Why can’t we love one another like we used to?
Book Review: Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, By Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá
This was previously published on Head Butler.
At some point, you may have been high enough or drunk enough or just clear enough to be struck by a radical insight: We don’t have to pray to go to Heaven, we’re living in it. There’s plenty here for all of us on this sparkling gem of a planet. No one has to go without food or medical care or decent shelter, no one has to live without love and—yes—its first cousin, sex.
Crazy talk, of course. I mean, just look at the headlines.
I’ll skip the banal question: Could we all get along?
Instead, let’s ponder one rarely asked: Was there ever a time when the mortal enemy of people was not … other people?
Christopher Ryan (PhD.) and Cacilda Jethá (MD) say there was.
And here’s the part that may especially interest you about that time: Monogamy didn’t exist.
Given that bombshell, it’s no surprise that “Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships” was a bestseller in hardcover and paperback, was on NPR’s book of the year list, and was described by Dan Savage as “the single most important book about human sexuality since Alfred Kinsey unleashed ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’ on the American public in 1948.” [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Their argument in brief: “We didn’t descend from apes. We are apes.”
“Monogamy is not found in any social, group-living primate … . The total number of monogamous primate species that live in large social groups is precisely zero. … The few monogamous primates that do exist (out of hundreds of species) all live in the treetops. Primates aside, only 3 percent of mammals and one in ten thousand invertebrate species can be considered sexually monogamous.”
“We evolved in intimate groups where almost everything was shared—even sexual pleasure … With and without love, a casual sexuality was the norm for our prehistoric ancestors.”
The change from group consciousness began when we stopped being hunter-gatherers and became farmers. Agriculture marked the birth of property, boundaries—and sexual exclusivity.
“Trying to rise above nature is always a risky, exhausting endeavor, often resulting in spectacular collapse … . Serial monogamy is an archipelago of failure.”
Stunning, yes? At least it was to this reader, a serial monogamist with multiple offenses. Maybe it’s best to watch Christopher Ryan utter these heresies:
These ideas are so dramatic that you plunge into the book expecting to have your hair burst into flames. This happens, but only randomly. There are entire chapters about chimps and bonobos and gorillas. There are long passages assassinating the work of monogamy-obsessed anthropologists. There are digressions that could have been edited out.
But if you skim the parts that don’t advance the core argument, “Sex at Dawn” is a thought-provoking romp. And it has terrific facts that were new—and, I’ll admit it—delightful to encounter:
—A male gorilla weighs 400 pounds. Its erect penis is an inch long.
—“Adult male humans have the longest, thickest, and most flexible penises of any living primate.”
—“Men last far longer in the saddle than bonobos (fifteen seconds), chimps (seven seconds) or gorillas (sixty seconds), clocking in at between four and seven minutes, on average.”
—Men who have three or more orgasms a week are 50% less likely to die from coronary heart disease.
—Cornflakes were originally devised as a masturbation deterrent.
—By 1917 there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes.
—Cornflakes were originally devised as a masturbation deterrent.
—From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, doctors masturbated their female patients to orgasm.
Reading this book—and seeing the 70 pages of notes and bibliography at the end—it’s hard not to surrender to the authors’ bottom line: “The assertion that human beings are naturally monogamous is not just a lie; it’s a lie most Western societies insist we keep telling each other.”
My view? I’m writing a novel about a couple grappling with this assertion; if you don’t mind, I’ll make you wait for its publication. Until then, I leave you to grapple with it—and, thanks to this book, collect some amazing facts you can trot out when the party gets dull.
Read more on Polyamory and Sex & Relationships.
Have you read Jesse Kornbluth’s review of “Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm“?
Image credit: familymwr/Flickr
About Jesse Kornbluth
Sex At Dawn has gotten a lot of criticism from experts in the field. I think they present an interesting theory, but readers need to keep in mind that it is mostly speculation. Also, it’s my understanding that the authors ofmthembook are advocates of polyamory and they wrote the book with a personal agenda, which is a recipe for bad science. Don’t get me wrong, what they say could be true, but it is very hard to know how our ancestors lived 20,000+ years ago. The book presents the theory as nearly proven fact and I think it’s actually a long way from that.
