An Enlightening and Intelligent Interview with a Psychology Instructor:

As a full-time psychology instructor at a community college, the question that I hear most often from my students is: “Is it natural for human beings to be monogamous-especially males given the excessive production of sperm. Why would nature/God give men so much sperm if they didn’t need it?” We all agreed that monogamy is defined by agreeing to be sexually faithful to one person. One person asked: is it natural to agree to be sexually faithful to one person? I asked people to raise their hands if they feel comfortable sharing their mate with another lover. No one raised their hand, except a Muslim woman who said that they are taught to accept it if there husband takes another wife. She went on to say that her cousin’s husband took another wife and her cousin told her that it felt like a piece of her had died and that she could never look at him or love him the same. I am proposing that most humans would much rather be in a sexually intimate relationship with one person at a time. The problem with infidelity is that even the people who want to have sex outside of their committed relationship want their partners to be faithful to them. “Why do humans desire sexual fidelity?” is a topic for another article.

I would like to answer this question in two parts, first by analyzing the meaning of the question and secondly, by applying the theory of evolution to excessive sperm production.

Let’s discuss the term natural. Usually when we say that something is natural we mean that it happens without human intervention, that it is inevitable, that we have no control over its cycle, path or destiny. When I think of natural, I think that it is natural for humans to die. It is natural for humans to excrete waste from their bodies in the form of urine and feces. Even though it is “natural” for humans to excrete waste from their bodies, how, where, and when can be determined by their culture. Their culture decides whether or not they we use an outhouse, bushes, a whole in the ground or a toilet. So even though we can make the argument that it is natural to use the bathroom, like humans, even dogs and cats can be trained on where and when it is acceptable to use the bathroom. Read More→