Like obviously the drive for intercourse is hardwired, but like is the actual process of putting the key into the keyhole also hardwired, or is it a learned experience (eg. observing it).
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I would say yes. My neutered male dog who doesn’t see other dogs due to anxiety does the action to my female dog despite never seeing the action ever.
I think it’s hardwired in most ancestor species, so almost definitely in humans too. Hard to tell at a glance because we learn about it young and see it all over because of porn etc etc, society and all that.
Change your question to “is the act of walking hardwired into the brain” and I think you’ll see the answer more clearly.
We (as babies) have the neurons and the muscles “hardwired” but we LEARN how to walk, the coordination is learned, the desire to do it is learned (the baby needs to move to reach the desirable toy, for example).
So sex is the same. The organs are hardwired in their response/function, but we absolutely learn the experience and the drive to do it, not just from observing it but also from what feels good / what seems to make our partner happy.
I think the actual act is learned. Either by observing, or process of elimination. Only so many holes to stick this thing in.
The process is learned. When we come into the world our brain only knows how to do the automatic functions like breathing and digestion. Everything else needs to be learned. For many animals it’s inherited but not humans. Many animals come into the world knowing how to stand immediately, the human brain doesn’t even know how to make the body stand in the beginning
You are fundamentally asking about Nature vs Nurture and which side of that discussion does sexual intercourse fall. That is a pretty heavily debated topic.
It’s hardwired, but that doesn’t mean it’s hardwired perfectly in every individual.
Humans are not nearly as different from other animals as we like to pretend.
There’s the story about a couple going to their GP because they’re not getting pregnant. The GP proceeds to examine the woman and they’re like: don’t you need to examine the belly button?
With sex-ed these days that probably doesn’t happen anymore, but it’s not totally obvious if you’ve never thought about it and nobody else talks about it.
Stories about “babies are delivered by storks” don’t help either.
Definitely inmate to some extent, but learned to an extent as well. There are many funny stories of extremely sheltered religious people who try to have kids and literally don’t know how to do it
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