Psychology Today Blogs - Lust in Paradise

An Inconvenient Truth: Sexual Monogamy Kills Male Libido

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:21:43 -0700

Here’s a suggestion: No serious therapeutic advice can begin with the word just. What would we think of a therapist who suggested that alcoholics should “Just stop drinking!” and that people struggling with obesity should “Just stop eating so much!”? Psychopaths should “Just develop some compassion,” right? Sure, that’ll work.

The problem with advice beginning with just is that it almost always turns out to be non-sense disguised as common sense. The insertion of just right there at the beginning suggests that we’ve been wasting our time talking about the problem, investigating its causes, exploring its complexities. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Forget all that brainy mumbo-jumbo and just do this. The power of this approach becomes obvious when we recall that America’s drug problem promptly ended when Nancy Reagan told us to Just say no to drugs. Gee, why didn’t someone think of that earlier?

A recent article in Psychology Today profiles a therapist/author who suggests that married men with low libido can overcome this difficult situation if they just do it. According to this article, “their low sex drive often has little to do with hormones or biology and a lot to do with the women in their lives. Men today, often enough, are angry at their wives.” Readers are told that, “In the presence of a mismatch of desire, all intimacy drops out on all levels in addition to the sexual. Couples stop having meaningful conversations.”

We strongly disagree -- both with this statement of the problem and the supposed effects on the relationship.

First, the problem. In fact, for most men in long-term sexually monogamous relationships, a steady decrease in libido has everything to do with biology and hormones and would be the same regardless of the particular woman in their lives. That’s right. The sexually-monogamous husband of the hottest woman on earth will start to lose interest at a certain point. Uma, Selma, it’s not your fault!

As for the men’s anger noted in the article, we’d argue it’s more likely to be the result of our society’s unwillingness to face this biological reality – preferring to tell men there’s something wrong with them.

You want an inconvenient truth? Try this one: human beings are clearly evolved for sex lives featuring multiple simultaneous sexual relationships.

Men, especially, are designed by evolution to be attracted to sexual novelty and to gradually lose sexual attraction to the same partner in the absence of such novelty. The so-called Coolidge Effect is well demonstrated in social mammals of all sorts, and is old news to anyone knowledgeable about reproductive biology (Our apologies for not explaining here why/how this applies more to men than to women, but it is far too involved for this blog entry. If readers are interested, we'll explain in a subsequent entry).

Boys will be boys, and men will be the way they are, despite the many ways our society tries to make them change.

Back in 1979, anthropologist Donald Symons pointed out that: “Human males seem to be so constituted that they resist learning not to desire variety despite impediments such as Christianity and the doctrine of sin; Judaism and the doctrine of mensch; social science and the doctrines of repressed homosexuality and psychosexual immaturity; evolutionary theories of monogamous pair-bonding; cultural and legal traditions that support and glorify monogamy.” Do we really need to give examples of men with a whole lot to lose risking it all for sex with a woman other than his wife? Surely, you can think of an example or seven.

To be fair, the therapist/author profiled in this article is far from the only source of misinformation on this touchy subject. No less an expert than Dr. Phil notes that “sexless marriages are an undeniable epidemic,” and he surely has his own home-spun, common-sense, utterly useless advice for couples. There is in fact, an entire industry of therapists and writers insisting that:

A. There’s something wrong with men who experience flagging libido in the context of a long-term sexually monogamous relationship (they’re emotionally immature victims of the dreaded Peter Pan Complex, they have issues with their mother, they’re addicted to porn, they’re afraid of emotional commitment, etc.), and,

B. There’s some magical way to address this problem that’ll make it go away.

Wrong and wronger.

Way back in 1964, when Vietnam was a new war and the sexual revolution was just getting started, Masters and Johnson noted that “Loss of coital interest engendered by monotony in a sexual relationship is probably the most constant factor in the loss of an aging male’s interest in sexual performance with his partner.” They further note that, “such a man may be rejuvenated by having sexual intercourse with a younger woman, although the young woman may not be as adept a lover as his wife.” Our research suggests that the age of the other woman is less important to this effect than is her otherness [corrected, see comment below].

