I rant a lot about how sex is such a negative in light of procreation. I don't want to have kids. I've been acused of being 'selfish' for not wanting kids. But ultimately this isn't true and in fact is a meaningless assertion. A child of mind would likely be screwed up in many of the same ways that I'm screwed up. I wouldn't be a good father. Worse, I look at the world around me and can't help but think that bringing up a child is seriously questionable for the future. I don't want nor have any need to play in the genetics war.
While this might tend towards the beginning of justification from the vantage point of "saving civilization" or other nonsense, such is not my target. I don't want kids for the best possible reason: because I don't want them.
I point this out in passing as extreme case of the place of sex in civilization. We are programmed to view things sexually, compelled to act sexually, because such increases procreation and, in certain scenarios, increases species survival. Species that do not procreate do not survive. Desire to survive is a (highly) favored trait.
It is very easy to understand human behaviour when viewed through this lens. I see a girl; I find her beautiful. But why? Because I find that soft pale skin appeals towards a quality given towards evolution, those legs leading to the mount of venus remind my instinctive nature of her capability of carrying my child as well as beckoning me back to the womb, those breats, that bottom of her lack of physical defects as a potential mother, and that slightly upturned lip and her discourse of her natant intelligence to merge genetically with my seed.
An ex of mine once said, "The world would be boring without sex." As one who has not the desire nor the time/the ability, to be sought after and attention lavished upon ... the sort of compromises a guy makes to become desirable to a swath of women, this thought bothered me. It too me some time to ponder this. After some years, I consented this to be true, but true in the sense of some higher being saying, "Every once in awhile you need a Hitler to shake up the anthill." Now upon more reflection, I see that her statement has no truth. Sex is a compulsion. There are no hidden truths there any more so than in any other compulsion. 'To what end?' will be my razor.
We like to consider ourselves disparate from animals not because we feel closer to gods, but because we don't like to consider ourselves creatures compelled. We describe animal behaviour differently than human behaviour. A cat rubs its face against you. Why? Once says, "It has scent glands in its cheeks so its leaving its scenton ou." The cat certainly isn't thinking, "I'm going to put my scent on that human". Yet when people have kids, fr instance (or smoke cigarettes, or marry, or fuck, or buy a home), we do not judge the actions according to behavioural economics as applied to biological eveolution. Instead, we judge as creatures whos actions are moderated by, 'To what end?'. People setle down because they are compelled, people fall in love because they believe they are important to the universe, people get rich because they are compelled. If we were these non-driven creatures or creatures free from non-meaningful attachments, what would we want but to sit and be happy? And if we are these creatures whose intention is manifest, then why is this sitting and being content so difficult? All other actions would be moderated by rationality.