Implications of a race of hermaphrodites?

[fusangite]

As the guy who most reliably says unpopular things about gender, I'll throw out a few observations:

1. The best work I've seen on the subject is LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness; if I were to undertake the project you are, that's what I would use as my starting point.

2. Why would you introduce a race of hermaphrodites if you didn't already have a strong preconceived notion of their society? What is the point of having them in your world if you don't know what they're there for? I'd suggest that what you need to do is honestly answer yourself as to why you decided to place them in your world, what issues you want to raise, consider, deal with. Once you know that, I think a lot of the features of the society will become clear.

3. I think one thing that might be helpful is to look at various homosexual subcultures and see what different social mores they have. This might help to provide a basis for some of what you're doing.

 

[rounser]

The reason why we have two genders instead of one is that specialists can outcompete generalists - a man is better at playing the male mating game and a female is better at playing the female mating game than any gender that tries to do both.

Sex itself exists in order to reshuffle the genes every generation, "changing the locks" so that the diseases and parasites which live all over us don't kill the next generation because they've had decades to figure out the "keys" to unlocking their parent's cells already.

You can probably extrapolate the implications from there.

 

[Umbran]

The reason why we have two genders instead of one is that specialists can outcompete generalists

The human race is the ultimate in generalism. We are living proof that generalists don't necessarily lose out to specialists.

The actual reason we have two genders is a matter of historical contingency. At some point in our history, one of our ancestors worked out sexual dimorphism, and it worked for them. We are stuck with their pattern. The result is that there are no vetebrates that have two fully working sets of sexual organs in the same critter at once. The way terrestrial vetebrates are built, one set of active organs would literally poison the other. Testosterone is not good for ovaries, and estrogen is not good for testes. The best we cansometimes do is switch genders. We cannot do both at once.

Luckily, magic gets around historical contingency quite nicely.

Sex itself exists in order to reshuffle the genes every generation

Yes. But a Hermaphroditic species still has the mixing of genes. These are not critters who use asexual reproduction, these are critters who produce sexually, but get to choose which set of organs to use.

 

[Alzrius]

Just for the record, the difference between being neuter and a hermaphrodite is very pronounced. Neuter means you are completely unable to reproduce. Maybe you can have sex, but you are unable to fertilize another nor be impregnated. Hermaphrodites, conversely, can fertilize another, or can choose to be impregnated, and both take place sexually.

That said, such a society would probably place at least a moderate emphasis on which role to choose (bearing life, or getting another pregnant). It wouldn't have to be a lifelong decision, but it would still be considerable, assuming this race has the usual elven gestation period of two years. Depending on their contact with other races, they may choose to fall into "normal" gender roles, with one in a couple acting female, having the children and such, and the other acting male, being the one to fertilize their partner. Or if not caught up in gender labels, couples may choose to switch roles every so often.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

A Society in which Everyone gets Pregnant

I would guess that the primary question in designing this sort of society would be who is obligated to help raise children. Since this race still needs a sexual partners to reproduce that creates a certain baseline dynamic, but two people are almost never enough to raise children in our own society let alone one in which children mature so slowly and in which children have comparatively greater value, given their rarity.

One of the primary purposes of a sex-gender system is to construct dependencies into one or more of the genders, which in turn creates stronger needs for larger more stable communities in which children may be raised. This systems work better if they work with other systems, economic, political, and what not to enforce, support, and reward those dependencies.

In a society in which gender constructions and the manufacturing of difference along sex lines is problematic, other forms of making difference and then constructing dependencies would have to be found. That's where I would start exploring.

Age is something that immediately leaps to mind. This society might have very strong identity constructions based on how old you are and would commonly associate and work within groups of people of the same age. Let's play into the fact that they are viewed as female and call them sororities. Sorority members live together, support each other, and depend on each other. They frequently live in the same household.

So sororities solve the problem of how households are formed.

The problem of how children are raised and communities reproduced is extrapolated from this idea and the idea that they look to age for identity. Each age identity is known as a stage or season, the terms are interchangeable. Children of the society of are raised by sororities of the fourth and older seasons.

When children are small they are considered to be in the first season are the sorority they live with is entirely responsible for their care. There are likely to be many children living with a sorority and while they belong to it they are not considered fully participating members of the sorority. Much as small children in our own society have no power or responsibility in the family.

When children enter an age at which they can converse the children of a community begin to train together regardless of which sorority they belong to. They still live with their original sorority, but they begin to socialize more and more with people their own age and people who specialize in the training of children.

People enter the third season when they are considered sexually potent both physically and emotionally. At this season people are encouraged to do two things, first they are supposed to begin forming sexual relationships and strong bonds throughout the community. Second, they are supposed to become sexually active and pregnant. They are allowed to be sexually active with members of their own season, but they are encouraged to develop relationships with members of sororities of the fourth season. At this stage, people are supported by both their 'parent' sorority and their 'spouse' sorority, particularly as they are all supposed to experience pregnancy.

Pregnant members of the community are supposed to spend a great deal of time together, as this time is meant to create the bonds that will become a sorority. All children are adopted by older sororities. Pregnancy is considered a part of everyones education and the primary qualifier for full adulthood. The third season can last sometime for many people, and is the season in which pregnancy is most encouraged. Social options are most open and social power relative to maturity is lowest.