If you look at modern hunter gatherers, who are the closest we have to Paleolithic humans, they have a wide variety of sexual customs. Many, though not all, hunter gatherers are rather promiscuous by our standards; for example, casual sex between unmarried teens/adults may be totally acceptable, and if they domhave sexual rules, they really have no way to impose social sanctions against violations of the rules other than by gossip and peer pressure. So, to some degree, people can do what they want in a hunter gatherer group as long as they don’t actually endanger the survival of the group, in which case they may suffer the extreme punishment of banishment. Hunter gatherers certainly experience sexual jealousy, competition for mates, and “mate guarding” behavior, as reported by many anthropologists. That said, I agree that absolute monogamy has probably never existed among humans. It doesn’t seem to be in our nature.
I’ve always assumed that monogamous marriage is a social construct whose purpose is to reduce sexual competition to maximize social cohesion and co-operation. The fact that it’s not ‘natural’ does not refute its claimed social utility.
Nail on head. This book doesn;t seem like an argument against monogamy. I know a few people who have tried the alternatives in the UK, and it didn’t work.
But then, non-monogamous relationships seem to work for some, eg mormons, so long as it’s what all parties are taught to expect.
Conclusion: evolved social norms trump evolved behaviour
“Conclusion: evolved social norms trump evolved behaviour”
As social expectations, perhaps. In the public sphere, mostly. Behind closed doors and away from shaming eyes? Biology always wins. Sometimes, social expectations support biology. There was once a strong social pressure for women to be married in their 20s. That’s because of fertility issues related to age, a biological phenomenon.
In fact, in our modern dating, mating, and relationship behaviors, biology is shockingly prevalent. Ever wonder why women prefer taller men? Or why men prefer women of a certain shape?
Agree.
Christopher Ryan always insists that he has no such agenda, he simply notes that monogamy might be more difficult that we tend to assume, and that people should decide for themselves. While it is tempting to disbelieve him, I think it’s simply a matter of pro-polyamorists turning the evolutionary psychology rhetoric to suit their own agenda. Evolutionary Psychology is so frequently used to push conservative ideas about marriage and gender that it seems natural for liberals to get overly excited when a piece of it works in their favor.
Then where did monogamy come from? The Illuminati?
Apes though we may be, many humans obviously feel pain and betrayal when a partner strays. It’s visceral. Sex is more than function; there is also form. That is where we bipeds transcend the animal kingdom.
The book is wide-ranging enough that it’s possible there are parts that are totally wrong and other parts that are highly accurate.
I did detect some selective logic when the book talked about humans’ similarity to other primates. When there’s a similarity that suggests humans are not naturally monogamous, then we have to accept the similarity. When there’s a profound difference that suggests we are not so similar, that’s not so important. In any event, I’m not sure there are enough species of other large primates to come to solid conclusions by comparing them. If each species is a data point, there aren’t very many data points. We share some similarities to many other large primates, but there’s nothing that’s just like us, and I think the authors have been selective about which similarities count and which don’t.
There is a provocative argument that Homo sapiens is as close to bonobos as it is to chimpanzees. If we’re looking for our closest relative’s sexual practices, we should look at the bonobos as much as the chimps. The book argues that humans are genetically closer to bonobos than African elephants are to Asian elephants. We just haven’t studied bonobos as much because they’re more rare, and found in a much smaller territory in Africa, while chimps are spread a little further and have been easier to observe.
Their most solid argument is that monogamy is not something we should assume is universal or pre-programmed. It’s rare among forager communities and not universal among agrarian cultures. (At one point when the book is talking about foragers it brings up the sexual customs of an ethnic minority in China that actually practices intensive agriculture and actually lives in houses, for God’s sake. Not the same thing at all!) Societies that don’t practice monogamy don’t fall apart because of it. In fact, they are some of the most long-lasting societies that ever existed. There are multiple alternatives that can work just as well.
