The A.D.D. Blog
10/11/10 12:15
“Sex at Dawn should be mandatory reading for anyone with genitals.”
“Sex at Dawn should be mandatory reading for anyone with genitals.”
Almost everything we think we know about sex is wrong, and that plain fact has destroyed an unthinkable number of lives over the past few thousand years, right up until the current moment, when bullying of LGBT youth in schools is leading to misery, violence and suicide.
In a blurb on the cover, the indispensable sex columnist Dan Savage calls Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Human Sexuality “The single most important book [on the subject of sex] since Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behavior of the Human Male on the American public in 1948,” and I wouldn’t argue that point. If you’ve ever been confused by the conflict between your sexual drives and the demands of the society around you, Sex at Dawn has some answers for you. If you’ve ever wondered why the hell things are as screwed up as they are in our modern world, especially here in Los Estados Unidos, well, look no further.
Using logic, science and rationality, authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá investigate the unknown and largely unguessed-at sexual natures of our earliest ancestors, and they find that many modern rituals, activities and interests, everything from threesomes and bisexuality to cuckolding and bukkake, all have solid and explainable foundations in normal sexual activity among the great apes, among which the authors count Homo Sapiens, because, well, that’s what we are. Right out of the box Ryan and Jethá dispose of the bigoted and harmful idea of human exceptionalism and set out on an exploration of sex between human apes and their closest living relatives, bonobos and chimps, to see what we have in common, and where it all went wrong.
The development of agriculture seems to be the answer, when our ancestors were transformed from animals that lived off the land and had more time for pleasure and recreation and less insane ideas about sex, to today, when the artificial scarcity of resources has resulted in a twisting of sexuality into the cruel, brutal mindfuck that it is for the vast majority of human beings that have ever engaged in a sexual thought, feeling or experience.
The authors argue, quite convincingly, that many of the elements of modern Western sexual exchange are not evolutionary mandates but rather adaptive (and therefore changeable) behaviours designed to help navigate the culture’s brutal and counter-intuitive ideas about monogamy, parenthood, marriage, fidelity, and almost every other element that crosses over into the realm of our most intimate and primal sexual needs, drives and desires. Ultimately it’s about sex becoming a brutal weapon of power and control in human beings rather than a liberating and life-affirming force for good, as it is in our cousin apes the bonobos.
I’ve already lost most people reading this, I’m sure, and there’s no question that the premise that Ryan and Jethá lay out will generate a metric fuck-ton of rage and denial from anyone whose ideas about their own (and others’, sadly) sexuality are tied up in concepts of an invisible god in the sky who knows what’s best for you and your pee-pee, and very possibly not a few atheists and alleged libertines who are nearly as invested in society’s perversion of human sexuality. How tortured have we all been by what we want versus what we’ve been told, and maybe even believe, is true? The authors mention at one point that the massive force of will required to subsume and conceal female sexuality over the past few thousand years hints at the true scope of female sexuality unleashed, and that’s just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of obvious-once-you-think-about-it concepts that Sex at Dawn will drop in your lap and leave you thinking about likely for all the rest of your days.
Why do many men get turned on by the idea of their wife or girlfriend having sex with someone else? Why is it that men are done with sexual intercourse the moment they achieve orgasm, and yet women are just getting started and literally could (and would like to) experience a dozen more? Why is it that one can truly love one’s spouse and yet face diminishing sexual interest that threatens to destroy one’s family, one’s standing in the community and even their relationship with the offspring they created with that spouse?
The honest and scientifically provable answers to all these questions, and many more, are found in Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Human Sexuality. Ryan and Jethá are honest and upfront about the fact that they can’t solve the many cruel (even deadly) conundrums that our modern sexual culture has left us with. But they do point the way (with the help of our cousins the bonobos) to a better and more harmonious way for us to deal with our sexual needs and with the world around us, a way to balance the differences and commonalities between male and female natures, and above all they suggest that this impressive book, which will change the thinking of anyone who comes to it with an open mind, is a good starting point to at least get people talking to each other — to their lovers, especially — about the truth about sexuality. The truth for each of us as individuals, and for all of us as a race of great apes, with the great and unique intellectual gift of language and self-knowledge, who have gone so very far down the wrong road of our sexual natures that many of us now believe dying is the only way to end the pain we have inflicted upon the very essence of ourselves as human beings.
