1 79 '°^® ''^ ^^® desert 



Do it in whatever way and with whatever emotional con- 

 comitants you choose. That you should do it somehow or 

 other is all that I ask." 



If one confines one's attention too closely to these 

 seamy sides, one begins to understand why, according to 

 Gibbon, some early Fathers of the Church held that sex 

 was the curse pronounced upon Adam and that, had he not 

 sinned, the human race would have been propagated "by 

 some harmless process of vegetation." Or perhaps one be- 

 gins to repeat with serious emphasis the famous question 

 once asked by the Messrs. Thurber and White, "Is Sex 

 Necessary?" And the answer is that, strictly speaking, it 

 isn't. Presumably the very first organisms were sexless. 

 They reproduced by a "process of vegetation" so harmless 

 that not even vegetable sexuality was involved. What 

 is even more impressive is the patent fact that it is not 

 necessary today. Some of the most successful of all plants 

 and animals — if by successful you mean abundantly sur- 

 viving — have given it up either entirely or almost entirely. 

 A virgin birth may require a miracle if the virgin is to 

 belong to the human race, but there is nothing miraculous 

 about it in the case of many of nature's successful chil- 

 dren. Parthenogenesis, as the biologist calls it, is a per- 

 fectly normal event. 



Ask the average man for a serious answer to the question 

 what sex is "for" or why it is "necessary," and he will 

 probably answer without thinking that it is "necessary for 

 reproduction." But the biologist knows that it is not. Ac- 

 tually the function of sex is not to assure reproduction but 

 to prevent it — if you take the word literally and hence to 

 mean "exact duplication." Both animals and plants could 



