I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear someone (
usually a guy) say that humans aren’t wired to be monogamous, I get a bit suspicious. I mean, where’s the research?!
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality is a recently released book that explores these deep questions. I had the opportunity to read Sex at Dawn and it was such an insightful look into the ways our ancestors viewed sexuality.
Earlier this week, I spoke with the book’s author, Christopher Ryan, PhD about the real nitty-gritty of mankind's sexual past. Christopher is a research psychologist who has taught at the University of Barcelona Medical School and in several European hospitals.
Rosemary: How are our contemporary views of sexuality different from those of our ancestors? Were our ancestors more open about sexuality?
Christopher: Yes, the evidence strongly suggests that until about 10,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture, people lived a much freer life, sexually speaking. Although most mainstream scientists have argued that a sense of shame is universally associated with sex, in Sex at Dawn, we discuss many societies where this is clearly not the case. We argue that most of the sexual repression that characterizes contemporary societies only entered into human life when people started worrying about property. Among nomadic foragers who have little or no personal property, paternity tends to be a non-issue. But once we had houses, land, animals, and other forms of wealth to "keep in the family," paternity suddenly became a critical concern. Of course, the only way to assure paternity was to control women's sexual behavior. Shame is one of the most powerful ways of manipulating people, which is why there are so many more words for women who disobey sexual rules than men (whore, slut, harlot, bitch, hussy, and so on).
Rosemary: Why is monogamy difficult for some couples? How is our view of monogamy different from our ancestors?
Christopher: Monogamy is difficult in the same way that working the night shift is difficult. Because we're just not made for working nights, the disruption of our evolved energy cycles causes a range of health problems—both psychological and physiological. As thinking beings with free will, we can certainly choose to be monogamous over a lifetime, but we should understand that this can be a costly decision, like working the night shift, refusing to exercise, or living on pizza and beer.
In Sex at Dawn, we are careful to distinguish sexual monogamy from emotional monogamy. It's quite possible that many of our ancestors maintained very special, uniquely intimate relationships over their entire adult lives, but unlikely that many of them considered sexual exclusivity to be a necessary part of that intimacy. So, perhaps our ancient ancestors felt just as much "love" as any of us do, but they very probably considered sex to be a separate matter.
Rosemary: What makes people, especially high profile celebrities (
Jesse James, Tiger Woods) cheat? Do they believe they won’t get caught?
Christopher: There's undoubtedly some sense of false invulnerability in someone who grows accustomed to being surrounded by yes-men and women. But these situations are also largely a function of opportunity. It's difficult for most men to imagine what it's like to have an endless supply of attractive women offering themselves, no strings attached (theoretically). An attractive woman will have little trouble finding a willing sex partner within minutes of walking into the right sort of bar, but very few men ever experience that situation, and most who do encounter it only as adults, when they've achieved some great success or fame (or in strip clubs, which are an artificial replica of such a situation). So they don't really know how to deal with the overabundance of erotic opportunity. Many of these men may have an accumulated sense of sexual frustration from those lean times in their teens and 20s when they were
dorky unknowns practicing their guitar or golf swing.
Think about it: even if
Tiger Woods had sex with a thousand different women, he still probably refused the explicit advances of ten times that many very hot ladies. How many men ever get the chance to say no to ten thousand women?
Rosemary: In long-term relationships, why does the
sexual passion fade even though the couple’s love grows?
Christopher: It fades because its work is done. Sexual passion is a force for drawing two people together. Once they are together, it's utterly natural for that passion to fade. If the couple are compatible on other levels, it will be replaced by something deeper and much more enduring than sexual passion, something we might call "soul passion." Trying to build a family on sexual passion is like building a house on December ice, but founding a marriage on soul passion is building on solid ground.
Couples who feel a sense of failure in the passing of sexual passion are the victims of a childish and false vision of "love" promoted by the fairy tales of Hollywood and romance novels.
My Take:I found this piece truly intriguing, especially the part about "sexual passion" and "Soul Passion" which the doctor clearly distinguised. It's interesting when we fall in love with someone and theres everyting we look for..the spark,flames and all that , but when the relationship progresses, we find that that sexual appeal isn't as intense as before and the conclusion is made that the person has changed or fallen out of love. When really that's the time when the two people in the relationship has to put in more and dont become oblivious or complacent.
So what about you ladies? Why do you think men more often are incapable of being monogomous? Are you intouch with your sexuality?
Read more from:
http://www.glamour.com/
KleanColor: Hawaiian Rainbow Splendor $15 EC
Ladies Accessories: necklace and earring set $15 Ec
Butterfly ring : $15 Ec
Black Opal Perfecting powder makeup : $51 EC
Human Hair, 1B, 16" : $125 EC