Now, what about the effects on the relationship? Is it true, as the article states, that “in the presence of a mismatch of desire, all intimacy drops out on all levels in addition to the sexual” (our emphasis)? Must “couples stop having meaningful conversations”?

Come on now.

If you know a couple who have been married for more than a few years, you know people who have spent significant time “in the presence of a mismatch of desire.” A couple is composed of two complex individuals, each following his or her unique, rocky path through life. Sexual desire fluctuates for each of us in accordance with many factors: seasons, work and financial pressures, pregnancy and child-care issues, the death or suffering of loved ones, overall physical health, age, etc. It’s absurd and destructive to suggest that a mismatch of desire need result in a loss of all intimacy and that meaningful conversations come to a screeching halt.

To be sure, sex can be an important part of intimacy, but it is not the essence of intimacy itself. In fact, high-libido sex can easily be an expression of the utter absence of true intimacy: the notorious one-night stand. Couples who do not understand this are unlikely to survive for long.

In fact, couples might find themselves having the most meaningful conversations ever if they have the courage to talk openly about these fluctuations in desire. One of the most important hopes we have for our book (to be published next year) is to make it easier for couples to make their way across this difficult emotional terrain together, with a deeper, less judgmental understanding of where these inconvenient feelings come from and a more informed, emotionally mature approach to dealing with them.

Reluctant Leadership Rules!

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:14:18 -0700

Now that the PA primary has failed to end the kamakazi Clinton campaign, it seems that unlimited ego will once again prevail over the common good (speaking of the common good of the Democratic party). This situation reminds us of something very interesting we learned while researching hunter/gatherer politics: those who desperately want to be leaders are automatically disqualified. Describing !Kung leaders, for example, an anthropologist who lived with them for several years writes:

"None is arrogant, overbearing, boastful, or aloof. In !Kung terms these traits absolutely disqualify a person as a leader and may engender even stronger forms of ostracism. Another trait emphatically not found among traditional camp leaders is a desire for wealth or acquisitiveness. Their accumulation of material goods is never more, and is often much less, than the average accumulation of the other households in their camp."

This isn't the place for a long diatribe about hunter/gatherer power structures, but it is worth noting that coercive political power is a relatively recent development in human history. In a sharing-based economic system like that followed by hunter/gatherers (which means our ancestors for 98% of our existence), it's very difficult to accumulate the sort of power that would allow you to MAKE anyone do anything. Walking away is always an option for everyone. When food and shelter are easily available to all, how does one go about becoming important? By being a good hunter perhaps and sharing the meat. Hoarding gets you ostracized.

Anyway, the point is that we go about choosing our leaders in such a way that we end up with those who are psychologically least qualified -- those with a NEED TO LEAD! "Fire in the belly" might be great for fans of Mexican food, but it leads to smoke in the brain for potential leaders. Better to draft a reluctant leader who has matured far beyond the burning desire to be called "Mr. (or Ms.) President."

Don't Ask the Sexperts (Part II)

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:59:39 -0700

A while back we promised to respond to the sexperts featured in a story on Slate.com on things about sex that confuse even bona-fide sex experts. We hope you (and they) will find our take on these issues provocative and possibly even illuminating. As we wrote in Part I, if our model holds any water, we should be able to answer some of their doubt and questions in terms of what we've learned about prehistoric sexuality. Here's the second and final installment.

You can find the original article from Slate here and Part I of our response here.

Ian Kerner is the author of She Comes First, He Comes Next, and other sex advice books: "Why do most men still know more about what's under the hood of a car than the hood of a clitoris, and why, in our post-Sex and the City culture, are women faking it more than ever?"

Doesn't the premise of his first question answer the second? Also, we'd be careful about assuming most men know how their cars work. And how does he know that "women are faking it more than ever?" Still, reasonable questions.

Briefly, we strongly believe that modern societies generally teach and insist upon sexual ignorance. Clearly, the situation isn't as bad as it was when people were being severely punished for masturbating a century ago (doctors used acid to burn away the clitoris) or imagining evil spirits fornicating with them at night two or three centuries ago -- but it's still pretty bad. Even Bill Clinton (hardly anti-sex) fired his Surgeon General for suggesting that masturbation should be openly discussed in schools. And our federal government is still in the business of insisting on abstinence-only education -- despite the voluminous evidence that it is substantially worse than ineffective. Even supposedly clear-thinking scientists are still arguing that human nature tends toward sexual monogamy! No wonder a lot of guys prefer to work on their cars -- it's a lot easier to get reliable information on auto mechanics than on the mechanics of love.