Qualifying for the fourth stage involves joining a sorority. Only sorority members are given full rights and powers within the community and only sororities are allowed to raise children. Members of the fourth stage are the work horses of the community, most people start their serious careers/begin managing property at this stage. The primary emphasis of this stage in the reproductive process is gathering together the sorority and resources to enable the sorority to successfully adopt and raise children.

The fifth stage is more settled and is entered into when a sorority has a house of its own and children in the second stage. This stage has a great deal of social power and represents the most respectable and idealized stage. People begin owning their own businesses, diversifying their interests, and aligning themselves with political interests. At the same time, there is a sense of the loss of social freedom to social obligation. Pregnancy is replaced by adoption and impregnation at this stage.

The sixth stage is entered into when a sorority has graduated children into the third stage and its members begin accepting positions within the highest ranks of the society. Political and teaching positions being the most commonly held signs of entering this stage. This is the last and longest season characterized by strong ties with daughters in younger sororities, increasing urbanization, strong social interest, and, being elves, a very strong interest in developing and teaching knowledge.

I strongly suspect that this society, and any hermaphroditic society, would tend towards larger communities. A society in which everyone can become pregnant will require more resources. That and elves, being long lived, should have larger communities, though that conversely means that most of their territories are more lightly populated.

 

[rounser]

The human race is the ultimate in generalism. We are living proof that generalists don't necessarily lose out to specialists.

If hermaphrodites were as successful as males and females, they'd be everywhere, and females and males would be nowhere. They're not, so they aren't. When I get home I'll look up the evolutionary math for you, but they get exponentially outcompeted in the mating game in a handful of generations. That's not a winning ticket, long term.

The specialists always tend to win; that's the way evolution usually works...

The actual reason we have two genders is a matter of historical contingency. At some point in our history, one of our ancestors worked out sexual dimorphism, and it worked for them. We are stuck with their pattern. The result is that there are no vetebrates that have two fully working sets of sexual organs in the same critter at once. The way terrestrial vetebrates are built, one set of active organs would literally poison the other. Testosterone is not good for ovaries, and estrogen is not good for testes. The best we cansometimes do is switch genders. We cannot do both at once.

Not true. If hermaphrodites could compete with males and females, the biological chemistry would find a way to do it over those hundreds of millions of years. If being a hermaphrodite were better than being a male or female, I guarantee you that there would be almost no males or females in the human race...only about as many hermaphrodites as exist among humans now. In other words, none except for the odd mutation. As it is, the reverse is the case, which is why they're almost totally unknown.

The nature of sex is fundamental to our existence; it's the very beating heart of evolution. To pretend that it's a spandel (a left over trait, an accident with no purpose like having a chin is inevitable if you have a jaw) makes no sense. Something so core to how our species exists would be corrected to become optimal very quickly indeed. The competition for mates is fierce, and a shortcut like being able to impregnate and become pregnant would be widespread if it were an advantage; among humans, the specialists leave more offspring, so the generalists get voted off the island entirely.

To offer a D&D analogy, a dedicated cleric is better at being a cleric than a wizard/cleric is, just as a dedicated wizard is better at being a wizard than the wizard/cleric is too. The same goes for males versus male/females and females versus male/females.

Luckily, magic gets around historical contingency quite nicely.

On that we're agreed.

Yes. But a Hermaphroditic species still has the mixing of genes.

I never denied that. But it's important to understand what that mixing is for - it's specifically to fight off bacteria, viruses, infection, disease, parasites and assorted other nasties that go through many generations of evolution in your gut, on your skin and between your cells in an attempt to crack the locks.

Nothing will kill your kids more surely than disease that has adapted specifically to overcome their body's defenses, which is why we don't asexually clone ourselves...our offspring would only last a handful of years before succumbing to the same bugs that lived in the parents, and had since worked out how to crack the defensive "locks" used by that gene combination.

Some other species don't have the same parasite difficulties as humans, and so only need become sexual once every few generations, or never (relying exclusively on asexual reproduction).

These are not critters who use asexual reproduction, these are critters who produce sexually, but get to choose which set of organs to use.

Yes. Again, you're assuming that I'm using that as an argument against hermaphrodites; it's not. I added it as a useful point to understand why we bother with sex at all. Hermaphrodites are definitely sexual - they're just not quite as good at being a male as a male is, nor at being a female as a female is. Since they do neither as well as a devoted male or female, they don't get the same quality or quantity of sexual partners as devoted males or females, and resultingly they lose that race.

So, again, in D&D terms, hermaphrodites don't exist in any widespread form because of evolutionary min/maxing in the mating game.

 

[Tsyr]

I do like some of what Dr. Strange posted... It would explain why there are more of them than the initial few, if each one was socialy expected to bear at least one young... that (in effect) doubles the elven fertility rate.

 

[Umbran]

If hermaphrodites were as successful as males and females, they'd be everywhere, and females and males would be nowhere.