Vibrators were one of the first hand-held electric devices ever invented.
(I’m convinced that this is one reason so many women of the older generation want their daughters to marry doctors. Get yourself one of those, dearie….)
“Vibrators were one of the first hand-held electric devices ever invented.”—
Perfect, further proof that sex drives technology….
If, it weren’t for naked pics we would be carrying out this conversation in black and white on a list/serve forum…..
“Serial monogamy is an archipelago of failure.”
Agree.
Jules–Serial monogamy works for some people. We’re not at a time where you get married at 18 and are stuck with someone you don’t like for the rest of your life. And while polyamory works for some people, other people can’t handle it–due to time, resources, jealousy, etc. Some people like to make their partner their primary mate. Yet, sometimes it stops working for whatever reason.
For those interested, I suggest looking at the companion book: “Sex at Dusk”, which is a fairly thorough critique of “Sex at Dawn”.
Some key points made in Sex at Dawn that are not supported by most notable people in the field (Dan Savage aside):
- Intergroup aggression was rare among foragers (there is plenty of ethnographic evidence supporting territorial in-group aggression
- No mention that the !Kung engaged in intergroup raids that were often deadly. A rather odd omission.
- The faulty promotion of societies using partible paternity as evidence of sexual peace and tranquility. No mention that sexual jealousy still exists in societies of partible paternities.
- Incomplete/false telling of the Moso of China and ignoring the observations of the principle ethnographer reporting on the Moso
- Incorrect assumptions on sexual dimorphism as it relates to size differences between males and females as evidence for lack of sexual competition.
- Not accounting for existing polygyny in majority of foraging societies
Good link below on the Moso of China, contradicting key evidence supporting the Sex at Dawn narrative.
http://web.pdx.edu/~tblu2/Na/myths.pdf
Here’s his talk and interview in Australia. A much more thorough and in-depth look into the topics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ygq7F4TX4
There are a lot of excellent takeaways that come from Ryan’s assertions:
1. We are not as warlike as we think. Peace is more natural to us than war.
2. Men aren’t the expendable soldier-pawns meant to have high-stress lives of competition and distrust. (Competition, if anything, should be more of a sport than a necessity.)
This basically takes everything about the definition of “real man” and kicks it out the window.
3. Homophobia has basically no basis in the human sexual outline. Sex is not about reproduction, so exclusive heterosex is not necessary. Homosexual and even incestral feelings are just as natural as heterosexual feelings.
4. By being a sex-fearing culture, we breed violence. Male violence may be more related to sexual tension and feelings of emotional abandonment, rather than part of the archaic “alpha male” struggle.
We need to separate what “is” from what “ought” to be. The “ought” is a mental construct requiring planning, some form of moral compass and execution. To you points:
To your point 1: This is not a Ryan idea. Reciprocal altruism and kin selection is a foundation of evolutionary theory. Pinke’r latest book tells the story of progress on this very front, without denying what still “is” and “was”. Progress is not tied to either present of past conditions.
The criticism of the book is not based on promoting monogamy as being the only way, or the more natural way, or the way it should be now and/or in the future. The criticism is based on the authors twisting of evidence of the past to support the variation seen in the present, with hopes of it being the proper path for the future. There is no need to take this approach to morally justify non-monogamy or any other sexual variation.
I find it odd that the authors are falling under the very naturalistic fallacy they seem to oppose by saying, in short: it’s ok to be non-monogamous because is a healthier state for us, and the evidence for this is that our nicer/kinder ancestors employed this model in the past.
Variation does not disprove evolutionary principles, nor does lack of variation dictate future direction. The process of evolution is a mindless algorithm that paints patterns across landscapes.
I dunno, the Saudi royal family seems to be well-insulated against genetic extinction. Polygamy over the course of many generations has created a huge royal family that makes up a nontrivial percentage of the country’s population, and the family unit seems pretty stable despite some of its more erratic members. If humans are built for life-long sexual commitment in order to preserve social cohesion, might polygamy and/or polygyny be just as indicated as monogamy? Why are “free love” and monogamy the only two options?