Em & Lo are sex and relationship writers and authors of Buh Bye: The Ultimate Guide To Dumping and Getting Dumped: "We've never been able to understand why virginity is still defined strictly in terms of penile penetration. Does that mean all lesbians are lifelong virgins?...."

Yeah, it does, at least as far as most religious authorities are concerned. This one's pretty easy. Virginity is an important concept only in societies that are concerned with property rights. But the fact that just about any society around at the moment fits this category doesn't mean this concern is a universal human preoccupation, as many evolutionary psychologist argue.

Societies that aren't founded upon a sense of the importance of personal property don't even have a word for "virginity." Despite their tragically low numbers today, such pre-agricultural societies were ubiquitous for most of our existence as a species. This illuminates the point that virginity really isn't about sex; it's about paternity certainty. So any sex act that cannot result in pregnancy isn't really at issue.

Here in Spain, where there's a large North African population, more than a few of our male friends have had encounters with Moroccan or Tunisian women who were game for anything but vaginal sex -- so they could keep their "virginity" intact for marriage.

Simon LeVay is the author of The Sexual Brain and Human Sexuality: "I'm co-author of an undergraduate human sexuality textbook, so every few years I have to review the whole field of sex research to see what advances have been made. The most depressing area is that of "paraphilias," which are pathological sexual desires, often involving victims—everything from pedophilia to zoophilia, exhibitionism to sexual murder and cannibalism. What's depressing is that we seem to be making little or no progress in understanding the cause or treatment of these conditions. So victimization continues, and the perpetrators—nearly always men—are warehoused in state "hospitals" or exposed to ever more vindictive harassment in the community. Whoever figures out how to prevent their descent into deviancy, or how to give them back healthy, loving sex lives, will have alleviated untold suffering, and will have made that dark corner of my textbook a greater pleasure for me to write and for students to read."

First, we'd suggest that Dr. LeVay's definition of paraphilias is a bit extreme. Paraphilias are not necessarily "pathological," just unusual. You may be turned on by watching monster truck competitions on TV, or the smell of grilled cheese sandwiches. Those would be considered paraphilias, but hardly pathological -- at least, not by us. He refers to the ugliest possible examples (cannibalism!), but most paraphilias are merely harmless fetishes.

There's a little-known area of research involved with "erotic plasticity" that has revealed some very interesting information concerning paraphilias, fetishes, and so on. We explore this research in our book.

Essentially, the research suggests that males (of many species, including humans) seem to have a relatively brief period in their development when their sexual appetites are determined. We're not referring to sexual orientation, but to what turns them on, within that orientation. Once this developmental window, that's it. With humans, this period appears to be somewhere between five and twelve years of age. So, if an eight year-old boy makes a strong association between his emerging erotic feelings and the red shoes his teacher wears every day, that might get imprinted indelibly on his eroticism. He may not even remember why, but women in red shoes will always turn him on.

Women, on the other hand, seem to be much more flexible in terms of what turns them on. In other words, they have much greater erotic plasticity throughout their lives.

This may explain why virtually all fetishists are males. They are stuck with what turns them on and can't adjust it to changing realities as they mature. Hence, pedophiles are pretty much impossible to "cure." They'll never stop feeling what they feel. Still, as Schopenhauer said (certainly not thinking of paraphilias), "A man can do as he wills but not will as he wills."

To return to Dr. LeVay's original concern about the origins of these paraphilias and how to reduce them in our society, with this information about erotic plasticity, it becomes clear that the best (perhaps only) way to eliminate them is to stop exposing boys to destructive, violent, damaging situations. It's no coincidence that men who abuse children were virtually always abused themselves as children. A boy who is sexually abused is likely to form some inescapable association between that situation and his own eroticism. It's a chain that has to be broken using information and compassion.

