Sex at Dawn

How sure are you that the attitudes represented in the few pre-agricultural societies you speak about represent that attitudes of most or all pre-agricultural societies? Maybe they are odd societies. Or maybe they have undergone a lot of cultural evolution, despite their seemingly "primitive" status.

Infanticide by males throughout the animal kingdom at least raises the possibility that human ancestors and ancient humans might have been paying attention to who fathered whom.

Fair question, Cro-Mag. Rather than answering it here, I'd ask you to go back and read our post called "Sex in Prehistory -- How do We Know?" That should give you a better sense of where we look for the data.

You didn't answer Dan's question!

OK, maybe you'd argue that it was more of an observation, but still. Big Dan fan here, if you know more than he does you score full points.

Do you answer follow-up questions at all? The bit about paraphilias and erotic plasticity is really interesting, not just from a criminal justice point of view, but from the point of view of someone who's been with men who were into some very interesting things.

Why are so many men and women turned on by being bound, spanked, and otherwise 'abused'? How is that adaptive? Where does it come from?

Umm, anamargarita, you're making a lot of assumptions, and looking far from a genius yourself (a little bit of offense intended). I actually don't understand your attempt at refuting my point. I suppose you thought I imagined early human societies were structured just like a lion pride. I simply meant that a lot of animals seem to care, presumably based on their genetically determined behavior, about paternity. Therefore, it might not be so easy to assume humans don't also care due to some innate tendencies. Just because a few odd societies don't (seem) to care, doesn't mean it might not be part of our biology; a lot of our animal relatives at least suggest the possibility.

(Thx, CRCJ, I'll check that post)

Hey Willie. Yeah, we answer reader's questions (time permitting). If you'd like more information on erotic plasticity, just Google Roy Baumeister's paper and you can download a pdf (free). The full reference is: Baumeister, R.F. (2000). Gender differences in erotic plasticity: The female sex drive as socially flexible and responsive. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 347-374. We're not the sort of evolutionary psychologists who see an adaptive function for everything humans do. Truth be told, neither of us is a full-fledged card-carrying evolutionary psychologist at all. Humans do all sorts of things that have no adaptive use and any evolutionary explanation is very likely to be chock full 'o cultural bias. Our book is more a critique of this sort of Darwinian fundamentalism (S.J. Gould's term) than a celebration of it. So we wouldn't look to evolutionary causes for the sorts of dominance/submission behaviors you mention. Better explanations could be found elsewhere, probably. And no, it doesn't seem Dan is really asking a question, so much as voicing his confusion about why people are so clueless about sex. We offer a few possible causes (a culture pathologically conflicted about sex), but you'll have to buy our book to get the whole enchilada! Cro-Mag, your point is well-taken about infanticide among primates and other mammals. This does suggest that many mammals are concerned about paternity, at least in terms of instinctive behavior. You might check out Sara Hrdy on this. She proposed that female promiscuity is an adaptive response to male infanticide. By being sexual with many males, the female "sows the seeds of confusion" among them, so they'll be less likely to kill her offspring, not knowing if they might be their own. We see problems with the theory, but it's worth checking out, if this interests you. If you read our book, you'll get a much more elaborated discussion of our take on this interesting question. You'll also see that we're not referring to just "a few odd societies." We give exhaustive examples of exceptions to the assumed "rule" of the importance of paternity certainty among human groups.

Hey, been a while since I checked back. Just wanted to say I like your answer, even though you didn't really explain it (or maybe BECAUSE you didn't explain it). I'll check out Mr Baumeister's paper too, thanks.

Hope you'll check back often and let us know what you think.