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Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality [Hardcover] Review by
Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA)
Sex at Dawn is a popular exposition of the simple and compelling thesis that a casual sexuality was the norm for our hunter-gatherer forbears, and that faithful pair-bonding in the form of monogamous marriage is alien to our sexual natures as human beings. The authors hold that the shift to the norm of faithful pair bonding arose only upon the advent of settled agriculture some 10,000 years ago. Moreover, they argue, "promiscuous impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point" (p. 46), and society would be better off if we acknowledged the ubiquity of these impulses and offered them social approbation.Ryan and Jethá justify their position mostly by deploying anecdotal and unsystematic anthropological evidence, and the authors have no anthropological credentials. Their style of argumentation is highly informed and informative for novices (I am not an anthropologist, but I have read widely in the professional anthropological literature), but it is completely unsystematic, and hence untrustworthy. I call it "Google research" because the data appears to flow from Googling one or two terms, such as "sex anthropology" and "human sex primate sex" and then cherry-picking the millions of citations.
Despite their lack of systematic research, the authors' conclusions from the anthropological literature are usually not far from the truth. The notion that we can infer from our genetic predispositions how we should behave, however, is simply illogical. Humans form strong pair bonds and humans, like members of almost every other species that forms strong pair bonds (including, for instance, almost all nesting birds) often cheat on their partners. But this fact does not imply that this behavior should be morally sanctioned or social encouraged. The most we can legitimately conclude from the evidence is that it is probably in the interest of a healthy and happy populace that lapses in fidelity be treated leniently.
Ryan and Jethá site several instances of societies which follow their ideal of relaxed sexuality, but they go too far in claiming that pair bonding is an effect of modern society in general and settled agriculture in particular. Pair bonding appears to be quite universal throughout human societies, whether in the form of monogamy, polyandry, or polygamy. By contrast, there is no pair-bonding primate species in Africa and only such species in Asia. It thus is plausible that pair bonding is a strong part of our genetic predisposition as a species, but that it arose rather late in our evolution as a species. This is not Ryan and Jethá's story, but it is fairly close, and I think much more defensible.
Amusingly, while Ryan and Jethá spout facts that are well known in the literature, they set themselves up as brave iconoclasts, overturning what they call the "standard narrative of human sexual evolution" (p. 7), which with its emphasis on the centrality of faithful pair-bonding. The standard story, they claim "hides the truth of human sexuality behind a fig leaf of anachronistic Victorian discretion repackaged as science" (p. 35). The fact is that there is no standard narrative that I know of in the contemporary scientific literature. Rather, human sexuality is clearly highly plastic, and we can learn little from other species because sexuality is even more plastic across primate species. The authors' mocking of anthropological opinion is particularly disingenuous because most of their argumentation is based on the work of professional anthropologists.
Sexual behaviors that we share with all or most primate species are likely to represent genetic predispositions. There is no question but that each primate species has a genetically specified range of sexual behaviors. We know this because this range of behaviors does not vary much across even widely separated groups. However, primate sexuality is highly variable across species. Therefore we cannot say that we are more like the polymorphically sexual Bonobos and the promiscuous chimpanzees than other more sexually discriminate primate species. However, true monogamy is very rare in both primates and sexually mating species in general, and the physiology of human male genitals suggests much male sperm competition, which strongly supports the thesis that strong pair bonds were regularly accompanied by a significant level of extra-pair copulations.
Some of the points the authors raise involve interesting questions that I cannot resolve. They assert that early human males were not concerned with parentage, which would make us unlike any other species I can think of. Of course, this position is necessary for Ryan and Jethá because it alone is compatible with the relaxed and tolerant attitude towards extra pair copulations that they consider the human norm. I rather suspect that humans are more like other pair-bonding species, in which males attempt to be promiscuous but are deterred by their mates, and females are carefully policed to reduce their opportunities for extra-pair mating. Despite the efforts of all parties in pair-bonded species, lots of extra-pair mating takes place, but sexuality is hardly tolerant and relaxed. However, there are several so-called "partible paternity" societies in which fathering is widely shared by males, who are tolerant of their mate's extra-pair sexuality. While this fatherly behavior must be taught to young men and is highly socially controlled the existence of these societies clearly shows that humans are capable of embracing a wide range of socio-sexual norms, however frequently they are honored in the breach.
