (the hunchbacked Gloucester himself is astonished at the ease of his amorous conquests. Perhaps he was wrong to consider himself a monster?). One plausible explanation is that a particular deficiency testifies to more substantial superiority in other respects. A female that shows preference for a deformed male might reason approximately as follows: since he has survived despite his deformity, there must be something to him, and offspring from him will be equally hardy. Is this not how, in the course of evolution, bright tails, crests, bill appendages and other attributes of sexual attractiveness were established — attributes that in everyday life are not only useless but harmful (they attract the attention of predators) and may therefore be regarded as deformities? Aphrodite is an unsurpassed master of transforming the ugly into the beautiful. If birds possess beautiful plumage, it means they select mates by sight; songbirds, for whom visual impact is less important, are for the most part drab. Primates, living in trees, rely primarily on vision and in their sexual behaviour resemble birds more than other mammals. For this reason we, descendants of arboreal primates, consider canine or equine sex crude and unattractive. When a person violating accepted norms of sexual behaviour is compared to an animal, it is usually these animals that are meant. But in dogs and horses, smell predominates over sight and, consequently, a different — olfactory — aesthetic operates (we, incidentally, underestimate the role of smell. At one American university, a group of female students was invited to make a selection among anonymous male classmates by the smell of their T-shirts. It turned out that preference was most often given to subjects complementary in terms of genes conferring resistance to parasites — potentially compensating for each other's genetic deficiencies (C. Wedekind et al.: Proc. Roy. Soc. London B, 1995, 260: 245-249). Odour thus carries detailed biochemical information about the genotype, and if, as in the ancient legend, each person seeks a partner destined for them from birth, it is better to do so by smell than by sight; the use of deodorants, however, deprives us of such a possibility, impeding optimal sexual selection). For both birds and humans, the primary object of aesthetic experience is themselves. What could be more familiar than the naked human body, and yet it possesses a powerful aesthetic effect, reaching back to the very origins of the sense of beauty, which, in the course of development, as it were spreads outward, transferring from the specialised organs of attraction to others entirely not intended for this purpose. For the poet, the little foot of Terpsichore is lovelier than the bosom of Diana. The beauty of the little foot is secondary and therefore conditional; it is already a matter for poetry to establish it in its rights alongside all the rest. There was a time when Greeks were ashamed of their bodies, as barbarians were. But first in Crete, then throughout Greece, gymnasia arose where youths trained naked (in Athens, they were, admittedly, advised not to sit on sand, lest the imprints of their buttocks provoke unhealthy desires). In Sparta, girls joined them. The naked body became a symbol of the free person, the distinguishing mark of the Hellene from the barbarian with his slave psychology. The Trojan War, which left a deep imprint on the spiritual development of the ancient world, was unleashed for reasons of an aesthetic character: the Greek heroes united to recover a national treasure stolen from them — the most beautiful woman in the world. Although the actual causes may have been otherwise, Homer's version was apparently accepted with full trust: the struggle of peoples for possession of a symbol of beauty was considered sufficient grounds for large-scale military operations, from which it follows that aesthetic development had reached its apogee. This was the period during which aesthetic norms were formed that proved to be exceptionally durable. The role of the sexes in the elaboration of aesthetic norms was different, as it is among animals (the rooster is more endowed with means of attraction, while the hen possesses greater capacity to respond to them). Yet humans alone can perform the sexual act face to face. Whereas the stable predominance of one-sided selection gives one sex an advantage in aesthetic development, mutual selection and shared parental care create an equalising tendency. Admittedly, among men there are still more artists than among women, whose response to the beauty of the opposite sex is often weaker than even that of a hen. Nevertheless, the prolonged functioning as object of attraction has developed in woman the capacity for aesthetic empathy — a mediated perception of one's own appearance as if through the eyes of a man. This capacity finds its extreme expression in nymphomania — an heightened aesthetic response to one's own body. At the same time, it facilitates the manifestation in women of artistically inclined traits of masculine origin and, ultimately, the aesthetic integration of the sexes. It is sometimes claimed that the ancients knew nothing of love in the modern sense, and that the ethical was so thoroughly suppressed by the aesthetic in them that even the sex of a marital partner was a matter of indifference. It is sufficient, however, to recall Hector and Andromache, or Alcinous and Arete, to be convinced of the erroneousness of these views. Quite the contrary: the mutuality of love