Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the family — John Shaqi
Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the familyKnight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Science
Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the family
Knight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Sex (Biology); Sex (Psychology); Taboo; Women
Each of these sex types, male and female, varies somewhat within itself,
as is true of everything living. The two are not so far apart but that
they may overlap occasionally in some details. For instance, some women
are larger than are some men--have lower pitched voices, etc. The whole
bodily metabolism, resting as it does upon a chemical complex, is
obviously more like the male average in some women than it is in others,
and _vice versa_. But the average physical make-up which we find
associated with the male and female sex glands, respectively, is
distinctive in each case, and a vast majority of individuals of each sex
conform nearly enough to the average so that classification presents no
difficulty.
The extreme as well as the average body types existing in the presence
of the respective types of sex-glands are different. For example, we
find an occasional hen with male spurs, comb or wattles, though she is a
normal female in every other respect, and lays eggs.[4] But we never
find a functional female (which lays eggs) with _all_ the typical
characteristics of the male body. Body variation can go only so far in
the presence of each type of primary sexuality (i.e., sex-glands).
The bodily peculiarities of each sex, as distinguished from the
sex-glands or gonads themselves, are known as _secondary_ sex
characters. To put our statement in the paragraph above in another form,
the primary and secondary sex do not always correspond in all details.
We shall find as we proceed that our original tentative definition of
sex as the ability to produce in the one case sperm, in the other eggs,
is sometimes difficult to apply. What shall we say of a sterile
individual, which produces neither? The problem is especially
embarrassing when the primary and secondary sex do not correspond, as is
sometimes the case.
Even in a fully grown animal, to remove or exchange the sex glands (by
surgery) modifies the bodily type. One of the most familiar cases of
removal is the gelding or desexed horse. His appearance and disposition
are different from the stallion, especially if the operation takes place
while he is very young. The reason he resembles a normal male in many
respects is simply that sexuality in such highly-organized mammals is of
the whole body, not of the sex-glands or organs alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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