Dan Savage is a nationally syndicated alternative weekly sex columnist (and our personal favorite sex-advice guru): "What I don't understand is ... gee, how people can be so willfully stupid about sex. Sex came first. Before marriage, there was sex. Before religion, there was sex. Before freakin' humans, there was sex. All human cultures, and all our fanciful religions, were constructed around sex, built to regulate and control sex, sanctify and elevate sex. But so many people want to start with culture or religion before they approach sex, as if the former can teach us all we need to know about the latter. Not true. We have to start with sex. I'm not arguing that we should do away with all regulations or controls, or that sex shouldn't be sanctified or elevated. But there are regulations and controls that are idiotic, products of a time when we didn't truly understand human hair growth—or physics or gravity or the movement of the planets—much less human sexuality, and they should be reassessed. I'm thinking of bans on prostitution, bans on same-sex marriage, the promotion of "normal" sexuality (meaning: no kinks), the cultural assumption that the ability to have sex without love is evidence of some sort of mental illness. In these areas, some of our attempts to sanctify and elevate sex run so counter to human nature that they cause nothing but misery."

As usual, we are in near total agreement with Dan. The only point we'd take exception to is his contention that "all human cultures... were constructed around sex...." As mentioned above, the control of sex really only becomes an issue when cultures are constructed around property. Before the advent of agriculture and property, there was no need to worry about which kids were created with the assistance of specific men. In fact, as we explain in our book, many (pre-agricultural) cultures still believe that a child can have several biological fathers and there are many societies in which sex is considered to be important, but hardly a central concern in life. Needless to say perhaps, these societies are far less concerned with controlling sexuality and thus find that it doesn't control them.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer is the author of 31 books about sex and relationships.
"I'm sure there are many, but one nagging one is what causes homosexuality. I admit, I am curious—but the real importance in getting to the bottom of this question is that the answer would be helpful to the homosexual community. I suspect that the cause is genetic, which would mean all those people who say that gays and lesbians can change to become heterosexual would have to sing another tune. Instead of trying to "fix" a situation that doesn't require fixing, they would have to learn to accept homosexuals. But I am not a scientist, so I can't set about finding out the etiology, the cause of homosexuality. All I can do is act as a cheerleader to encourage scientists to come up with the answer."

It's a good question, and one we don't explore much in this book. What comes to mind upon reading her thoughts is that it's probably a mistake to assume there is a single cause for homosexuality. It's likely to be a case of a genetic propensity joined with certain environmental factors -- both pre- and post-natal. Studies have shown that there appear to be clear genetic tendencies within families (if memory serves, it's the mother's brothers who are most likely to predict a boy's possible homosexuality), but other studies have shown that the fetal environment has an important impact on sexual orientation, too. Apparently, if a woman has had several sons previously, the chances of subsequent sons being gay increases. The suspicion is that this has something to do with hormonal levels in the amniotic fluid.

Dr. LeVay, whom we mention above, first burst into public consciousness when his research suggested that there are anatomical differences between the brains of straight and gay men, reinforcing the sense that sexual orientation is not something one chooses.

On Things Falling from the Sky

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:31:36 -0700

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’ve got an average-sized head. And let’s agree that you spend an average amount of time outdoors. And the skies above you have an average number of birds flying about.

How many times, in an average lifetime, should you expect to be shat upon by birds?

I don’t know of any peer-reviewed research on this question, but I’ve enjoyed this dubious honor no less than a dozen times – and often at pivotal moments (twice, upon setting out for on a long journey: hitching from New York to Alaska and a year in Asia). This strikes me (pardon the pun) as being rather a lot.

Statistically, someone has to be at the upper end of the Bell curve, so I guess it’s just my destiny to receive the droppings of our avian friends. But scientist though I am (on paper, anyway), I admit that I’ve often pondered the hidden meaning of all this bird-shit.

I know it’s supposed to be good-luck, according to many cultural traditions. When I worked with a lot of Orthodox Jews in New York’s Diamond District, I was often assured that my tendency to attract bird droppings from above and dog turds from below was proof of my good fortune. But I wonder …

I was reminded of all this when I recently read a news report on a man in Bosnia whose house has been hit by five – count em! – meteorites since November. The article doesn’t say how big his house is, though it mentions that he’s had steel-reinforcement installed in the roof. In any case, statistically, I guess someone’s gotta be the guy whose house gets hit by five meteorites in a few months, but you can hardly blame that guy for thinking the aliens are messing with him.

