Genotype, phenotype, and choice.
I had to learn more about human behavior because my own had gotten me in some bad situations - repetitively. What was going on? Then the red symbolism from society led me to cognitive dissonance land.
We learn by experience, or by shared experience from others, and also from our innate behavior patterns passed down through time and species. We share many routine habits with a wide range of other species: locking to the latest trend or annual travel destination whether for religious reasons or a favorite tour band; grooming in the sense of brushing your own or your child’s hair; and some mating instincts. Many of these patterned behaviors may promote health and survival.
This is a follow up to: Brown Bottle Beetles, Red Dresses, and Innate Behavior Patterns.
Understanding ourselves better can help us make better choices when irrational, unspoken feelings overwhelm. Our verbal, rational mind tries to make verbal sense out of feelings that may be ancient. Is it a real need to go to the annual vacation spot? Or an enjoyed routine that feels right each year at that time?
Our genotype is our genes and what might be possible. While a phenotype is a behavior or characteristic that is present - the outcome from our genome and our environment or how we were raised. Flamingoes are white birds genetically, but if they eat a pink type of shrimp regularly then they turn pink - two different phenotypes, one genotype. (1)
Brine shrimp and algae and marine food rich in beta carotene - the orange pigment in carrots that can activate to vitamin A. (2) It is generally a non-toxic pigment in excess that just changes a human’s skin color to orange if they eat too much. Turning orange? yes, a kale smoothie habit can do it, or too many orange veggies for older infants. The genotype would be not orange and the phenotype would be orange skin - just cut back on the kale smoothies.
What the genes may potentially do can vary as they have to be activated to produce an effect. Our choices can make a difference in which genes are in use by the body and which are not being transcribed. The genome is like a recipe box, or patterns for sewing, and transcription is when one is copied into reality - and may be mass produced many times - a pattern for an assembly line.
Our behavior patterns, based on feelings, are based on some changes that physically occur to produce those feelings - rapid heart rate - excitement, curious or afraid, or aroused? Feelings can have similar sensations and the situation would need to be considered subconsciously, or consciously, in order to figure out whether it is fear or worry or curiosity or arousal. We can try to rationalize and may tend to blame others for uncomfortable feelings that are just part of our genetic makeup. The sight of red can stimulate admiration, or danger and fear. Both feelings can be linked to the color so context is needed.
In children the feelings may get confused from lack of clear discussion about our feelings, with words to describe the feelings. They can be less overpowering once we have a way to describe them - “Oh, that old red dress tingle, pipe down self, not right now.” The genotype may say jump, but your phenotype can be encouraged to say, keep it cool. Accountability can be empowering because then you are in charge of those feelings - they are yours, no one else MADE you feel them. Yet the rationalizing voice often tends to blame others - she made me feel this way - or, maybe she just was nearby and your body reacted that way.
I am someone with feelings and can misunderstand far too easily - so I count myself in the previous example. My body reactions are mine and self control plus ADHD is not always easy. Having learned lessons the hard way, I’m passing them forward. With accountability you can become a survivor instead of a victim, someone in control of their actions rather than reacting to feelings and then having to rationalize what were you thinking?
I learned as child that sometimes, I was not thinking. That mistake was not a choice, or not a rational thought out choice, more a reaction maybe. Mentioning ADHD is not playing a victim card, it is simply stating a difference that is physical. Stress and trying too hard can lead to brain shut down and my normal function can be very non functional to the point of needing a caregiver as I can make fearful or odd decisions while not thinking normally. I am also clumsy during the brain shut down, or hyperactive. I chose to learn ballet in order to try to reduce my clumsiness - during brain slow down I am still klutzy, I just fall more gracefully now.
Red dresses was cognitive dissonance for me. After a lot of mistakes and then reading books and therapy, I worked through my modern life/mid life crisis of sexual identity - I identify as a child sex trauma survivor and autoimmune patient. Both identities can make normal relationships more difficult. Trauma survivors can be less trusting, more anxious, more likely to get frightened or triggered by odd things - and need a lot of love. Autoimmune patients may be trauma survivors from the medical system’s treatment of autoimmune patients and likely also need a lot of love - but maybe not foreign antigens (aka body fluids).
Another way to look at genotype and phenotype is with the modern labeling of asexual as a sexual identity, as if a choice. As a health professional I consider it a symptom that may be treatable if not to change the sex drive but at least help the body in other ways. Iodine deficiency prenatally can leave the child with subclinical hypothyroidism and possibly asexual development. Having no urges once puberty starts is not the same as having a sex drive and choosing celibacy. If a person is asexual because of a lack of iodine, then it may be too late for the fetal development stage but it might provide the person’s body and endocrine glands with the iodine they need for healthy function.
The genotype of a baby with congenital hypothyroidism might be normal and adequate iodine provided right away might lead to a normal phenotype. Not providing iodine might lead to an asexual phenotype and smaller height and weight and potentially a reduced IQ.
