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In other words, our outdated beliefs about the nature of sex and relationships could be hurting many of us.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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American portion sizes are colossal.
Tax shouldn't be a not-so-fun surprise at the end of your shopping trip. 
A trip to the doctor shouldn't break the bank.
This totally isn't weird at all. Right?
It's a choice. 
America loves extra sugar in savory foods.
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All of this will be ours one day. Yay. 
Elderly woman with white hair on phone, sharing a story about a dead person her child has never met. 
Surprised elderly man in blue shirt against a yellow background.
Elderly woman in pink shirt using a smartphone on a garden swing.
TV for waking. TV for sleep. 
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Mom is totally humiliated after her kindergartner tells the teacher what she does for work
She was clearly mortified.
A mom is embarrassed by her child.
One of the great joys and stresses of parenting is that you never know what will come out of your child’s mouth. When you have young, inquisitive kids, they can say really inappropriate things to people without realizing they were being rude or possibly offensive. TikTok influencer Aurora McCausland (@auroramccausland), known for her DIY cleaning tips, recently told a funny story on the platform about how her son believes she makes a living. The problem was that she heard about it from her child's teacher.
Mom is embarrassed by her child
“The other day, I went and picked my five year old up from school and when I get to his classroom his teacher pulls me inside and says, ‘Hey, today he wanted to tell us about what Mommy does for work and said that Mommy makes videos in her bedroom but only when I'm [he’s] not at home,” McCausland recalled.
Given her body language while telling the story, McCausland was clearly mortified after hearing what her child said to his teacher. It makes it look like she may be posting videos to adult sites while her child is at school, which most people wouldn’t want their son’s teacher to know about.
The good news is that another teacher was there to clarify the young boy's comments by adding, “I think she makes TikTok videos.” The uncomfortable situation was a great invitation to chat with her son about what she does for a living. “So I have to have a conversation with my son about how he tells people what I do for work,” she finished her video.
The funny video went viral, earning over 1.7 million views on TikTok, and inspired many people to share the times when their children had funny ways of explaining their careers. The commenters were a great reminder to parents everywhere that if your child says something embarrassing, it's ok, just about everyone has been through it.
Moms share their most embarrassing moments
A lot of parents spoke up in the comments to show McCausland that she's not the only one to feel embarrassed in front of her child's teacher.
"My son told everyone that we were homeless (because we don’t own our home, we rent)," KBR wrote.
"I work in ortho.. my daughter told her teacher I steal people's knees bc she heard me talking to my husband about a knee replacement," Aingeal wrote.
"My son told a teacher we were living in our car over the summer. Camping. We went camping," Kera wrote.
"In kinder, my son thought Red Bull was alcohol and told his teacher I liked to have beer on the way to school," Ashley wrote.
My niece told her teacher her mom and dad work at the wh*re house. They work at the courthouse," Ellis wrote.
"My husband works as a table games dealer at a casino. Kindergartener, 'Daddy's a Dealer!' We now start every school year clearly stating he works at the casino," CMAC
"My son said we lived in a crack house…There’s a tiny chip in the wall from the doorknob," KNWerner wrote.
"My dad is a hospice chaplain and officiates a lot of funerals. My son and nephew were asked by their preschool teacher if their papa was retired or had a job. They told her his job was to kill people," Tiffyd wrote.
"My son said "my dad left me and I'm all alone" to a random person at the zoo. My husband was just at work," Shelby.
"I am now in my 70s. In my gradeschool, during the McCarthy era, I told my teacher my dad was a communist. He was an economist," Crackerbelly wrote.
"In Kindergarten, my daughter told her teacher that mommy drinks and drives all the time. Coffee. From Starbucks," Jessica wrote.
"Well I once told my kindergarden teacher a man climbs over our fence to visit my mom when her husband is not home... It was a handy man who came to fix gates when they were stuck," Annie wrote.
Ultimately, McCausland’s story is a fun reminder of how children see things through their own unique lens and, with total innocence, can say some of the funniest things. It’s also a great warning to parents everywhere: if you aren’t clear with your kids about what you do for a living, you may be setting yourself up for a very embarrassing misunderstanding. So, even if you think they know what you do ask them as see what they say, you could save yourself from a lot of embarrassment.
This article originally appeared last year and has been updated.