Sex at Dawn:
How We Mate , Why We Stray and What it Means for Modern Relationships.
Christopher Ryan,Cacilda Jetha, 2010, Harper
This is a fantastic, entertaining, challenging, important book. It debunks the myths that are perpetrated about how our sexuality is hard wired. The myth is that monogamy and therefore the nuclear family is the basis of human sexuality. Their debunking of this aligns very well with the Marxist understanding of primitive society and the idea that monogamy and property arose from particular social and economic conditions rather than from genetics.
The reactionary sexist myth is that from the beginning of time, women traded sex for protection and support from a single man. They tried to find the most suitable male and the competition of men for women promoted “survival of the fittest” by allowing those with the “best” genes to reproduce. Many anthropologists grudgingly admit that there were other arrangements at various times but see monogamy/ nuclear as the default option. Other anthropologists reject the myth of permanent monogamy.
The idea of the “primal horde” where everyone in the band could have sexual relations with the other adults in the band has often been dismissed. This book looks at both human biology and anthropology to prove the “primal horde” idea. Biology includes a comparison of our anatomy with that of Chimps and Bonobos, our closest relatives. All 3 have relatively large testicles and lots of sperm produced. Humans also have relatively long penises which are the thickest of any primate. They also are shaped so as to help their sperm survive and reach the egg. The other 2 species are also non-monogamous with free mating.
In contrast, Gorillas have a dominance hierarchy, and the silver back male gets all the females. They have smaller testicles inside their bodies and smaller penises. In fact, there are no group of living primates that are monogamous. It is very likely that humans also lived like bonobos. Among them, females are open to sex and have a strong sex drive. No individual is without sex for long. The genetic competition is between sperm inside the woman. Female humans as well as females of other species have mechanisms to kill unfit sperm and pick sperm most compatible with them. So instead of the narrative of men fighting it out for women, it is actually sperm fighting it out.
This description makes far more sense. Early bands needed solidarity and mutual support for survival. This would have been undercut by male competition for females. Instead sex was a form of bonding between all the members of the band — — and often beyond the band as well. This created a society of primitive abundance in most cases, with a low level of internal stress. Children survived best when they had many fathers. In a great number of societies paternity was not understood. It was often thought that children had many fathers. They all had an interest in their survival and upbringing. As the incident in Myths of Male Dominance showed “All the children are children of the whole tribe.” This cooperation and communalism were adaptive and the basis of it was hardwired into our genes. — -the biological adaptions noted above, the exceedingly strong sex drive in humans — -both males and females, the ability of women to have sex in all parts of their cycle, the desire for sexual variety and many more. Sexual jealousy, far from being universal and intrinsic was virtually non-existent in early human society.
The authors make the interesting point that monogamy for the last 10,000 years has shriveled the human testicles and produced lower sperm count. However, the drive for variety and the sex drive has not gone away. They point out that female sexuality has been suppressed for millennia and also at the same time denied. In the 1800’s , women went to doctors for clitoral massage to treat hysteria etc. This denial of female sexuality fit in the monogamous myth.
Toward the end they talk about the implications for relationships today. They basically call for open marriage as a way to allow the genetic drive for sexual variety while maintaining strong emotional connections. They totally divorce love and lust. I think this is a little too strong.
The book is a great buttress to the Marxist position on pre-history .However the authors make no attempt to explain humanity’s fall from grace into what they see as the horrors of agriculture — — the biggest transformation in human history. They also think that the cooperative, low stress arrangements of pre-history only work in face to face small groups. The shame required for enforced egalitarianism of the early humans would not work in our large groups today they believe.
This is a weakness, but a minor one. The authors show that there is no genetic basis for war, deadly competition, alienation etc. If a particular set of social conditions allowed cooperation and equality, we can construct new sets of social relations today that would allow those again. Certainly, our genetics are no barrier to that — — and we can safely argue are in fact an aid to that type of society.
Besides the case for socialism, this book is a strong argument against all the right-wing pro-family crap around today. It is a vindication of the potential equality of women.
The book is also a polemic against false Archeology and Anthropology — what the authors call the “Flintstonization” of pre-history.