The gender dysphoria and trans topics are also related to genotype and phenotype. The fetal genotype is male or female, while prenatal hormones may have shifted the epigenetics towards the opposite gender’s behavior patterns. Females tend to be more nurturing of children and others, and may role play characters in their play. Males tend to be more physically active in play and object and team oriented. This is about generalities - not individual specifics.
Gender and gender patterns of behavior are a spectrum and child trauma or the prenatal hormone environment may lead to epigenetic changes that activate or stop genes and lead to a change in health or behavior - veering more towards the other end of the spectrum. Gender dysphoria is real, but has been politicized and pushed by media. It isn’t easy being a teen during easy eras, and it is worse now in many ways. Agricultural chemicals and other chemicals in the food supply and medications can be a causal factor in the increased rates of trans or homosexual people. Acceptance is needed within reasonable boundaries. Disappearing women is not acceptance.
A male gender behavior pattern is to be best, king of the hill, leader of the pack, so wanting to be the “best” woman is really more of a male gender pattern of behavior rather than female. Certainly, women can be competitive, but males will display intimidation tactics: pounding the chest, or even thrusting an erection. Reducing blood shed is believed to be the survival tactic - intimidate the competition until they leave and then neither is wounded.
My genotype may be poly oxytocin receptors, but my phenotype can be celibate or exclusive, my choice. It does mean I am not interested in someone who doesn’t understand that people vary, feelings aren’t exactly the same for everyone.
In recognizing there is difference though, in poly and monogamy, it helped me understand why I kept making similar mistakes. I also had to learn about child trauma, codependency, and poly/monogamy genetics, in order to understand that my genotype leaves me open to falling in love easily and fast, and that my child trauma phenotype left me very vulnerable, groomed to submit to dominant types of people, and to keep quiet about it. I had no boundaries or quiet and shy, walled off, neither a good communication style.
My upbringing also taught codependent enmeshment and tolerance for narcissistic abuse - love your abuser, even love pain? Yes, children may learn that love and pain are just a mixed set, can’t get one without the other, sadly believed, but not always true. That is a core value learned in childhood, and those are the type that can be hard to unlearn. Recognizing that it exists can help see the pattern better when a situation arrives with a charming abuser - see red, the danger kind, not the passion kind, and leave.
Modern messaging is also adding to a problem in larger numbers. The prenatal hormone difference is increasing but social media is faster and teens and young adults who are anxious and have identity issues may particularly be at risk. If someone happily did girly things in their early childhood, then suddenly transitioning to being a man as a teen may have more to do with peer pressure or the adults in positions of trust. Being unsure of oneself and confused about relationships and the opposite gender is part of being young.
Starting too early, as modern media has all around us, with sexual signals can cause changes in a child’s development too - epigenetic changes that can last a lifetime. Fixating on that age group as sexual can occur, or bisexual, confused about gender can occur with child sex trauma.
We don’t know what will stand out to a child as disturbing, confusing, or arousing - or all of the above.
Modern media is normalizing more and more unusual ‘identities’ which would lead to more people flocking to the trend - Monkey see, monkey do. New: Pan Am sexual - not my joke - sexual attraction to objects like airplanes, (3), or the Berlin Wall - big and powerful until it was broken, or the Eiffel Tower. (4) So clearly, modern women are not all as smart as healthy female brown bottle beetles - or not as healthy.
Odd fixations can occur during childhood or adolescence that stay with the person all of their lives. The taboo about overt sexuality by adults is protective of normal child development. Modern media is full of overt sexuality that simply puts tiny covers over the sex organs while making food and cartoons full of subtle imagery of sex organs. Our children deserve better. Environmental toxins and nutrient deficiencies such as iodine may also be affecting the physical and mental health of children and adults.
Imitation is a natural part of how humans learn and shifting norms as a group can occur in a sudden mass movement. Avoid the shiny object syndrome - being distracted by whatever ‘urgent’ thing the news is discussing urgently. They probably aren’t discussing the real underlying problems such as glyphosate, pesticides, and subclinical hypothyroidism.
Red dresses are just something I don’t wear. My child trauma left me seeing red as danger, not healing or powerful. Also, my genotype is the Earth tones color palate, so I make my phenotype the same: greens, aqua blue, orange or brown. Kermit knows - be myself. - wear green. After reading more though, red light may be healing, even specifically helping testosterone levels, (5), maybe the human males are smarter than male brown bottle beetles.
Acceptance can include accepting that sexual health is part of health and nature or God doesn’t make mistakes about the big stuff. Lust when uncontrolled, is addictive, so is falling in love. It feels good. It floods the body with opiate like endorphins, and feel good oxytocin or vasopressin and increases immune function overall. Too much is too much for fragile skin and can be addictive - dopamine is also increased.
