Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
Tue, 08/31/2010 - 17:12 — Zuul
There's been a lot of discussion about the book Sex at Dawn across the internet. It's written by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá who are described as "renegade researchers" in the press release for the book. And what's the book about? It's evolutionary psychology at its finest, trying to explain modern behaviors with "just so" stories about what our ancestors did. It's largely concerned with polyamory and explaining how we're evolved for it and therefore it's a natural state.
They make frequent references to bonobos (AKA "sex chimps") as examples of how they think humans should behave, or at least how they think early hominids did behave. Many of the problems we suffer from today, they claim, are the result of moving away from this natural state.
I think it's pure, unadulterated bullshit.
Calling something natural in no way makes it legitimate. It doesn't matter if something is present in animals or not or if our early hominid ancestors did it or if everybody was doing it right up until 1921. Humans are gloriously capable of overcoming animal behaviors and altering ourselves based on culture.
Things which are present and therefore "natural" in populations of the family Hominidae consisting of chimpanzees, gorillas, humans and orangutans:
- Killing and eating your offspring.
- Rolling around in the dung of your prey.
- Throwing your own feces at neighbors.
- Rape.
- Necrophilia.
- Bestiality.
- Hunting animals closely related to you.
- Picking bugs out of the hair of your loved ones and eating them.
- Having sexual relations with your own offspring, parents or siblings.
- Murdering the offspring of a female to induce her to copulate with you.
- Same sex activities.
- And, oh yeah, polyamory.
When your opponents tell you what you're doing in the bedroom is unnatural, they're probably wrong. All sorts of stuff happens in nature. Dredging up evidence from animal behavior (or applying evolutionary psychology) does not strengthen your position, because you're arguing against something stupid to begin with.
People are people. We don't have to justify our choices by comparing ourselves to creatures that fling poop and try to get blowjobs from frogs.
Comments
It would be great to learn more about how our own ancestors really lived, but I don't see there ever being much solid to go on.
I was thinking about reading this book, but I'm always skeptical of a theory that clearly seeks to set the status quo on it's ear. It's far too agenda-driven and not all that believable. I mean, it's not that I think the status quo doesn't sometimes need to be challenged, but it seems suspect to me that we would have to go back to primitive man in order to understand the true nature of human relationships. Seems like the last oh, I don't know, 10,000 years of culture ought to mean something, you know?
While there is evidence of sperm competition of some sort in our evolutionary history, the fact that males competed sexually as opposed to physically (they aren't drastically larger than women, as the males of species with "harems" usually are) does not necessarily mean they were all boning the same lady at the same time. Bonobos and chimps have large testes as well and it's likely that this trait developed before we all split up. Regardless of how often a woman changes partners, the male who produces more sperm has an advantage as far as breeding goes and so there'd be no reason to drop the adaptation.
When people cite the behavior of bonobos as some sort of ideal for human behavior, you can dismiss them immediately, because they're retards or liars. Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are adorable brachiating whores, it's true, but their sexual behavior is vastly different from that of common chimps (P. troglodytes), and we're just as closely related to P. troglodytes.
Anyway, the best evolutionary sexual trait of humans is our enormous penises. They're way bigger than those of chimps, gorillas, or orangutans.
Simply because something is natural (Which I am not prepared to claim that this book accurately describes.) doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Or a bad idea, for that matter.
We've changed what is normal for our culture, and many other cultures on this planet by ignoring what is natural. And with all the complications we're facing from the consequences of technological society, I am not prepared to go back to pure natural existence.
*Number pulled out of my arse. I have no clear figures for what infant and child mortality would be in a purely natural state. I do think it would horrify any modern person looking at the numbers honestly.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/...mortality.html
Actually that doesn't usually wor.....never mind.