brought aesthetic canons closer together. The Hellenistic ideal of youthful beauty differed little from the feminine, and between homo- and heterosexual relations there was no serious aesthetic barrier. In contrast, a barbarian canon of male beauty did not exist at all, while the barbarian venuses with their hypertrophied femininity reliably blocked the path to homosexuality. In the Middle Ages a barbarian one-sided aesthetic predominated, while in the modern era the antique ideal was episodically revived. European modernism, in its search for the origins of aesthetic feeling, discovered nothing other than the naked human being, from "Olympia" to the primordial nudity of "Two Brothers" and the "Demoiselles d'Avignon." At the same time, the efforts of the modernists aimed at creating a new aesthetic are justified already by the fact that the classical canons of beauty have largely lost their power of aesthetic impact. The reason why museum beauty no longer moves anyone is undoubtedly deeper than mere habituation. Classical art strove toward perfection, "...but perfection (such is human nature) does not long hold our attention." He who said this (W.S. Maugham) probably meant that perfection is a universal ideal, while attractiveness by its biological nature is determined by individuality — by deviation from the ideal. Francis Bacon asserted that in every beauty there is a certain deviation from proportion. Exotic beauties to this day artificially elongate necks, file down dental enamel, pluck eyebrows, and deform feet, thus imitating comparatively rare natural anomalies. Two conflicting theories of the beautiful exist. One asserts that the beautiful is useful; the other, that it is useless. If Chekhov's characters could not understand why the profession of artist is more prestigious than that of a builder, for Lucian, for example, there is no mystery here: the beautiful in his time was valued above the useful. The first position is subjected to criticism for its inappropriate moralising, which contradicts the natural sense of beauty; the second, for its exaggeration of the intrinsic value and aesthetic perversion of this sense (considered characteristic of privileged classes, as democrats maintained). "Aesthetes," as a rule, advocate for eroticism, considering interest in nudity and sex to be normal and the depiction of sexual relations to be useful for eliminating psychological complexes developed on the basis of false shame and timidity before the sexual act. Their opponents give preference to spiritual beauty, pointing to the connection between pornography and sexual aggression (it is also known that, as a result of the joint viewing of pornographic films by married couples, the frequency of sexual acts initially increases but then noticeably declines, presumably because sexual energy is expended in vicariously experiencing the sex on screen). In debates of this kind, both sides ignore the evolutionary prehistory of aesthetics, which has left a deep imprint on the unconscious and ultimately determines what is good and what is bad at the intuitive level. In nature, two kinds of selection are combined — by viability ("natural") and by attractiveness ("sexual"). Up to a certain point they operate jointly. Symmetry is attractive (this has experimental confirmation), and at the same time testifies to balanced development and viability: the beautiful coincides with the useful. But the cock's comb or the peacock's tail — specialised organs of attraction — are not of such great importance for survival and may even cause harm. Here the paths of natural and sexual selection have diverged. Sexual selection primarily guarantees successful mating, which depends on the structure of the sexual organs. One might suppose that displaying the genitals would suffice (still encountered as an atavistic anomaly of sexual behaviour). But the genitals, responsible for the most important function of the organism — reproduction — require protection; their constant display is at the very least undesirable. It is therefore logical to employ for this purpose some other, less essential organ, not directly connected with the sexual act but symbolising the sexual sphere, serving as its secondary sign. Such are the crests, tails, and the like. The display of these organs not for their own sake but for their hidden meaning signifies the birth of symbolic language — in the framework of the views developed here, the primary basis of human language as such (cf. above, the section "Logos"). With the emergence of the sexual signalling system — probably the first of semiotic systems — a mechanism for responding to sexual symbols develops, orienting and intensifying sexual attraction and underlying aesthetics as a special and, in all probability, the most ancient domain of semiotics. Organs of attraction may be formed on the basis of rare anomalies, supported by sexual selection that shows preference for the dissimilar so as to avoid incest, as we have already mentioned. These are usually organs initially intended for some other purpose — protection or intimidation — that have been transformed, by the will of Aphrodite, into attraction. Organs of intimidation, tournament weapons, are by their nature intended for display (to a rival). Therefore it is sufficient merely to change the point of view to perceive their beauty. Sexual selection encompasses not only sexual preference — i.e., love in its primordial form — but also conflict between competing individuals of the same sex — i.e., enmity in its