Maybe we've doe some DEvolving in the love department
We're taught that "traditional love" goes something like this: Be a virgin, find a soulmate, get married, NEVER CHEAT, share resources, have kids, and dance at your 50th wedding anniversary.
It's a lot of pressure. And, frankly, if it really worked that way, divorce rates would be at 0%.
Love, as we know it, doesn't work the same way for everyone.
Chris Ryan, co-author of "Sex at Dawn" puts it like this: "You can choose to wear shoes that are too small, but you can't choose to be comfortable in them."
In other words, our outdated beliefs about the nature of sex and relationships could be hurting many of us.
"Sex at Dawn" was published in 2010, but people are still talking about it.
The book looks into prehistoric human sexuality — it studies the behavior of bonobos and other primates in order to get at the true origins of human love. Though readers loved it for offering a more positive vision of evolutionary psychology than ones proposed by Darwin, Hobbes, and Freud, the book isn't without its critics.
Still, as a filter for anyone trying to make sense of modern love, "Sex at Dawn" has a lot to offer.
Some of the insights in "Sex at Dawn" might surprise you, some might comfort you, some may shock you. It's an interesting journey into the prehistoric past, and it might sound more familiar than you'd expect.
So let's enter the shame-free zone and discover seven things about love that everyone — single, married, and everything in-between — really needs to know.
1. Competition was never about who was the biggest, strongest, or richest.
The King doesn't always get what he wants.
media.giphy.com GIF via Disney's "Robin Hood."
Competition for mates didn't happen in our everyday actions, according to "Sex at Dawn." It all took place inside ... not our heads, but our bodies! The competitive advantage for males, prehistorically, wasn't decided in the ring of life, with men competing for wealth, status, and resources to woo a lady.
It was decided ... INSIDE THE FEMALE BODY. From the book:
"Rather, paternity was determined in the inner world of the female reproductive tract where every woman is equipped with mechanism for choosing among potential fathers at a cellular level."
So ovaries are the original matchmaker? And what they're matching is the right biological match from prehistoric ladies casting a very wide sex net?
The book is right when it states that this theory "turns the standard narrative inside out and upside down."
2. The friend zone isn't real.
Bill and Ted are surprised by the situation.
media.giphy.com GIF via "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure."
Though the book mostly offers observations, it does posit one solution to the problem many societies have with thinking of female sexuality as property. You know the kind — frustrated Internet commenters complaining about being put in the friend zone (as if they had some prior claim to sex with a woman but the zoning commission came and denied that access to them).
According to the authors, there's a way out.
"If you’re unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don’t blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens."
3. It's totally natural to miss or still have strong feelings for your exes.
The social norms are exposed through the movie "The Notebook."
media.giphy.com GIF via "The Notebook."
Back in the prehistoric day, it's believed that there wasn't really any such thing as an ex, because there wasn't really any such thing as a relationship.
In the olden days, a man wouldn't have even known for sure if he was a child's dad. He (and every other dude — and lady for that matter) would have more likely just assumed that they were each child's parent and provided and cared for them accordingly.
"... we hypothesize that Socio-Erotic Exchanges [forms a] crucial, durable web of affection, affiliation, and mutual obligation. In evolutionary terms, it would be hard to overstate the importance of such networks."
So if you find yourself getting that old feeling, just chalk it up to some prehistoric memories of communal village life, in which overlapping relationships were more like a '70s rock band tour bus.
What happens on the tour bus, stays on the tour bus.
media.giphy.com GIF via "Almost Famous."
"For professional athletes, musicians, and their most enthusiastic female fans, as well as both male and female members of many foraging societies, overlapping, intersecting sexual relationships strengthen group cohesion and can offer a measure of security in an uncertain world."
4. Ladies make the first move.
Just not in the way you probably think.
The recently deceased Olivia Newton John makes her moves on John Travolta in the movie "Grease."
media.giphy.com GIF via "Grease."
It's all biology, baby. Meredith Small, an anthropologist cited in the book, suggests that during fertilization of a woman's egg, the egg actually may be reaching out and enveloping the sperm.
How's that for making the first move?
She goes on to emphasize:
"Female biology ... even at the level of egg and sperm interaction, doesn't necessarily dictate a docile stance."
5. Sexuality can be selfless.
Sex, in prehistory, was a way to bond your community together and provide a stable place for all the community's kids to grow, according to "Sex at Dawn."
I know. I'm a little scandalized by this as well. I'm a Methodist girl from Missouri; all this monogamish stuff is blowing my mind. But bear with me.
A story of elite World War II pilots stands out as an example of prehistory bumping into modernity.
Pilots of WW2 are markets with sex appeal.
Photo via Pixabay.
In World War II, the book notes, elite pilots were facing the highest fatality rates in the military. They had wives and families; they had a community. But every time they went to fight, they risked abandoning and possibly hurting that community in their death.
How'd they respond? These elite fighter pilots started to ease up on the strictness of their marriages and began some of the first "key parties" on record. Rather than being scandalized, author Chris Ryan was moved.
"It was so moving to think about what motivated them to open their marriages with other couples. They were cultivating these webs of love, or at least real affection, because they knew that some of the men wouldn’t survive the war, and they wanted the widows to have as much support and love as possible. This confluence of selflessness and sexuality seemed to connect so directly to the hunter-gatherer groups, where men also have a high mortality rate from hunting accidents, falls, animal attacks, and so on. It was an unexpected yet very clear reflection of the distant past."
6. The whole "women want resources and men want novelty" yarn is kind of contrived.
It's more subtle than that. And also, rude! This myth implies that all women trade sex for stuff, and that's not cool.
“As attentive readers may have noted, the standard narrative of heterosexual interaction boils down to prostitution: a woman exchanges her sexual services for access to resources."
Monogamy and relationships are assumed a default in our world. But they're not — they're a convenience born out of humans switching from hunter-gatherer mode to agriculture mode. The authors explain:
"... upheavals in human societies resulting from the shift to settled living in agricultural communities brought radical changes to women’s ability to survive. Suddenly, women lived in a world where they had to barter their reproductive capacity for access to the resources and protection they needed to survive."
The ladies on the television show, "Friends," wax their legs.
media.giphy.com GIF via NBC's "Friends."
Interesting. And totally outdated.
The good news is because this possessiveness isn't an innate human thing, that means just as we were conditioned INTO objectifying and commodifying women, we can condition ourselves right on out of it.
7. Sex doesn't have to be so serious.
As Ryan said in an interview with Dan Savage, "We hope [the book] encourages and empowers people to give themselves a break, to cut themselves and their partners some slack."
"We need to chill out. Like music, sex can be sacred but it doesn't always have to be. Sometimes we hear God in a Bach toccata, but sometimes we're just dancing and having a good time listening to the Rolling Stones. Nothing sacred about it."
If you try sometimes, you get what you need. GIF via The Rolling Stones.
This book is an interesting read, and it definitely provides a different lens on the way human sexuality came to be.
This article originally appeared on 02.12.16
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."