The truth about the Anglos

Don’t worry. This isn’t a diatribe against Anglophones. Instead I want to explore the origins of two flags often seen in New Brunswick, the Acadian flag, which now flies in front of many government buildings, and the flag developed by the Anglo Society of New Brunswick.

The Acadian flag is said to represent the Acadians. It was chosen at the 1884 Acadian Convention in Miscouche, PEI, on Aug. 15. The Acadians are descendants of the first French settlers in an area corresponding roughly to the Maritime Provinces of Canada and Eastern Maine, USA. Britain took over the area for a final time in 1713. From then on, any Acadian born in the area would automatically be a British subject, but the British decided to ignore that and consider them enemies on British soil. In 1755, British authorities began the process of deporting these British subjects, without trial or any finding of guilt in court, and then proceeded to replace them with protestant colonists, most of them English speaking. When Acadians returned to their former land, they were generally unwelcome and second-class citizens.

Rather than just assimilate into the English-speaking majority, Acadians chose to live in isolated areas and maintain their language and customs. Today, New Brunswick’s population is 33 percent French-speaking and Acadians are a powerful political force. It is the main reason why New Brunswick today is officially bilingual.

But there are always people who disagree with some government policies. Official bilingualism led to enough discontent in some areas to foster the creation of the New Brunswick Association of English-speaking Canadians in 1984. The main impetus for this group was the decision to celebrate the Acadian flag’s 100th anniversary by flying it on government building flag posts. However, the group spent most of the time contesting the Poirier-Bastarache Report, which called for, among other things, greater access to government jobs for the French population. The group disbanded in 1986, but the discontent took a new form in the eventual creation of the provincial wing of the Confederation of Regions (CoR) Party. When CoR bit the dust, another organization took up the “cause,” the Anglo Society of New Brunswick.

The Acadians chose Aug. 15 as their national holiday, which was Assumption Day on the Catholic calendar, a nod to their patron saint, Mary, mother of Jesus Christ. The Anglo Society decided to choose a date more in keeping with English conquest over the French: Sept. 18, the day New France fell to British forces. No doubt: this was war!

Ever since its inception the Anglo Society has tried to have its flag flown in different areas of New Brunswick – especially in the capital city of Fredericton. The request has been turned down many times. Ever since, the group has since made a point of showing up every Aug. 15 at City Hall to make their feelings known during the annual “tintamarre.”

The Anglos say they have nothing against bilingualism per se, but oppose “forced bilingualism.” They add that they have nothing against the French per se. Yet, the signs they use at their protests would seem to tell a different story:

• “Politicians dancing to Acadian fiddle.”
• “Help Wanted. Province of New Brunswick. Unilingual English need not apply.”
• “Is New Brunswick Quebec’s Branch Office?”
• “Acadians represented. English rejected.”
• “Minority control a reality in N.B.”
• “Bilingual today means French tomorrow.”
• “English doctors in N.B. need not apply.”

For a better view of many of these signs, click here.

Earlier this month, we learned that the City of Bathurst, almost half of which is francophone, had agreed to fly the Anglo flag on Sept. 18 of this year. Reaction from francophones and their supporters was quick and negative. Even the province’s Official Languages Commissioner and the Deputy Premier had weighed in on the issue, hoping Bathurst City Council would reconsider its decision. About a week later, the previous decision had been rescinded.

Various reports say the Anglos hadn’t planned on attending Fredericton’s tintamarre this year, but changed their minds following the flip-flop in Bathurst. Their target is supposed to be the mayor of Fredericton, Brad Woodside. We’ll see. Meanwhile, the Anglos also intend to hold a protest at Bathurst City Hall on Sept. 18.

Monogamy... myth or reality?

I had been sitting on two new entries to my blog because the more I read them and explored their implications, the more I wondered just how true they were. I finally posted them as one sole article just before this one, and now I want to play devil’s advocate, at least to some degree.

In the last post, I noted that from the point of view of geneticists, humans were a monogamous species. As I pondered the matter further, I began to wonder how that conclusion was reached. There is no doubt that males and females seek out life partners. But to what extent do they seek out only one? To what extent do they actually intend to obey their promise to “forsake all others?”

We are so used to the ideal of monogamy in modern society that we forget that other types of marriages and relationships existed in the past, and still exist. Polyandry and polygyny have existed in different societies for various reasons. Sometimes a man had many wives due to societal status or simply wealth. In other cases, some men had two wives simply because there weren’t enough men to go around. In some American Indian cultures, a man might share his wife – if she consented – with one of his friends who happened to still be unmarried. One is tempted to wonder what China’s one-child policy may bring about given the much lower number of women available for marriage due to parents heavily favouring the birth of male children and taking measures to make this happen.

