From: Bizarro7@aol.com

There is no living creature on Earth for whom it is 'natural' to abstain

from

reproduction for the entirety of their life. It is certainly not natural

for

homo sapiens. To assert that I have somehow insulted anyone who is

celebate

by choice is to be deliberately spoiling for a battle. There is no need

for

contention on this issue, unless you feel that *that* abstention would be

an

unnatural to you.

Aside from the fact that 'unnatural' is an adjective rather than a noun, there are plenty of living creatures on Earth for whom it is perfectly natural to abstain from reproduction. Many species of the Hymenoptera form colonies of which the overwhelming bulk of the population consists of sterile females. Among vertebrates, deliberate abstention from reproduction has been recorded in Florida scrub jays and at least one species of mole rat.

Asexual reproduction is abundant in both animals and plants, including those plants that have turned to apomixy as an alternative to sexual reproduction. Parthenogenesis is a normal mode of reproduction for many insects of the Phasmida and Hemiptera.

Reproduction is universal to all species, but not all individuals of some species, and reproduction does not automatically mean sex. As far as human beings are concerned, sex does not necessarily imply reproduction.

And it's 'Homo sapiens' - capital H - not 'homo sapiens'.

Whatever your intent, your remark came across as an insult, albeit one not directed personally at me. Not, incidentally, for suggesting that I was somehow 'unnatural', but for the implication that I am somehow a lesser human being for pursuing an essentially celibate lifestyle. I get enough of that from the macho idiots I work with, when they're in macho idiot mode (which is thankfully not all the time). There is in fact an awful lot in our lives that is unnatural. Swaddling ourselves in shaped pieces of fabric, including some made from chemically synthesised fibres, is pretty unnatural. So is putting bits of glass in front of our eyes to correct defective vision. I can think of no other creature on Earth that habitually acquires its food encased in tin-plated steel, cardboard or synthesise polymers through the exchange of metal or paper tokens, nor one that habitually labours fixed hours on a weekly basis, regardless of seasonal changes, for no purpose other than the acquisition of this means of exchange. Nor can I think offhand of any species that devotes large quantities of time to discussion of fictional realities that went out of production over two decades previously.

There is very little about human beings that is 'natural', so to assert the imperative of one particular aspect of human behaviour (and one that is *not* necessary to any particular individual) on the basis of it being 'natural' is both thoughtless and presumptive about what it means to be human.

Neil