This article originally appeared on May 16, 2016.
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Maybe we've doe some DEvolving in the love department
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In other words, our outdated beliefs about the nature of sex and relationships could be hurting many of us.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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Image via Pixabay.
We have our eyes on you too.
In reality, male and female animals set up their relationships thousands of different ways in the wild. In many species, males are the primary caretakers of the next generation while females ignore their offspring and mate promiscuously. Even the existence of "male" and "female" as distinct categories is often not so clear in certain species.
Some animals have the ability to change sex to respond to various outside pressures and conditions.
A few can even mate with themselves.
Here are 17 animals that demonstrate the greatness of nature and its stubborn unwillingness to conform to human expectations for the way things "should be."
1. Jacanas
"Mom went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back."
Photo by Ozan Kill
Ask any tropical bird out there, and they'll tell you that male jacanas are pretty much the best dads of the bunch. Not only do male jacanas stick around the nest to incubate the eggs and raise their offspring, they even carry them under-wing when they fly.
Meanwhile, female jacanas are ... not exactly super nurturing. After gathering up a harem of nearly half a dozen males and laying her eggs, the female jacana splits in order to fly around, murder the young of rival females, and mate with their former partners.
This is considered charming.
2. Clown fish
Clown fish were invented by Disney/Pixar in 2003.
Photo by Rachel Hisko on UnsplashLike many species of reef fish, clown fish can, and frequently do, change sex. Unlike most species of reef fish however, all clown fish are born male and are led (in familial groups) by a dominant female.
When she dies, the next-biggest male simply ... becomes female and takes charge of the group.
What you just heard was the sound of a billion other species slapping themselves on the forehead at the same time, wondering why they didn't think of that, realizing it's now too late and that now they'd just be, like, hopping on the trend.
3. African buffalo
Everyone is getting out there for an afternoon stroll.
Photo by Soerfm/Wikimedia Commons.
Not only are female buffalos are responsible for coordinating the movements of the entire herd — they do it democratically. When it's time to find a new grazing spot, each female takes a turn standing up and gazing in the direction they want to travel, and when they're done, the whole group moves that way.
While status hierarchies exist within herds, the elections are equitable — one cow, one vote.
Change You Can Moo-Lieve in. Make the Grasslands Great Again.
4. Bees
"Aaaaaaagh! Aaaaaagh! Aaaaaagh!" — Nicholas Cage.
Photo by Aaron Burden on UnsplashBees famously take the matriarchy to the extreme. A single queen bee oversees thousands of smaller female workers and male drones.
While most bees live, at most, a few weeks, the queen typically survives several years before the hive goes looking for a new queen to start the cycle over again. All to advance the species-wide goal of refusing to fly out of your car even though all four windows are down.
5. Komodo dragons
Party out with your tongue out... alone even.
Photo by Mark Dumont/Wikimedia Commons.
Female komodo dragons can lay viable eggs that produce offspring without a male partner, which pretty much explains why komodo dragon Tinder never truly caught on.
6. Praying mantises
Not as romantic as it looks.
Photo by Oliver Koemmerling/Wikimedia Commons.
Mantis males are often smaller than mantis females, a discrepancy that leaves many males feeling insecure, as it enables females to frequently — though not always — eat their heads during sex.
7. Common reed frogs
So many choices for the day ahead.
Photo by ChriKo/Wikimedia Commons.
These tiny, resilient amphibians can change sex from female to male, allowing them to successfully reproduce if they suddenly find themselves surrounded by frogs of the same sex.
This ability makes them one of the most successful species on Earth at inspiring anxious Sam Neil monologues.
8. South American marmosets
"Hey, pa? You ... you wanna ... play catch?"
Photo by Maxim Bilovitskiy/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Creative_Commons.
Female marmosets tend not to be terribly interested in their babies. A few weeks after giving birth, they're mostly out of their kids' lives forever.
Marmoset dads, on the other hand, are excellent caretakers, feeding, grooming, and transporting their young as well as coaching Marmoset Little League and always batting their kid cleanup.
9. Spotted hyenas
Someone has to lead this party.
Photo via Pixabay.
Not only are female hyenas stronger and more aggressive than males, male and female hyena genitals are nearly identical in appearance. They're so similar that it's extremely difficult to tell the difference with the naked eye, which ultimately doomed the '70s game show "What Sex is That Hyena?" to cancellation after just half a season.
10. Seahorses
"OK, so. I need a really big favor."
Photo by Mikhail Preobrazhenskiy on UnsplashWhile males of numerous species nurture their offspring, the male seahorse takes things several steps further. During the mating process, he receives eggs from the female and not only fertilizes them, but carries the offspring until they hatch.
A recent poll of male seahorses found that an overwhelming majority experience a secret surge of satisfaction when their partners get kidney stones.
11. Cuttlefish
Blumph.
Photo by Michal B. on UnsplashUnlike middle school boys across America, male cuttlefish don't have a lot of hang-ups about appearing feminine to their peers. Masters of camouflage, these future delicious fried antipasto will often alter their coloration in order to pass for female around rival males.
If an actual female is around, they'll leave the other half of their body as is, appearing half male and half female.
12. Topi antelopes
Oh hey.
Photo by Whit Welles/Wikimedia Commons.
Female topi antelopes are not only sexually promiscuous, but when it's time to mate, they almost always make the first move. In some cases, female topis pester male antelopes for sex so relentlessly that the male has to physically fight them off. (Cue dozens of Facebook commenters yelling at male antelopes for complaining about something that's "obviously awesome" and insisting they're lucky and should "just be grateful for the attention.")
13. Laysan albatrosses
"Al." "Al."
Photo by Patte David/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Public Domain Images.
Some female albatrosses mate in female-female pairs, often for life.
(Side note: All male albatrosses are named Al Batross. Every single one of them. That's a proven fact).
14. Banana slugs
"When I think about you..."
Image via Pixabay.
A hermaphroditic species, banana slugs have both male and female sex organs and occasionally mate with themselves.
Though banana slugs do seem to prefer mating with other slugs, doing so typically ends with one slug chewing the other's penis off, because nature is a cavalcade of endless, random horror.
15. Orcas
"You have to hit the home button twice, grandma."
Photo by Mike Doherty on UnsplashKiller whales live in matriarchal pods, and female whales are more likely to take charge of the group than their male peers.
The oldest female whales are often the go-to source for information about where to find food, and in exchange for keeping the whole family alive, the younger whales patiently show them time and again how to use the iPad.
16. Emperor penguins
"Where is that voice coming from?"
Photo via Pixabay.
Anyone who's seen "March of the Penguins" knows that male emperor penguins guard their eggs tightly, perilously balancing them on their feet while their female companions go off to do traditional woman stuff like trekking across the Antarctic tundra, diving for food in the freezing cold ocean, and pleading with Morgan Freeman to shut the hell up so they can focus on not being eaten by seals for like five goddamn seconds.
17. Bonobos
genetics, sex, apes, animal kingdom
"Mmmmmm. Yeah. Mmmmm. All right. Yeah." — Bonobos, all the time.
Photo by Sean Foster on UnsplashThe female-led bonobos have invented perhaps the most ingenious way of preventing intra-species violence in the entire animal kingdom. Basically, everyone just has sex with everyone else — males with females, females with females, males with males, in pretty much every kind of way imaginable.
The near-constant hetero-homo-orgiastic delight that results pretty much prevents anyone from being mad at anyone ever and unites the species around the common goal of being the best apes ever invented.
We share about 99% of our DNA with bonobos.
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