Even when monogamy imposed itself, the object was often not merely the union of two people, but rather two families. In some cases, political alliances were formed between two crowns through the marriage of a king’s daughter to the king or king-in-waiting of another realm. Love had nothing to do with it. That was left for adulterous relationships, which were officially frowned upon, but often tolerated. A different version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Today, things are no less complicated. Yes, many strictly monogamous relationships endure for decades. Other people opt for serial monogamy, that is, one monogamous relationship after another. Then there are those who refuse to choose between two (or more) lovers and choose polyamory or ménages à trois.

I’ve wondered where “swingers” fit in all this. The members of these couples allow each other to have sex with others, but the marital commitment to each other is still strong. Therefore, are they monogamous and non-possessive or non-monogamous yet seriously committed? Or both?

It’s true that not everyone enters into non-conventional relationships. However, how much of that is due to societal pressure to conform and how much of that is due to human nature? It would be easy to say that monogamy does not reflect human nature given the many people who find it too constricting. At the same time, monogamy has become an integral part of almost all cultures today. Could this have happened if there wasn’t at least a little bit of human nature to help things out?

It gets more complicated when you check out the actual definition and use of the word monogamy. There are at least three types which should interest us here:

Social monogamy is what we could call two people living together, married or not, and includes having sex with each other, as well as sharing resources. No sexual exclusivity is implied, though we might expect it.

Sexual monogamy is what we call two people who have sex with each other and no one else. They may or may not live together.

Genetic monogamy is when two people have children only with each other, regardless of how many other people they may have sex with.

Remember that question I had about swingers? It turns out they could easily fit both the first and third definitions. The polyamorous could fit the third, and perhaps the first depending on how openly they live their lifestyle. Those who are in open marriages might fit the third or not.

So, are human beings monogamous? It depends on how you define monogamy.

Sex in Prehistory

Humans, especially males, tend to fret quite a bit about the size of their penises. Scientists do as well, but for different reasons. A quick look at theories behind this can be found in Mystery Dance: On The Evolution of Human Sexuality, by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan. A lot of the book is theory and speculation, but that’s often the fun of books like those.

First, a few concepts have to be understood. From a geneticist’s point of view, the sexual characteristics and behaviour of all animals, including humans, can be explained through the chromosomes wanting to replicate themselves as much as they can.

For the female, there’s the matter of getting pregnant. The next generation carries her genes and can then pass them on. For the male, it’s a matter of being the one lucky enough to have access to a fertile female. There are two main strategies at opposite ends of a spectrum.

One strategy is typified by the gorilla. Males are larger than females, a phenomenon called sexual dimorphism. One male becomes dominant over all the others and wins exclusive access to all females in the group. The other strategy is total promiscuity. In chimpanzees, the dimorphism is less pronounced. Chimpanzee females are described as the sexual athletes of the animal world, mating several times a day with as many males as they can when they are in heat.

The first strategy, typified by the gorilla, is called “sperm competition avoidance.” One dominant male has exclusive access to the females, so only his sperm will be used to impregnate them. The second, typified by the chimpanzee, is called “sperm competition.” In this case, there is no sexual exclusivity, and one male will try to displace sperm already present in the female while leaving his own to impregnate her instead.

Sperm competition is essentially sperm competing to get to the ovum first. If a woman has sex with two different men only a few hours – or a few minutes – apart, even the sperm of the second man will try to get there first, and may even succeed. Indeed, with chimps, there will often be brothers and cousins getting together to mate successively with a same female. A geneticist would say they would be trying their best to have their shared genes passed on.

It so happens that species with “sperm competition avoidance” strategies will usually not have large genitals, nor large quantities of sperm. Since there is no competing sperm to worry about, there will be none to be displaced by large genitals. But for sperm competitors, the penis must be large enough to displace sperm left previously by others, and the testicles must produce enough sperm each time to compete with the sperm left behind by others.

What does all this have to do with human sexuality? Well, we’re generally a monogamous species (there are exceptions to every rule). Since monogamy implies sexual exclusivity, we are considered to be, by and large, sperm-competition avoiders. Our males shouldn’t need their genitalia to be as large as they are. So, how did we come to have such large organs?

Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor from which they diverged about six million years ago. There are many similarities between chimps and humans. Male chimps have fairly large genitals, larger testicles than those of humans, and a penis at least half the size of that of a human.

According to experts, large testicles and penises are usually found in promiscuous animals. The male gorilla, whose genitals are quite small, has a harem which it guards jealously. Like gorillas, the australopithecines showed a bigger difference in body size between sexes than men and women do today. This suggests they were sperm-competition avoiders, and the males would have had small genitals.