most frank and cruel form, depriving the vanquished of the possibility of leaving offspring. Sexual love and sexual enmity, the progenitors of all forms of love and enmity, combining in sexual selection, determine the complex dialectic of the beautiful and the terrible, which imparts to aesthetic experience a dual, contradictory character. A symbol of this kind of duality may be found in the behaviour of birds of paradise, which display their splendid plumage to attract the female with head upward, and to intimidate a rival with head downward. I have already once used this example ("Unsolved Problems of Evolutionary Theory," 1986) and would like here once more to attest my admiration for the artistic intuition of the ancients, who united the aesthetic and the deadly principles in Apollo, who made Aphrodite the companion of Ares. Of the same nature is the enduring fondness of children for terrifying tales. The dual nature of sexual feeling, in which attraction and repulsion, love and enmity are fused into one indissoluble whole, emerges distinctly in courtship behaviour, which almost invariably contains transformed poses and techniques of attack. Konrad Lorenz, in his book on aggression, devoted considerable attention to this question, arguing that the beckoning smile of a beautiful woman is none other than a threatening baring of teeth subjected to aesthetic transformation. Eroticism as a domain of aesthetics most proximate to its primary source bears the traces of primordial bivalence and balances on the boundary between pornography, which arouses sexual aggression (if aesthetics developed in connection with the substitution of the sexual organ by its sign, then the emphasis on the sexual organs characteristic of primitive barbarian art and almost invariably connected with sexual aggression testifies to the underdevelopment of the aesthetic sense) and the refined cult of the beautiful, which not infrequently enters into conflict with the natural sexual drive (Jean-Jacques Rousseau recounts in his Confessions a romantic failure that befell him with a charming Italian woman, who upon intimate acquaintance proved to have one nipple slightly larger than the other. This defect made so powerful an impression on the young philosopher that he could think of nothing else. The angered beauty dismissed him with the words: "Giannetto, leave women alone, devote yourself to mathematics"). With the development of aesthetic feeling, the function of attraction as it were spreads outward, extending to organs initially having no relation to it whatsoever. In the extreme case, the boundary is effaced between body parts specialised and non-specialised in this direction — any of which, be it the little foot of Terpsichore or the bosom of Diana, may become an erotic symbol (however, in those warm countries where women have always gone barefoot and do not cover their breasts, these body parts are perceived in connection with their primary function and do not participate in sexual symbolism). At the same time, already birds have learned to enhance aesthetic impact with the help of shining objects and natural pigments (corvids collect or steal gemstones, beads, and other shining objects, while bowerbirds paint their bowers). Already Neanderthals used ochre, traces of which have been preserved in caves. Noteworthy is the use in this context of means of attraction borrowed from other species. Floral symbolism was also known to Neanderthals, in whose burials the pollen of ornamentally flowering plants has been found. The striving to enhance one's own attractiveness with the help of various components of the surrounding environment gradually draws these components and ultimately all of nature into the sphere of the beautiful. The very posing of the question of the useful and the useless in aesthetics is apparently erroneous: usefulness is traditionally correlated with flourishing, with success in the struggle for existence — in other words, with natural selection, which preserves the norm, a certain species standard. Aesthetic feeling, by contrast, arose historically in connection with sexual selection, which promotes the preservation of rare properties and individual differences. Aesthetics, accordingly, by its very nature stands in opposition to natural selection, to the primordial struggle for existence, functioning as a factor in the development and preservation of individuality. What is useful in the context of natural selection is harmful to aesthetics, in which its own — anti-selective — criteria of usefulness take shape. As Oscar Wilde wrote ("The Decay of Lying"): "As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in any way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to our sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment by which we are surrounded, it is outside the proper sphere of art." If one compares the Stone Age venuses, consisting almost entirely of belly and breasts, with the beauties of later periods, it becomes evident that aesthetic feeling in humans (as, apparently, in animals) evolves from a primary utilitarianism in terms of species or tribal preservation toward a secondary utilitarianism of individual diversity. As in any developing system, at this new level of utility a stabilising selection of its own arises, its own censorship in the form of aesthetic canons. Yet the main line of development here too is directed from the general toward the individual. Contemporary art, rejecting aesthetic canons, supports this progressive tendency.

