The Girl Detective

Premarital sex is having sex before you’re married. Conservatives say premarital sex is wrong and progressives say premarital sex is okay.

Except: the “you” they’re talking to is white women. People of color aren’t invited into the discussion, and white men are always allowed to have premarital sex. (Gay jokes aside, I wonder who they’re supposed to have premarital sex with, if all white women are supposed to remain virgins until marriage.)

So: If white women have sex before they’re married, then they’re engaging in premarital sex. White conservatives say premarital sex involving white women is wrong and white progressives say premarital sex involving white women is okay.

Except: What does “marriage” mean?

So: Marriage is the legal and spiritual union of two adults.

Except: Gays and Lesbians aren’t allowed to marry in most places.

So: Marriage is the legal and spiritual union of a straight man and a straight woman.

Except: Transsexuals don’t always fall into either category.

So: Marriage is the legal and spiritual union of an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman.

Except: Some marriages are spiritual but not legal, and others are legal but not spiritual. Also, what does “union” mean?

So: Marriage is either the conferring, by the government, of benefits such as tax breaks, immigration rights, and hospital visits on an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman, OR the act of declaring an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman eligible to cohabitate and procreate according to the rules of a religion or the guidelines of a spiritual framework, with the understanding that they’ll remain committed to each other until one of them dies. Sex before this event is premarital sex.

Except: What does “committed” mean? Can two people consider themselves committed to each other but still require a divorce later on?

So: Marriage is either the conferring, by the government, of benefits such as tax breaks, immigration rights, and hospital visits on an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman, OR the act of declaring an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman eligible to cohabitate and procreate according to the rules of a religion or the guidelines of a spiritual framework, with the understanding that they’ll make a good faith effort to maintain a friendship and raise a family. Sex before this event is premarital sex.

Except: What does “friendship” mean? Isn’t friendship necessarily egalitarian? Can a married couple be friends if the woman is subservient to the man? Also, what if they don’t have children? What if they don’t live together?

So: Marriage is either the conferring, by the government, of benefits such as tax breaks, immigration rights, and hospital visits, OR the act of declaring an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman eligible to cohabitate and procreate, even if they choose not to, or are unable to, cohabitate and/or procreate, according to the rules of a religion or the guidelines of a spiritual framework, with the understanding that they’ll make a good faith effort to create a home environment that fosters civility instead of antagonization. Sex before this event is premarital sex.

Except: What if a white cissexual straight woman remarries? Is sex during her first marriage premarital sex?

So: Marriage is either the conferring, by the government, of benefits such as tax breaks, immigration rights, and hospital visits, OR the act of declaring an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman eligible to cohabitate and procreate, even if they choose not to, or are unable to, cohabitate and/or procreate, according to the rules of a religion or the guidelines of a spiritual framework, with the understanding that they’ll make a good faith effort to create a home environment that fosters civility instead of antagonization. Sex before the first occurrence of this event in a white cissexual straight woman’s life is premarital sex.

Except: This use of the words government, adulthood, heterosexuality, cohabitation, procreation, religion, spiritual, home, civility, and antagonization is reliable only in a contemporary mainstream white Judeo-Christian Western context. All other cultures on earth and in history are excluded in this definition of marriage, even though people from many cultures reside in Western countries, and the West exerts control over many other cultures.

So: Among contemporary white Westerners, marriage is either the conferring, by the government, of benefits such as tax breaks, immigration rights, and hospital visits, OR the act of declaring an adult cissexual straight man and an adult cissexual straight woman eligible to cohabitate and procreate, even if they choose not to, or are unable to, cohabitate and/or procreate, according to the rules of a religion or the guidelines of a spiritual framework, with the understanding that they’ll make a good faith effort to create a home environment that fosters civility instead of antagonization. Sex before the first occurrence of this event in a contemporary white Western cissexual straight woman’s life is premarital sex.

Except: What is sex?

So:

It seems the blogosphere has been embarrassingly slow on the uptake here, but just today I read an article in Pyschology Today that defends all of our favorite racist and sexist stereotypes, including:

Blond is the hottest hair color!

Muslims are natural suicide bombers!

Blue eyes are better than brown eyes!

Skinny women get more men!

Big boobs are best!

Despite its insistence that all these claims are totally backed up with like science and stuff, most of the studies the authors cite are only marginally related to the topic, and other claims just aren’t backed up at all. (My composition class is working on their final papers, so I’m especially sensitive to this shit right now.) The article is entitled “Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature,” and as Kevin at Slant Truth 2.0 observes, labeling something “politically incorrect” is “almost always a way of saying, ‘you won’t like what you read and any arguments against me are moot, not because I can back up my claims, but because you’re being politically correct.’”

Here’s my favorite excerpt:

“Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.”

If you take the names Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa and rearrange the letters, it actually spells out Rudyard Kipling. (Not really.) Never mind that lighter pigments actually evolved because of a vitamin D3 deficiency.* Never mind that Scandinavian men developed blond hair, too. Never mind that Inuits, Eskimos, and other heavy-clothes-wearing dark-hair-having people still seem to have libidos. Never mind that my own blond hair darkened long before I got my first period. The fact that something sounds like it would make sense doesn’t make it true.

But I’m just being your typical PC liberal, right? Well, hey, I can play this game, too. Here are my own just so stories - I mean, uh, evolutionary theories:

WHY JEWS HAVE BIG NOSES.
It was very windy in Polish shtetls, and Jews often couldn’t smell Bubbe’s cooking from outside the cottage. Jews whose noses were large could pick up the scent more easily, while Jews with smaller noses never knew when it was time for dinner, and thus perished in the snow.

WHY NERDS WEAR GLASSES.
Football players have better luck mating because women are attracted to men who wear helmets, as it seems to augment the size of the brain. Nerds’ bodies try to compensate for this by creating a need for some type of head wear. Unfortunately, this is a dead-end evolutionary technique, as glasses only augment the size of the eyes, which makes nerds appear fearful and weak. This is why the nerd race is doomed to perish in the snow.

WHY WOMEN ARE BETTER COOKS BUT MEN ARE BETTER CHEFS.
This evolutionary fact stems from the days of hunter-gatherers, when men would bring food back to their waiting mates. Evolution trained women to make use of ingredients provided by men, while men were trained to recognize tasty dinners in their raw and unharvested forms. Thus, men are more suited to commercial cooking because they’re able to experiment with new combinations of foods and cope with the stress of the outside world, whereas women are better at following preset instructions in the safety of the home.

WHY WHITE PEOPLE CAN’T DANCE.
Like blond hair, this stems from the fact that northern-dwelling tribes were forced to wear layers of heavy clothing, while southern-dwelling tribes had the freedom of bare skin. Because movement was restricted, white people gradually lost the ability to dance, while in Africa, dance flourished. However, white people made up for this deficiency by developing more complex musical instruments. This is why today, black people are better dancers, but white people are better piano players.

WHY LIBERALS RIDE IN LIMOUSINES.
This trait comes from liberals’ simultaneous fear of and fascination with the poor. Over thousands of years, liberals have evolved various methods of observing poor people without being seen; one medieval German document mentions an apparatus similar to a duck blind. When the limousine was invented, liberals were naturally drawn to it because of it offered both mobility and secrecy (through tinted windows). However, this trait is starting to die out because of the conspicuousness of limousines, and evolution is starting to cater to liberals’ needs by selecting liberals who can blend in with the poor by actually not having any money.

See? It’s fun! You can be an evolutionary psychologist, too! Try it out! Together, we’ll make the world a better, more enlightened place.

* It looks like the original study isn’t online, but I think you can find it in Skin: A Natural History by Nina G. Jablonksy.