Ryan and Jethá believe that it is an important part of their argument that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were fundamentally peaceful, war playing little role in everyday life and social organization. "hierarchical, aggressive, and territorial behavior is of recent origin for our species. It is...an adaptation to the social world that arose with agriculture." (p. 76). The reason, they argue, is that without private property, there was nothing to fight over. I believe this is just dead wrong. The archeological evidence points to a high level of warfare in hunter-gather societies. The goals of violent inter-group aggression were attaining valued, currently highly productive territory (e.g., a mountain pass) and obtaining women for mating, gathering, and child-rearing (see my book with Samuel Bowles, A Cooperative Species, Princeton 2011). The authors' evidence is scattered and mostly anecdotal, whereas our analysis is quite systematic, drawing on a large body of statistical evidence.
Ryan and Jethá are rather sloppy writers but they are good story-tellers, so this book is definitely worth reading.
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality [Hardcover] Review by Thomas E. Hayden "Tom Hayden" (Evanston, IL, United States)
This text can be summarized to the following: Using a reductionist approach, we can separate the societal and biological influences to sexuality. Once we have done this, we can look at parts of sex that may be contradictory to our own nature and try to assess how paleo-lithic man thought of sexuality and how our bodies were engineered by the forces of evolution. With this lens, we can examine modern sexuality and critique what the authors call the "standard narrative". Essentially, the book boils down to a chapter by chapter deconstruction and attempt at disproving said standard narrative. This book is currently receiving an insane amount of hype; as if they are uncovering some great hidden secrets about human sexuality. I think Dan Savage even came out saying this is the greatest sexuality book since Kinsey. I disagree with these claims, clearly the book is interesting and presents strong arguments against the standard narrative. However, it is not uncovering anything particularly new or presenting any world-changing findings. Rather, the book is a collection of facts and anecdotes, trying to construct a counterexample against the standard narrative. In this function, the authors do a reasonably good job. There are a few times throughout the book, their examples are a bit contradictory; for example, early on, the authors throw out the idea of even considering apes other than chimps or bonobos as a way to prove monogamy. However, later on, they use baboons and other apes to argue specific points. This bothered me a bit.
The book is very well written and reads quite quickly despite its length. The only part that I felt was missing was a critique to their argument, perhaps a chapter responding to their arguments. However, I suppose there will be articles and replies to this book posted online for me to read.
If you are limited on time, I suggest reading all of Part 1 and all of Part 5. You can skim the other parts but keep in mind that the book is presenting arguments to debunk the standard narrative, not necessarily prove that any existing model of sexuality is right or wrong.
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality [Hardcover] Review by Charles Kincy "amateur death, destroyer of wo... (Des Moines, WA USA)
Drs. Ryan and Jethá have accomplished the rhetorical equivalent of barging into a cocktail party for evolutionary psychologists (EPers) and turning over every table, setting them all on fire, stripping naked, and having sex in front of the flames while the "oontz oontz oontz" of the dance music continues into the night and the shocked partygoers stare at the horny couple thinking "OK WTF do we do now?"EPers HATE this book. Professional EPers merely hate it. Alternative-right sex-negative social darwinist armchair EPer scumbags REALLY hate it. People who think of themselves as successfully monogamous feel all butthurt that their sacred lifestyle is under attack. The other 97% of the population have to be thinking "excellent, let's call all our friends up and schedule an orgy on Friday."
Yes, this book oversimplifies the science on the subject. Pretty hilariously in spots. So what? It contains JOKES, for crying out loud. Good ones, I might add. And therefore this could not possibly be a serious review on the science, and anyone who decries it for representing itself as such is merely silly. No, this is not a work of hard science. It is more of a psycho-political work, much in the spirit of Fanon or Sartre, but applied to matters of the groin rather than colonialism and postmodern meaninglessness and other depressing stuff like that.
Really, there is only one point to this book: the human world post-agriculture is a stultifying, miserable, nightmarish place, and the highly industrialized world of the 21st Century is quadruply so, so you might as well not feel bad about being horny. And it's a great point. If you, yourself, are polyamorous, THIS is the book you should have your friends read, not "The Ethical Slut" or "Loving More" or any of that other self-congratulatory nonsense.
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