Re: Citation requested: bandwidth/communication/sex

T0Morrow@aol.com
Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:27:03 -0400


aegis@igc.apc.org (Kathryn Aegis) writes:

>Can someone point me in the direction of the ORIGINAL source of a
>certain concept regarding "bandwidth" and the human function of
>copulation? I have been told that it originated with an Extropian.

Your informant must have been thinking about an article that appeared in the
so-called "forbidden" issue of Extropy: "Sexual Information," 3 EXTROPY 22
(Spring 1989). The author (the name of whom I can't quite place!) says:

"[O]rgasms are so great . . . because they correlate with the exchange of
genetic information. As it turns out, we like sex (with or without orgasms)
for much the same reason. Sex is so great because it allows us to communicate
so much information."

And further:

"Why should we enjoy information so much? Just as we've been naturally
selected to enjoy the exchange of genetic information, so too have we been
naturally selected to enjoy the exchange of information in general. The more
we learn about the world around us, and the more we share what we learn with
those we live with, the more likely we are to survive. Our desire for sexual
information manifests a more universal trait: the desire to exchange
information of all sorts. Sex is special, of course -- it offers us
especially rich inputs and outputs. That's exactly why sex is so great."

T.0. Morrow