COLUMN: "Basic Instincts"

From David Chun's "The World According To Dave," Fall '92 -- Dr. Randy Nelson, Endocrinologist in Scientific American · In the 1990s, it is extremely difficult to read signals sent by the members of the opposite sex. At Penn, females armed with provocative dresses and makeup can seduce a man to fail a gut "Rocks for Jocks" class. Of course, males are not without their arsenal of defensive weapons. Armed with Porsches and American Express Cards, males can also produce an equally devastating counter strike. Fortunately, the solution to these difficulties can be found by observing mother nature. In humans, timing is of the essence. It is often difficult to assess the date's posture while trying to avoid looking at her short skirt. For the inexperienced, one small miscalculation can lead you to a night in jail for "date rape." (However, a night in jail does provide the accused with ample time to assess the cost-benefit ratio of the date. Any Wharton Risk Management professor will tell you no girl is worth the all-expense paid night in jail with Biff.) Thanks to society, we have laws that impose strict rules to prevent all-out sex-o-rama. But it is arrogant to think the human species solely created the concept of rapes, orgies, and the infamous male ego. With humans, much of the difficulty comes from certain courtship rules that now dictate all dating rituals. With these increases in complexity, it is often difficult to enjoy a night out with a new date. For example, if your female date is from a traditional home with a family income over $50,000 and is a member of the Bally's Holiday Tennis and Racquet Club, it is acceptable for you to open the door for her and your best bet is a pretentious dinner at Le Bec Fin. On the other hand, if your female date is from a liberal home with a lower-middle income and calls Jack Daniels one of her close friends, opening the door is out of the question because of the "feminist movement," but your enchanting evening can simply be the happy-hour at Smokey Joe's. However, even with these complex rules, lovers still manage to find their soul mates in relatively short period of time. Nature still does it better by perpetuating their species the old-fashion way: mate and breed. It is not enough to say that the birds and the bees do it. In what scientists call explosive breeding strategy, nature created the first massive orgy. Frogs, every cool spring evening, come out to the shores and do what they do best . . . mate. They have no ideological difficulties about having multiple partners, nor do they fear venereal diseases. As for rape, the Red deers in Scotland have a primitive method of justice punishable by death. In a system called Female Defense Polygyny, any buck caught raping a fawn is hunted and killed by an enforcer called the Alpha Dominant Male. The pompous male ego also exists in the animal kingdom. The Mannikin birds have a system where the males somersault for the honor of mating. Baboons have an even elaborate system of sex partner approval called the "thumbs up." Usually, two males locate a female and duel for the honor of mating. After one of the baboons indicates defeat by a "thumbs up," the victor mates with the female. However, after a few minutes, the loser attacks the victor, renders him unconscious and mates with the female. The lesson to be learned here is not to fight like baboons and breed like frogs. It is to realize that breeding and mating are simple necessities of life. In a complex human society, the simple task of finding a compatible mate is often laced with confusing rules and mixed signals. The master of human nature, William Shakespeare, once wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream, "What fools these mortals be." In this famous comedy, he was commenting on how humans fell in love with their hearts, not with their minds. He believed that to find one's soul mate, one must be a "fool" or be blinded. One cannot simply sit and evaluate the signals and postures sent by the date. People must learn to follow their basic instincts. Falling in love is not something to be rationally planned and perfectly executed. It is like all things in life: experimental. You must blindly take a leap forward and gamble everything if any positive effects are to be expected. After all, aren't we all just "fools" for love? David Chun is a junior Political Science and Psychology major from Miami, Florida. "The World According To Dave" appears alternate Thursdays.