This would have started to change when subordinate male members of the earliest Homo species started upsetting the applecart by offering food to females in exchange for sex. Time went on, and by the time an intermediate species of Homo came on the scene, males weren’t all that much larger than females. Homo “intermediate” (either erectus or ergaster) started cooperating more and more, and this would set the stage for sperm competition. Eating and sleeping together in groups would have promoted more talking and socialising in general. A fair amount of promiscuity may have been the norm until pair bonding became a way to ensure peace among all the males and strengthen group cohesion.

(Mental note to self: What about the females? They get jealous, too.)

A trend toward monogamy and romance may have begun as Homo sapiens males took fertile females away from the group for some “alone time.” Chimps sometimes do this. Theoretically, it’s a way of making sure that male is the one with an opportunity to impregnate the female. However, the chimp that dares do this could be beaten by the other members of the group for breaking group conventions.

It’s thought early Homo species did the same thing and may have risked similar mistreatment by other group members. Only later when pair bonding became the norm did this become not only acceptable but almost mandatory.

The theory is that the human species is moving back to a state of sperm competition avoidance. Since this has only started relatively recently, we still have large genitals left over from humanity’s more promiscuous days.

What does the future hold? Given that we can now consciously decide to avoid pregnancy completely and have sex for pleasure only, and perhaps even throw off our jealousy and possessiveness in some cases, it would be interesting to see things play out, if only we could live long enough.

As I said, there are many similarities between chimps and humans, but one main difference is female chimps continue to experience oestrus cycles, while human females do not. How important a factor could that be in determining whether or not humans will be sperm-competition avoiders?

Belated mourning for NOSE

Back in the 1990s, an American expert in sex and relationship counselling, Dr. Roger Libby, started an organisation called NOSE, or National Organization of Sexual Enthusiasts. The goal was to try to give sex a more positive image than what was being pushed at the height of the Reagan-Bush Sr. era.

Libby saw NOSE as both a political and educational group which supported the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution, notably the separation of church and state, and the right to sexual privacy. NOSE believed in the greatest sexual freedom possible, and accepted all types, including monogamy and non-monogamy, married and single, straight, gay and bi people. It also insisted on the importance of honesty, caring, responsibility and safety. Exploitation and game-playing were denounced as strongly as was aggressive behaviour. While NOSE had no objection to pornography and erotica, and always stressed the FUN aspects of sex, the newsletters I was able to receive also presented serious issues for discussion rather than just titillating articles.

NOSE always sought to have a balance between the sexes as far as numbers go, but always had more male members than female. (Hmmm... not unlike certain nudist social networking sites.) Furthermore, while the organisation was promoted on Dr. Libby’s website, it never became web based. While I could find no independent information as to why NOSE eventually became defunct, it’s a fact that by 2001, Dr. Libby was no longer promoting it on his website. If anything came about to replace it, I haven’t discovered it yet. The adult/sex dating sites certainly haven’t offered anything that comes close to what NOSE published in its newsletters, nor should we expect them to. NOSE hoped to have local chapters to work on local issues and lobby where needed. Whether this ever happened anywhere is unknown to me at this point.

Most social networking sites don’t – knowingly – allow sexual content, even when it’s to discuss serious issues seriously. In some countries, there are political parties devoted to the issue. In Canada and Australia, there is a Sex Party. In the U.S., there are Democrats and Republicans, and both tend to follow a more conservative line when it comes to sexual rights. Only strict libertarians and organisations concerned with government censorship and the stacking of courts with people of a less broadminded bent are expressing their concern in these matters, and they don’t necessarily get the ear of mainstream media.

All sorts of publications like to write about sex, from Playboy and Penthouse to Cosmo and even Good Housekeeping. But these are usually the “Find-his/her-special-erogenous-spot-tonight” kind of articles. One notable exception in 2004 was Free Inquiry, which published what was supposed to be a new and revamped Declaration of Sexual Rights and Responsibilities. Later that same year, The Humanist critiqued the new Declaration and also explored issues such as adult reactions to underage sex, attempts by politicians to stifle discussion of sex in teen magazines, criminal laws against adultery in North America, and polyamory. Similar topics can be found separately on the Internet, but rarely all in one place, and not necessarily treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve.

While most people would not be anything other than strictly and exclusively monogamous and “vanilla,” a great many are broadminded enough to allow for a full exploration of all human sexual possibilities. Indeed, if such things are only explored and discussed in whispers, with embarrassment and under a cloak of near secrecy, those who actively oppose sexual freedom will continue to have the upper hand. I believe the purpose behind NOSE was to bring these issues into the open and, perhaps just as importantly, bring together likeminded people in this endeavour. It’s unfortunate that it never quite caught on enough to continue.