The inertia of sexual attraction must be sufficient for the entire period of offspring dependence on parents. Therefore, in human evolution, the prolongation of childhood (humans are born prematurely due to the increase in skull size and are dependent on parents longer than other species) determined the tendency to strengthen sexual love, which, in turn, stimulated the individualization of humans as a condition for their marital unity and irreplaceability as partners.

Since time immemorial, calls have been heard to put an end to family slavery. Is not humanity overburdened by natural heredity, bound by social roles, tied by obligations to God? Why should it have these fetters—lifelong dependence on another person, self-denial, jealousy, ungrateful children? Does not the lack of these contradict humanity's natural striving for freedom?

Undoubtedly, it contradicts, because a single bond is added—one degree of freedom is subtracted. However, simple arithmetic does not exhaust the essence of the matter. The family gives a person the opportunity to create their own microcosm, a system in which they are at least partially freed from the dehumanizing yoke of the social macrocosm. The family protects from sexual competition, ensuring genetic immortality. In addition, it allows one to instill personal cultural traits in offspring, whereas providing cultural traits from public funds yields a more standardized product.

The habituation effect, which often complicates marital relations, may be related not so much to the cooling of feelings as to the development of familial love, which restrains sexual love. Nevertheless, the four- or five-year cycles of marital love, which manifest in one way or another in most married couples, correspond to the duration of childhood of our ape-like ancestors (chimpanzees reach sexual maturity by the age of five), reminding us of the conservatism of love, which has absorbed the entire history of life and does not allow humans to break with their evolutionary past.

Golden. If Plato placed Aphrodite in fifth place, he might have had personal reasons for this (not only due to sexual preferences, but also because Aphrodite's favorite—the Epicurean Aristippus, also a student of Socrates, settled in well with the court of the Syracusan tyrant, while Plato was expelled from there and even sold into slavery). In any case, Paris thought differently. Forced to choose between three beautiful goddesses, he gave the apple to the most beautiful. However, his choice was not entirely selfless—in reward, he himself was chosen by the most beautiful of women.

Sexual selection is possible only if there is a diversity of possible partners, which, in turn, arises from sexual reproduction (gene recombination). Sexual preferences are inherent in all unisexual animals, which are love in its elementary, initial form.

The nature of sexual preferences is not always obvious. In particular, preference may be given to some rare hereditary traits, which can be considered flaws. The primary meaning of such preferences may be related to the prevention of inbreeding: a different, dissimilar individual is chosen, with whom close kinship is least likely.

Selection for rare traits is common in fruit flies, but also occurs in humans (the hunchbacked Gloucester was amazed by the ease of his romantic victories. Perhaps he wrongly considered himself flawed?). One plausible explanation is that a single flaw indicates a more significant advantage in other respects. A female who preferred a flawed male might reason: since he survived despite his flaw, there must be something to him, and offspring from him will be equally viable. Is this how bright tails, combs, outgrowths on beaks, and other attributes of sexual attractiveness, which are not only useless in everyday life but also harmful (attracting predators) and, therefore, can be considered flaws, became fixed during evolution? Aphrodite is an unsurpassed master of transforming the flawed into the beautiful.

If in birds it is beautiful plumage, it means they choose mating partners using sight; for songbirds, visual influence is less important, they are mostly inconspicuous. Primates living in trees rely primarily on sight and are more similar to birds than other mammals in their sexual behavior. That is why we, descendants of arboreal primates, consider dog or horse sex crude and unattractive. When a person who violates generally accepted norms of sexual behavior is compared to an animal, it is most often these animals that are meant.

Both for birds and for humans, the primary object of aesthetic experience is themselves. What could be more familiar than the naked human body, yet it possesses a powerful aesthetic influence, originating from the very sources of the sense of beauty and, as it develops, seems to spread, moving from special organs of attraction to others, not intended for this purpose at all. For a poet, the leg of Terpsichore is more beautiful than the breast of Diana. The beauty of a friend's leg is therefore conditional; it is a matter of poetry to establish its rights on par with everything else.

There was a time when the Greeks were ashamed of their bodies, like barbarians. But first in Crete, then throughout Greece, gymnasiums appeared where young men trained naked (in Athens, however, they were not recommended to sit on the sand, so that the imprints of their buttocks would not provoke unhealthy desires). In Sparta, girls joined them. The naked body became a symbol of a free person, distinguishing the Hellene from the barbarian with his slave psychology.

The Trojan War, which left a deep mark on the spiritual development of the ancient world, was ignited for aesthetic reasons: Greek heroes united to reclaim the national treasure stolen from them—the most beautiful woman in the world. Although the real reasons might have been different, Homer's version seems to have been accepted with full trust: the struggle of peoples for the possession of the symbol of beauty was considered a sufficient reason for large-scale military actions, from which it follows that aesthetic development had reached its apogee. This was a period of formation of aesthetic norms that proved to be extremely stable.