Sometimes, science is just too dry a tool for understanding the messy realities of our lives.

30% of American football players gay? Not quite.

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:14:41 -0700

Are 30% of American football players gay?

The headline reads, "Over One-third Of American Football Players Had Sexual Relations With Men, Study Claims."

The hook repeats that astounding claim, only slightly stepping back from the headline by admitting we're not talking about all football players here, but former high-school jocks: "A study of former high-school American Football players has found that more than a third said they had had sexual relations with other men."

Only if you plod into the article do you learn that the study included just 47 men who had previously played high-school ball but couldn't make the team once they got to the university level and who had opted to become -- wait for it...

Cheerleaders.

Yes, this is the sort of sloppiness that all too often passes for "science" these days. Sociologist Dr. Eric Anderson, of the University of Bath -- a town made famous by Chaucer's randy wench -- included kissing, mutual masturbation and, get this, two men having sex with one woman as evidence of homosexual behavior. His study was to be published in the journal Sex Roles in January, according to the article.

Dr. Anderson says he was the first openly gay high-school sports coach in the U.S. (how would he know?), and author of a book on gay athletes.

Now, former high-school football players who become cheerleaders in college would hardly qualify as a representative sample of football players in general -- unless you're looking to get your "research" published in Sex Roles, apparently.

And including two men having sex with one woman as having experienced "sexual relations with men" strikes us as being a bit of a stretch. Having interviewed several professional athletes on this very topic for our book, we can tell you that they did not in any sense consider themselves to be having sex with each other when they were with the same woman. The athletes we spoke with (and, we presume, the women involved) frame the experience as both men having sex with her simultaneously. For them, this is a hyper-heterosexual encounter. Quite the opposite of Dr. Anderson's take on the situation.

For a more serious-minded look at homosexuality in sports, check out Esera Tuaolo's book or profile in the New York Times. For the record, Tuaolo reports having felt utterly isolated by his sexuality.

Famed zoologist Desmond Morris wrote an illuminating essay years ago called The Soccer Tribe, in which he discusses group sexual practices among professional soccer players. He found that woman-sharing was a common practice that served to enhance team-solidarity. If Dr. Anderson thinks having sex with a woman within sight of another naked man qualifies as gay sex, one wonders whether he'd include all the men who have viewed pornography featuring other men having sex with women (which would be almost all heterosexual porn).

Wouldn't that make almost all men gay, Dr. Anderson?

What's Wrong With Silly Love Songs? Plenty.

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:00:11 -0700

Paul McCartney once noted that “some people want to fill the world with silly love songs.” “What’s wrong with that?” he asked. So what is wrong with that? Plenty.

Three decades older and $50 million poorer, thanks to his recent divorce settlement, we’d bet that Sir Paul won’t be writing more silly love songs any time soon.

The problem with silly love songs is that they celebrate silly love. Silly love is a house made of Valentine’s day cards. It’s a short-term illusion fueled by equal parts narcissism and delusional thinking. It’s the sort of “love” in which you believe the crap you’re saying as much as the crap you’re hearing -- always a dangerous condition in which to find oneself. Sure, it can provoke a fleeting rush of wondrous sensation, but so can addiction to opiates and really, who’s singing the praises of that anymore?

Silly love would have you believe that:
• There’s only one girl/guy for you in the whole wide world – and you’ve found him/her. Longer odds than winning the lottery. Lucky you.
• That the giddy feeling you’re presently mistaking for “love” will last forever and ever (good luck with that).
• That this feeling is reason enough to make life-changing decisions (marriage/divorce, pregnancy, drop your life to be with him/her, etc.).
• That it’s impossible to feel this for more than one person at a time.
• That if something goes wrong, you’ll never feel anything like this again. This is your ONE chance for love!
• That if the object of your “love” has any sort of sexual relation with anyone else, he/she has destroyed your trust, broken your heart, never really loved you, etc., etc.