I used both Wilson’s Sociobiology and Sex at Dawn in a class I taught last semester. I tend to believe that Wilson is more convincing, and that most bands featured a man with one or two wives (the usual human pattern.) But I remember from a class with Joe Lopreato in grad school the notion that more orgiastic behavior took place under the influence of hallucinogens at gatherings of bands. (We used to see this at religious revivals in the South. Under the bleachers.) I tend to buy that too. Jealousy and the ability to war are doubtlessly ingrained, even if they are not always present.
I think another point to keep in mind is that human beings are extremely adaptable. We are capable of doing whatever we need to do to survive. Our adaptability has been a key to our extraordinary success. This adaptability is a trait we share with other successful species. An author I read once called us a “weedy species”. If we need to change, we change. That’s not to say we don’t resist change but when out survival depends on it, we can change overnight. Think of coyotes — a species that Americans spent a couple of centuries trying to exterminate. The U.S. government used to pay bounties for coyotes. Millions of were killed by hunters and farmers. Today there are more coyotes than ever. Coyotes are supremely adaptable. They will eat anything, they will hunt game or scavenge or eat garbage. They will live in packs, or if conditions aren’t right for packs, they will live alone. They have done much better than wolves, because wolves aren’t as adaptable as coyotes.
So, humans are a lot like coyotes. We do what works. If you look at nature, there are many varieties of mating schemes. You can find the alpha male-harem model (gorillas, elephant seals) where a male succceeds by gathering a large group of females and fighting off rivals. You can find the free love model (chimps) where all males mate with all available females. You can find the monogamy model (gibbons, many birds) where male and female pair off, either for life, or for a breeding season.
The thing is, different models of mating behavior can exist in one species. In alpha male-harem species, there are often “sneaker males” who sneak in and mate with females while the alpha male is occupied with something else. This has been observed in elk, for example. Interestingly, the female elk willingly mate with the sneaker males. Being a sneaker male is a valid and successful mating strategy and the females recognize that. Sme males will be sneakers at some times in their lives and an alpha later. There are fish where different males use different strategies, some will gather a harem, some will sneak, and some will get one female and guard her ceaselessly until she lays her eggs.
My conclusion from all this is that people do what works. You can see different kinds of behavior (harem, sneaking, promiscuity, monogamy) in different human cultures, between individuals in the same culture, and in a single ndividual under different circumstances. There is no reason evolutionarily speaking that it is either-or. Given human adaptability, it would be surprising if we WEREN’T capable of adaptability in this aspect of our behavior too.
Yes. Adaptability is an adaptation. You can adapt by sheer numbers and chance, or develop more nuanced methods of prediction. Adaptability, as a cognitive essence, is the ability to live in the moment, create mental conjectures about what may happen a moment from now, and adjust appropriately.
One key trait that helps the above and sets us apart from all other species is our extended “childhood”. Some individuals find ways of extending this trait well into their mid-forties – these types are usually spotted in the wild living in their parent’s basements -:)
The concept that monogamy is unnatural is often used to defend infidelity and by those who don’t want to partake. But then why does it innately feel so devastating to be the one cheated on and why do humans feel jealousy. Even pro-polygamists feel a sense of betrayal when a partner they CARE for is intimate with others, I’m sure.
That said, all I really want to know is how cornflakes deter masturbation.
Mike, I think the sad truth is that many of us like to feel like winners. And jealousy is what happens when we’re losers (someone cheats on us.) But I think the feeling of hypocrisy at cheating on a spouse, say, can stop us from following this path. Or reviewing all of the likely consequences in your mind — including if you’re never found out. It can be hell being in love with someone, and not being able to have the relationship go further than periodic meetings. I’ve always counseled “don’t ask, don’t tell” for people in relationships who are doing this– to the consternation of my more poly friends. And believe me– I’m damned poly at heart, but monogamous right now.
Here’s a link to a piece with excerpts from “Sex at DUSK,” the refutation of “Sex At Dawn.”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201207/sex-dusk