The role of the sexes in the formation of aesthetic norms was different, just as it is different in animals (the rooster is more endowed with means of attraction, and the hen—with the ability to react to them). However, only humans are capable of performing sexual intercourse face to face. While the prolonged dominance of one-sided choice gives one of the halves an advantage in aesthetic development, mutual choice and joint care for offspring create an equalizing tendency.

True, there are still more artists among men than among women, whose reaction to the beauty of the opposite sex is often weaker than even that of a hen. Nevertheless, the prolonged functioning as an object of attraction develops in women the ability for aesthetic empathy, an indirect perception of their own appearance, as if through the eyes of a man. This ability finds its extreme expression in nymphomania—an enhanced aesthetic reaction to one's own body. At the same time, it contributes to the manifestation of artistic inclinations of female origin in women and, ultimately, to the aesthetic integration of the halves.

It is sometimes claimed that the ancients did not know love in the modern sense and that the ethical was so subordinate to the aesthetic that even the sex of a partner was indifferent to them. However, it is enough to recall Hector and Andromache or Alcinous and Arete to be convinced of the fallacy of these views. On the contrary, the reciprocity of love brought aesthetic canons closer. The Hellenistic ideal of youthful beauty differed little from the female one; there was no serious aesthetic barrier between homo- and heterosexual relations. On the contrary, the barbarian canon of male beauty did not exist at all, and the barbarian Venuses with their hypertrophied femininity reliably blocked the path to homosexuality.

In the Middle Ages, barbarian one-sided aesthetics prevailed, and in modern times, the ancient ideal was episodically revived. European modernism, in its search for the origins of aesthetic feeling, found nothing else but the naked human, from "Olympia" to the primordial nudity of "Two Brothers" and "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." At the same time, the efforts of modernists aimed at creating a new aesthetic are justified by the fact that classical canons of beauty have largely lost their aesthetic influence.

The reason why museum beauty no longer interests anyone is undoubtedly deeper than simple habituation. Classical art strove for perfection, "... and perfection (such is human nature) does not hold our attention for long." He (V. S. Mom) probably meant that perfection is a general ideal, and attractiveness, by its biological nature, is determined by individuality—a deviation from the ideal. F. Bacon argued that there is a certain violation of proportion in any beauty. Exotic beauties still artificially lengthen their necks, whiten their tooth enamel, pluck their eyebrows, deform their feet, imitating relatively rare natural anomalies.

There are two conflicting theories of beauty. One asserts that the beautiful is useful, the other—that it is useless. If Chekhov's characters could not understand why the profession of an artist is more prestigious than that of a builder, then for Lucian, for example, there is no mystery here: the beautiful was valued higher than the useful in his time. The first position is criticized for inappropriate moralizing, which contradicts the natural sense of beauty, the second—for exaggerating the self-sufficiency and aesthetic pursuit of this feeling (characteristic of privileged classes, as democrats thought). "Aesthetes," as a rule, advocate for erotica, considering interest in nudity and sex normal, and the depiction of sexual relations—useful for eliminating psychological complexes that developed on the basis of false shame and shyness before sexual intercourse. Their opponents prefer spiritual beauty, pointing to the connection between pornography and sexual aggression (it is known, in particular, that as a result of joint viewing of pornographic films by married couples, the frequency of sexual acts initially increases, and then significantly decreases, probably due to the expenditure of sexual energy on empathizing with on-screen sex).

In such discussions, both sides ignore the evolutionary prehistory of aesthetics, which has left a deep mark on the subconscious and ultimately determines what is good and what is bad on an intuitive level. Nature combines two types of selection—for viability ("natural") and for attractiveness ("sexual"). Up to a certain point, they act together. Symmetry is attractive (there is experimental evidence for this), and at the same time, it indicates balanced development and viability: the beautiful coincides with the useful. But a rooster's comb or a peacock's tail, special organs of attraction, are not so important for survival and can even cause harm. Here, the paths of natural and sexual selection have diverged.

Sexual selection primarily guarantees successful mating, which depends on the structure of the sexual organs. It seems that one could limit oneself to demonstrating genitals (this still occurs as an atavistic anomaly of sexual behavior). But genitals, responsible for the most important function of the organism—reproduction, require protection; their constant demonstration is at least undesirable. Therefore, it is logical to use some other, less significant organ for this, not directly related to the sexual act, but symbolizing the sexual sphere, as its secondary sign. Such are combs, tails, etc.