Source.
Almost everything we think we know about sex is wrong, and that plain fact has destroyed an unthinkable number of lives over the past few thousand years, right up until the current moment, when bullying of LGBT youth in schools is leading to misery, violence and suicide.
In a blurb on the cover, the indispensable sex columnist Dan Savage calls Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Human Sexuality “The single most important book [on the subject of sex] since Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behavior of the Human Male on the American public in 1948,” and I wouldn’t argue that point. If you’ve ever been confused by the conflict between your sexual drives and the demands of the society around you, Sex at Dawn has some answers for you. If you’ve ever wondered why the hell things are as screwed up as they are in our modern world, especially here in Los Estados Unidos, well, look no further.
Using logic, science and rationality, authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá investigate the unknown and largely unguessed-at sexual natures of our earliest ancestors, and they find that many modern rituals, activities and interests, everything from threesomes and bisexuality to cuckolding and bukkake, all have solid and explainable foundations in normal sexual activity among the great apes, among which the authors count Homo Sapiens, because, well, that’s what we are. Right out of the box Ryan and Jethá dispose of the bigoted and harmful idea of human exceptionalism and set out on an exploration of sex between human apes and their closest living relatives, bonobos and chimps, to see what we have in common, and where it all went wrong.
The development of agriculture seems to be the answer, when our ancestors were transformed from animals that lived off the land and had more time for pleasure and recreation and less insane ideas about sex, to today, when the artificial scarcity of resources has resulted in a twisting of sexuality into the cruel, brutal mindfuck that it is for the vast majority of human beings that have ever engaged in a sexual thought, feeling or experience.
The authors argue, quite convincingly, that many of the elements of modern Western sexual exchange are not evolutionary mandates but rather adaptive (and therefore changeable) behaviours designed to help navigate the culture’s brutal and counter-intuitive ideas about monogamy, parenthood, marriage, fidelity, and almost every other element that crosses over into the realm of our most intimate and primal sexual needs, drives and desires. Ultimately it’s about sex becoming a brutal weapon of power and control in human beings rather than a liberating and life-affirming force for good, as it is in our cousin apes the bonobos.
I’ve already lost most people reading this, I’m sure, and there’s no question that the premise that Ryan and Jethá lay out will generate a metric fuck-ton of rage and denial from anyone whose ideas about their own (and others’, sadly) sexuality are tied up in concepts of an invisible god in the sky who knows what’s best for you and your pee-pee, and very possibly not a few atheists and alleged libertines who are nearly as invested in society’s perversion of human sexuality. How tortured have we all been by what we want versus what we’ve been told, and maybe even believe, is true? The authors mention at one point that the massive force of will required to subsume and conceal female sexuality over the past few thousand years hints at the true scope of female sexuality unleashed, and that’s just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of obvious-once-you-think-about-it concepts that Sex at Dawn will drop in your lap and leave you thinking about likely for all the rest of your days.
Why do many men get turned on by the idea of their wife or girlfriend having sex with someone else? Why is it that men are done with sexual intercourse the moment they achieve orgasm, and yet women are just getting started and literally could (and would like to) experience a dozen more? Why is it that one can truly love one’s spouse and yet face diminishing sexual interest that threatens to destroy one’s family, one’s standing in the community and even their relationship with the offspring they created with that spouse?
The honest and scientifically provable answers to all these questions, and many more, are found in Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Human Sexuality. Ryan and Jethá are honest and upfront about the fact that they can’t solve the many cruel (even deadly) conundrums that our modern sexual culture has left us with. But they do point the way (with the help of our cousins the bonobos) to a better and more harmonious way for us to deal with our sexual needs and with the world around us, a way to balance the differences and commonalities between male and female natures, and above all they suggest that this impressive book, which will change the thinking of anyone who comes to it with an open mind, is a good starting point to at least get people talking to each other — to their lovers, especially — about the truth about sexuality. The truth for each of us as individuals, and for all of us as a race of great apes, with the great and unique intellectual gift of language and self-knowledge, who have gone so very far down the wrong road of our sexual natures that many of us now believe dying is the only way to end the pain we have inflicted upon the very essence of ourselves as human beings.
Source.