Now, don’t get us wrong: we feel nothing but compassion for Sir Paul, who seems like a pretty nice guy whose sappy weakness for this adolescent notion of “love” left him defenseless against a woman who shows every sign of being a real piece of work, to put it nicely. But our compassion is limited by our suspicion that silly love songs like Silly Love Songs may have been the final shove for thousands – maybe millions – over the edge into their own Heather Millsian catastrophes.

Of course, not everyone’s pushing childish “love” in their music, but when you start thinking this way, you begin hearing the message everywhere.

Hey fellas! Did you know that When a Man Loves a Woman, he’ll:

• Spend his last dime on her?
• Turn his back on his very best friend (if the friend dares to suggest she might not be all she seems at the moment)?
• Sleep out in the rain if she tells him to?

And you thought a night on the sofa was bad.

Can we all grow up a bit? If you insist on looking for love lessons on the radio, forget the Paul McCartney/Percy Sledge silliness. Maybe head down the dial to the country-western station, where you’ll find some Tammy Wynette realism to live by:

If you love him you’ll forgive him
Even though he’s hard to understand …
After all, he’s just a man.

Forgiveness, acceptance, endless attempts to understand … now that’s amore!

America, Zebra Nation

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:45:08 -0700

The current hullabaloo about Obama’s preacher and the issue of racial identity in America reminded me of the day a few years back when a Spanish friend called me with a strange and urgent question: “Do you understand black people?”

As it turned out, her question was far less profound than it appeared at first. First, by "black people" she meant black Americans. She was translating documentaries about American music for a Spanish film festival. A few of the films were about old-time Delta blues. Others featured the origins of hip-hop in Brooklyn, NY in the 1970s. She couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was hearing, despite her excellent English.

So if I ever write that rarest of documents – the 100% honest resume – Ebonics-to-English translator will have pride of place, just above salmon gutter (job experience Hillary Clinton claims as well) and fashion model masseur.

But back to racial identity. I later learned that I wasn’t the first person my friend had turned to for help. Before me, she’d called a British guy she knew. Despite being black, he couldn’t make out what was being said, either. Turns out, a cloud-white Irish-American from Pennsylvania had a better ear for inner-city slang and bayou drawl than a black guy from Sheffield.

I was reminded of this by talk of Obama’s blackness (Black enough? Too black?) and the so-called “white vote.” Isn’t this a clear example of linguistic simplicity leading to conceptual confusion? Obama is as black as a zebra – or less so. His white mother raised him in pretty white areas (Hawaii), and he attended overwhelmingly white schools and had mainly white friends. So what, other than his absent father, was “black” about his experience? I haven’t read his books yet, but I’d bet that the main thing that made him feel “black” – if such a feeling can be said to exist – was the dark reflection of himself he saw in the eyes of many whites.

A friend of ours was born in Republic of the Congo and raised in France. She’s far darker than Obama, Martin Luther King, or Malcolm X, but she doesn’t consider herself to be “black” at all, in the sense that Americans understand the term. Though she knows many people see her as black, she considers herself to be French. She’s got no personal connection to the black American experience. Her ancestors were never sold as slaves in the West Indies.

But mine might have been. In the 17th century, about 80,000 Irish women and children were sold in the same slave markets that processed the millions of Africans brought across the Atlantic in chains. As late as 1800, there were blacks in Jamaica who spoke Gaelic. Listen to Bob Marley (whose father was white, by the way), and you’ll hear echoes of an Irish brogue. So don't call me white -- I'm Irish.

These thoughts lead to a possible answer for those who ask why Obama didn’t tell his Reverend Wright to cool it with his passionate denunciations of mainstream “white” American culture. Maybe, like our French/Congolese friend, Obama simply had the decency and intelligence to recognize that it really wasn’t any of his business. His ancestors hadn’t toiled in Mississippi cotton fields. Who is he to tell an African-American leader what to say or not to say about the black struggle in the United States?

What makes Obama an inspirational figure for us is not that he could be the first “black” president, but that he could potentially be the first president to render the question of racial identity too damned confusing to bother with. And this would be the truest reflection of American life. Look in the mirror and the face you see is white, black, or some shade of brown. But what if you could see your mind or personality in that mirror? What tones would you see then? Is there a white American alive who’s head isn’t filled with Robert Johnson, James Brown, or Snoop Dogg? Suburban white kids in Connecticut walk around in baggy pants hanging off their asses because belts aren’t issued to mainly black prisoners, but most of them have no idea where the fashion came from; they just think it’s cool. Similarly, even the most militant black Americans are steeped in white culture every time they turn on their TV set, go to school, or get a job.

