The Sexual Gene

The Sexual Gene

We know the gene is a selfish little thing, but it is also a sexual little thing. Gene survival depends on a gene’s ability to navigate sexual reproduction: the better it is at having sex (conducing to it), the more likely it is to survive into the future, possibly for millions of years. This means finding mates and successfully copulating. If a gene is no good at sex, it disappears from the gene pool. Altruistic genes don’t survive long, and neither do sexually inept ones. More exactly, a given gene must be part of a gene complex whose housing organism performs well on the sexual stage. Genes must be sexual artists and athletes (also scientists). They can’t waste time on other pursuits. They reproduce themselves by means of sex, i.e., genetic mixing across binary sexes. Moreover, genes are sexual predators, as they are food predators: they prey on members of the opposite sex for copulation, as they prey on other creatures for food. Indeed, they predate for food so that they can predate for sex. That is, they seek sex at every opportunity and they are not too fussy about how they get it. Altruistic copulation is not in their playbook. Their only objection to forced copulation is that the target organism might put up a fight. They are amoral sexual predators. They don’t usually resort to violence, though they may, preferring instead seduction and persuasion (bower birds, for example). Alternatively, we may describe genes as sexual parasites: they use others for their sexual purposes without killing them. Either way they are intent on sexual exploitation (the genes not the animals).

Sexual reproduction is what drives phenotypic variation, and hence speciation. Without sex reproduction is mere copying (with some errors thrown in), i.e., biological stasis. So, sex is what leads to evolutionary progress, its main engine; the genes are thus progressive in their sexuality. If the genes were not sexual, we would not exist. Genes indifferent to mating would be genes destined for extinction. We have sexual genes to thank for what makes us human—we should thank God that our ancestors’ genes were sexual predators. Sex is woven into animal nature (also plants) down to strands of DNA. It is the driving force of the natural world. Animals are sex machines right down to their simple genetic components. There is nothing offensive or discreditable about this; it is just the way evolution works. When Darwin talked about artificial selection and natural selection, he was talking about sex: human breeding simply is intentionally guided copulation, and natural selection is mediated by the same thing. There is no need for sex under the Creationist model—it isn’t necessary for species differentiation—but as things are, it is essential for biodiversity. The sexual gene is necessary for species distinctions.

None of this is to say that animal-level sex (including human) should be given free rein. It isn’t even to say that sex is morally good or unobjectionable. The genes are selfish but we need not (and should not) copy them—selfishness is bad. Similarly, the sex mania of genes is no excuse for sex mania in humans. On the contrary, the very power of the genes in shaping our motivations gives us reason to suppress, sublimate, and regulate our sex lives. It is the same for our gustatory lives. The sex drive is too strong to be given free rein. The genes look after themselves not their vehicles (i.e., us). But we are not their slaves; we can rebel against them. The genes are selfish and sexually predatory, but that is no reason for us to be—and we are not. We don’t get our morality from our genes. The point I have wanted to make is that genes are not only selfish but also rigidly sexual: everything they do is geared to sex. From their point of view, the genitals are paramount; the rest of the body is a device for getting the genitals into the right place at the right time. The survival of the fittest is the survival of the fittest genitals. In fact, we could aptly conceive the whole body as just genital infrastructure, because the genitals are the whole point—they are what the animal has sex with. We therefore need a sex-centered genetics, as we need a self-centered genetics. Selfish and sexual. We have the greedy gene and the horny gene (metaphorically speaking). The gene that propagates best is the gene that has the most sex, i.e., lives in the organism that has the most offspring as a result of copulation. As James Brown sang, “Stay on the scene, like a sex machine”.[1]

[1] I have liberally employed personification talk here, as is commonly done. It is easy to translate it into non-homuncular talk, though more cumbersome. See Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, if necessary. From a gene’s-eye point of view, life is all sex and selfishness; not so from a human point of view (there it’s all money and status, which don’t interest genes).