Family Shames: 2

          Family Shames: 2

A Magic Trick

         

Women are biochemically more vulnerable to alcohol than men are. They are more strongly affected by the same amount, even when measured against body weight; and they take longer to metabolize it away. Why this difference?

          Any frat-boy can tell you why. If you want her to say yes, then get her drunk. If he matches her drink for drink, then she’ll lose control before he loses ability. Alcohol is the original date-rape drug.

          What a simple and effective mating strategy! From the point of view of late Paleolithic man, booze must have seemed a magic potion! Late Paleolithic woman may have had a different opinion; but the ones who said yes tended to have more children than the others; with predictable evolutionary consequences.

          Some anthropologists theorize that agriculture, and with it civilization, was started not exactly for food security, but specifically for the brewing of beer. Farming’s hard work, and a hunter-gatherer can hunt or gather food anywhere; but for a magic sex potion, even a proud hunter will stoop to farming!

          Civilization began with a magic trick; drugged date-rape; a mating strategy still imprinted on our genes.