Comedian Dave Chapelle’s got a fantastic sketch where he plays a blind white supremacist who doesn’t know he’s actually black (Clayton Bixby). I think Chapelle's point is that you’ve gotta be blind to be a racist, cause no matter how white you think you are, a big part of you is black – and vice-versa.

Is Prostitution Really the "Oldest Profession?"

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:47:20 -0700

I was interviewed last night by a journalist looking for a new angle on this Spitzer mess. She wanted to know about prostitution in prehistory. I told her there probably were no prostitutes in the Stone Age. How could there be? There was no money and sex was likely far less restricted than it is today, so there would have been little to no demand (you can read her article here).

But then I got to thinking. There were other things that could be used as currency (food, favors, foot massages) and surely there would be men at the bottom of any scale of attractiveness to females, so there must have been some male sexual frustration. Plus, it's common to see male bonobos and chimps in possession of prized food (like sugar-cane) get approached by females who offer a bit of the nasty for a snack. So why not prehistoric prostitution?

It comes down to that word: nasty.

Most men aren't paying prostitutes for just sex; they're paying for no-strings sex. For anonymity. The lack of pre- or post-coital obligations and complications. For low-risk sex. Yes, for men with a lot to lose, whether it be wealth, power, or family stability, sex with a prostitute can rationally be considered much lower-risk than having an affair -- as counter-intuitive as that might seem. Very few prostitutes are going to ruin their careers and reputations by revealing what they do and with whom.

In other words, what makes a market for prostitution is precisely the nastiness we attribute to non-marital sex. And there's no reason to believe sex became nasty and shameful until the historical period began around 10,000 years ago, at the absolute earliest.

If Henry Kissinger was right that power is the greatest aphrodisiac, surely, a governor of New York could have arranged a non-paying visit with any number of attractive women. But those women might have mentioned their afternoon activities to a trusted friend. Does the name Linda Tripp still ring bells? Much safer to hire a pro.

Or so it seemed.

Sex in Prehistory -- How Do We Know?

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:44:36 -0700

An astute reader asks, "If your book is about the origins of human sexuality 'before agriculture and writing,' how did you develop your basic thesis? Without written records, what are your theories based on?"

Good question. Below is an excerpt from our up-coming book, where we look at that question.

The short answer is that we need to triangulate. The reader's point is that we're developing theories about social relations in prehistory -- relations that leave no skeletal or other types of archaeological evidence. True enough.

So we study associated bodies of evidence and look for areas where they all intersect. Specifically, we look at primates -- particularly the chimp and bonobo, which are by far the closest to humans. We look at anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer people, whose lives presumably reflect much of what we'd find if we could venture back 50,000 years. We look at human anatomy (see below) and what it tells us about the environment in which the human body evolved (and continues to evolve). And we look at contemporary human psycho-sexuality to see if we can find areas where people's current fantasies, pathologies, and predilections might tell us something about an underlying "design" that still lingers from long ago.

As it turns out, each of these areas is rich in fascinating information that sheds light on the origins of human sexuality.

We hope this begins to answer your question -- or at least whets your appetite for the book!

* * * * *

Everybody has a story to tell. So does every body.

Like any narrative of human life in prehistory, ours rests on two types of evidence: circumstantial and material. We’ve already covered a great deal of circumstantial evidence concerning the probable environment in which Homo sapiens evolved (the EEA) : social systems, economics, diet, relative male/female status, sexual behavior in closely related primates, and so on. Thus far, the only real material evidence we’ve offered has centered on archaeological indications of prehistoric human social life (shelter size and design, prominence of nomadic subsistence, absence of evidence of food-storage in the archaeological record, and so on). But it’s a stretch to base a comprehensive model of human sexual behavior in the Pleistocene on just a few scattered artifacts. The song says, “What goes up must come down,” but unfortunately for archaeology, most of what goes down never comes back up. Social behavior is especially difficult to infer from fragmented bits of bone, flint, and pottery – fragments that represent a tiny fraction of what once existed.