Well, first off, they are everywhere. Take a shovel, dig up some dirt. The earthworms worms you see are true hermaphrodites. Given that, in terms of biomass there are more hermaphrodites on land than there are vertebrates. So much for them not being successful.

The specialists always tend to win; that's the way evolution usually works...

Then why are there still so many earthworms?

Not true. If hermaphrodites could compete with males and females, the biological chemistry would find a way to do it over those hundreds of millions of years.

There's a common misconception - that if a solution is even throetically possible, evolution will find it. This is simply not true.

Evolution is not driven by a thoughtful mind - it does not say, "This would be advantageous, so I will do it". Evolution does no seek advantage. Evolution must happen on a trait by chance, and that trait must be advantageous (or at least not harmful) at the time in order for it to come to be part of a species. A great many unlikely things have come up during the course of terrestrial evolution, but there's many things that also haven't come to pass. Evolution does not try every possible solution. It only tries the ones it happens to stumble across.

If being a hermaphrodite were better than being a male or female, I guarantee you that there would be almost no males or females in the human race...only about as many hermaphrodites as exist among humans now.

Perhaps you weren't reading fully - there are no true hermaphrodites among vertebrates now. Not because it's disadvantageous, but because it's not physically possible. The presence of active testes causes deformaties in ovaries, and vice versa. Getting to a state where that is not the case requires a fundamentla restructuring of how the testes and ovaries work. This is not exactly easy to do without killing the organism, or making it sterile.

The nature of sex is fundamental to our existence; it's the very beating heart of evolution. To pretend that it's a spandel (a left over trait, an accident with no purpose like having a chin is inevitable if you have a jaw) makes no sense.

Well, hermaphrodism does not at all change the nature of sex, in that it still allows for the remixing of genetic material.

Nobody said it had no purpose. I said that, now having it, it is nigh impossible to change. There are any number of things in the land-vertebrate body plan that are similar - bilateral symmetry, or having four limbs. We are stuck with the basic body plan of our ancestors because radical alterations are not easy to do, while subtle alterations are.

As you put it, the method of our reproduction is fundamental. Therefore, changing it is nigh impossible. Consider that the trait must result in a fertile cross-fertile with non-hermaphordites. The trait must be heritable - when it mates with normal members of the species, tyhe results must at least carry the potential to produce later hermaphrodites. It must also be able to mate with normal members of it's species - for example, a critter who had the full set of male and female parts would also emit both male and female pheromones, which might well exclude it from mating. For humanoids - how likely are you to make with another human who has both sets of genitalia?

Something so core to how our species exists would be corrected to become optimal very quickly indeed.

Not necessarily. There are many traits that would be advantageous that we don't posess. A spinal column that isn't so vulnerable to stress injury would be highly advantageous, but we don't have it. And that's simpler than hermaphrodism.

To offer a D&D analogy, a dedicated cleric is better at being a cleric than a wizard/cleric is, just as a dedicated wizard is better at being a wizard than the wizard/cleric is too.

Ah! But you see, what we don't know is if a dedicated wizard of cleric is better at being a character than a multiclass. Being a better wizard isn't advantageous unless what you need is a better wizard. And, like players, nature doesn't know for sure which is better beforehand. It makes it's choice, and only finds out later. Unlike players - nature doesn't have the option of simply changing it's choice later on

I never denied that. But it's important to understand what that mixing is for - it's specifically to fight off bacteria, viruses, infection, disease, parasites and assorted other nasties that go through many generations of evolution in your gut, on your skin and between your cells in an attempt to crack the locks.

It's for a lot more than that. Avoiding the deformities of recessive genes, and increasing the availability of immunities to the population are notable, but are far from the limit of what the mixing is for.

Genes interact in strange and mysterious ways. If you don't mix them, you don't fully experiment with the material at your disposal.

. Hermaphrodites are definitely sexual - they're just not quite as good at being a male as a male is, nor at being a female as a female is.

We've never seen a true vertebrate hermaphrodite, so we cannot say what it is or is not good at. We most certainly cannot say that their non-appearance is proof, because we don't know if the experiment has ever been tried.

Perhaps Stephen Jay Gould put it best. The phrase "Survival of the fittest" is a bit of circular logic. The typical way we define fitness is by survival. That means the phrase reduces to "Survival of those who suvive," which gives us no information - speciifcally, it gives us no information on why they survived.

 

[fusangite]

Beautifully put, Umbran. I could not have said it better myself. Reading posts like your last one makes reading EN World worthwhile.

Tsyr, why can't you squeeze any more information out of your friend about this race. Why won't she tell you what it's there for in her world? Her request continues to seem really weird as the information she gave you is not at all the information that seems necessary to figure this thing out.

 

[Tsyr]

Tsyr, why can't you squeeze any more information out of your friend about this race. Why won't she tell you what it's there for in her world? Her request continues to seem really weird as the information she gave you is not at all the information that seems necessary to figure this thing out.

I dunno, I guess the same reason anyone wants any race in their world... "just because". She also wanted an "outcast" elven race that wasn't evil or drow-like in any way, so I guess this is her answer to that. If you have need of some specific bit of information, I can either ask her, or just tell you... I might just make an on-the-spot decision about it, since she hasn't given me much.