Title:	Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender
Authors:	Fedwa Malti-Douglas
Keywords:	Sex–Cross-cultural studies.
Issue Date:	2007
Publisher:	Macmillan Reference
Description:	Although the vast amount of media attention devoted to sex may make it seem more important than ever, in some ways sex is actually less important today than ever before. In the developed world, there has been a trend away from the wide-open spaces of agrarian settings and toward overcrowded cities, which means that most couples no longer have an urgent need to reproduce to provide offspring to take care of them when they get older. With fewer fields to till, infant mortality reduced, and improved health care allowing people to work for many more years, having a large number of children is no longer the standard method of retirement planning. So although at one time the ability to limit pregnancies would have had catastrophic results, today’s birth rates reflect this new reality, be it voluntarily as in Europe, or involuntarily as in China. And now, with artificial insemination, we don’t even need the sex act to make babies. So if we humans were ever to lose the ability to have sex at some point in the future (heaven forbid!), these new technologies would allow our kind to continue to inhabit the earth for as long as the earth was inhabitable.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/16197
ISBN:	978-0-02-866115-5,
Appears in Collections:	Gender

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