In the short term males can have a reduction in body reserves, so celibacy the night or two before a sports event might be wise, but all year? Some people promote that philosophy for men. It can be typical for men to fall asleep after sexual release. However female bodies are different and can enjoy sexual release multiple times and feel energized and be ready to get up and get going - did nature make a mistake? Or does it feel good because it is promoting survival of the species? Might it have survival value for a woman to be able to escape a bad situation once the male falls asleep?
Cognitive dissonance
I learned red dresses are complicated and so is modern media messaging. Wear red lipstick to look more confident and powerful - but don’t be a tease. Save yourself for a rich man - but don’t be a gold-digger. Be independent as a woman - but expect gifts and dinner and a solid prenuptial agreement - but marry for love and don’t use men.
Role models for girls in recent times have included any who get rich even with a questionable past - they rose above their circumstances and had to do what they had to in order to survive. Promising sex, then drugging and robbing someone is criminal assault and burglary - yet was dismissed by modern media. The woman did what she had too. Promising sex for money then providing it, is considered a victimless crime like drug addiction - morally wrong but the drug addict or sex worker is primarily only risking themself or their partner in the immoral act.
Social Pressure to “Transition” to trans-male, and hypersexualizing of women.
Hypersexualizing of women, and “White Privilege”, may be involved in the increase in young white women transitioning to trans-man, according to one young woman who shared her story of transitioning, then detransitioning from male hormone treatment. The pressure on some young women, white women in particular, has been too much according to the young woman named Helena. She had been happy enough doing normal girl things but as an anxious adolescent got more and more involved with an online community that stressed white privilege is bad and wrong. Being a trans-man however is a cool minority group. (6)
School counselors and other health practitioners also prompted her to start male hormones without adequate guidance about the side effects of sudden increase in testosterone - Roid Rage - steroid abuse in weight lifters would be the obvious, cautionary, example. Instead she was diagnosed with other mental conditions and prescribed psychiatric drugs too. It took her a few years to realize that being a trans man wasn’t her and a few more years to restore her health after stopping the hormone treatments. (6)
Cautionary advice for everyone - part of what she didn’t want to do as a “modern female” was to be promiscuous or a sex worker as it seemed to be promoted as normal and what all modern women do.
“Female sexuality is hypersexualized and pornified, yet it’s supposed to be “empowering” for women to do porn, be prostitutes, or have dangerous, kinky, scary sounding sex with many different men. I heard that my discomfort with this made me “vanilla”, and a girl who is vanilla has no chance of really pleasing a man when competing with “empowered” women.” - Helena (6)
That sounds odd, but I had a similar impression when I got active online - nudity was everywhere and common. No big deal anymore, right? Right? Girls had Gone Wild on videos for years and now were even wilder. Wrong. It turns out that those girls are only powerful in that one arena, unless they are chosen to be a rich “role model” for modern media. Sexism against attractive women seems backward but it does happen. On average it can be easier for an attractive woman to get a job in a female role job, but more difficult for her to get any other type of job.
Business wear for work and school is a reasonable expectation for females in order to promote a fair working environment for males. Male cognition can temporarily drop as much as 15 IQ points when they are thinking about or interacting with a woman they think is attractive. Attractive women may not get hired for non-sexualized work because of the unspoken discomfort males in positions of hiring may have felt. To be an empowered business woman - business women recommend dressing attractively, yes, but sedately - the sexy librarian before she takes her hair down.
Pete Shelton - Baby Let Your Hair Down, Robin Hoods, 1965.
Genotype - having pretty hair.
Phenotype - wearing it in a demure style - or in a just got out of bed and may be willing to get back in style? My father was the male advice about wearing my hair up rather than fly away loose. If we are never allowed to talk about uncomfortable, unspoken, feelings, then how are we ever supposed to learn what to do about them? Intelligence helps us not to try to mate with shiny brown bottles, or big, powerful airplanes or border walls.
Houston, we have problems.
Reference List
Genotype versus phenotype - Understanding Evolution (berkeley.edu) https://evolution.berkeley.edu/genotype-versus-phenotype/
Why Are Flamingos Pink and What Does It Have to Do With Shrimp? - Wild American Shrimp https://americanshrimp.com/why-are-flamingos-pink-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-shrimp/#.YpaezO7MJPY
Liam Coleman, Woman who is sexually attracted to planes wants to marry toy Boeing. May 31, 2022, nypost.com, https://nypost.com/2022/05/31/woman-sexually-attracted-to-planes-wants-to-marry-toy-boeing/
The Woman Who Married the Berlin Wall, Dec. 19, 2014, withberlinlove.com, https://withberlinlove.com/2014/12/19/the-woman-who-married-the-berlin-wall/
Ali Pattillo, Red Light Therapy: the key to better sex or a total sham?, March 7, 2020, inverse.com, https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/red-light-therapy
Helena, By Any Other Name: The story of my transition and detransition. Feb. 19, 2022, lacroicsz.substack.com, https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name?r=18ll6h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&s=r