Skepticism is warranted.

Years ago, at a conference in India, the subject of our research came up over dinner. When we explained that we were investigating human sexual behavior in prehistory, the esteemed professor across the table from us scoffed and asked, “So what do you do, close your eyes and dream?” While one should never scoff with a mouthful of pakora, the old coot had a point. His dismissive remark reflects the truism that social behavior doesn’t leave physical artifacts, so any theorizing amounts to nothing but “dreaming.” In fairness to the professor, we’ve since heard similar scoffing at cocktail parties throughout the world.

Famed paleontologist, Stephen J. Gould asked, “How can we possibly know in detail what small bands of hunter-gatherers did in Africa two million years ago? These ancestors left some tools and bones, and paleoanthropologists can make some ingenious inferences from such evidence. But how can we possibly obtain the key information that would be required to show… relations of kinship, social structures and sizes of groups, different activities of males and females…?” Richard Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, warns that, “Many characteristics of early human behaviour are…difficult to reconstruct, as no appropriate material evidence is available. Mating patterns and language are obvious examples – social life, words and grammar leave no traces in the fossil record.” But he then goes on to add, almost under his breath, “Questions of social life… may be accessible from studies of ancient environments, or from certain aspects of anatomy and behaviour that leave material evidence.”

Is Potts suggesting that maybe the truism isn’t true, after all? Can we glean important information about the contours of ancient social life – particularly concerning sexual behavior – from present-day human anatomy? As it turns out, we can.

In the next three chapters, we review the anatomical evidence relevant to human sexual evolution. We’ll leave the chemicals (hormones, neurotransmitters) for the following section (Reading the Sexual Mind), because they tend to manifest in behavior. The body gives us plenty to talk about.

Renowned biologist, Richard Dawkins explains that every creature’s body tells a detailed story about the environment in which its progenitors evolved: “If you find an animal’s body, a new species previously unknown to science, a knowledgeable zoologist allowed to examine and dissect its every detail should be able to ‘read’ its body and tell you what kind of environment its ancestors inhabited: desert, rainforest, arctic tundra, temperate woodland or coral reef. The zoologist should also be able to tell you, by reading its teeth and guts, what it fed on…. The animal’s feet, its eyes and other sense organs spell out the way it moved and how it found its food. Its stripes or flashes, its horns, antlers or crests, provide a read-out, for the knowledgeable, of its social and sex life.”

Dawkins leaves delicately unmentioned the fact that the genitalia of this mysterious animal contain far more information about its sex life than its “flashes” or “crests.” As evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey F. Miller notes, “Male sexual ornaments and male genitals are the most useful traits for distinguishing most animal species from closely related members of the same genus.” He goes so far as to say that, “evolutionary innovation seems focused on the details of penis shape.”

Leaving aside for the moment the awkward question of whether even Mother Nature is obsessed with the penis, it’s certainly true that our bodies contain a wealth of information about the sexual behavior of our species over the millennia. This information is encoded in dusty skeletal remains millions of years old as well as in our own pulsing bodies. It’s all right there – and here. We just have to read the hieroglyphics of the sexual body. Far from closing our eyes and dreaming, we need only open them and look closely at ourselves and at each other.

What (If Anything) Does Testicular Ratio Really Mean?

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:51:46 -0700

Our co-blogger here at Psychology Today, evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, recently posted an explanation of how we know that "women have always been mildly promiscuous throughout human evolutionary history."

Problem is, we don't.

To be fair, the argument Kanazawa presents has been around for a long time and is pretty straightforward. Among mammals, those with promiscuous mating systems tend to evolve larger testicles, relative to their body size, than those with more limited mating behavior. Fine.

But then Kanazawa (and many other evolutionary psychologists) take a bold step out on to very thin ice when he applies this simple observation to human evolution, writing,

"The evidence of women’s promiscuity throughout evolutionary history is in the relative size of men’s testicles. Men would not have such large testicles and produce so many sperm per ejaculate had women not been so promiscuous. But then, their testicles would have been much larger and they would have produced even more sperm per ejaculate had women been more promiscuous."

This only makes sense if we can be certain that human testicular volume is extremely static -- not changing over the tens or hundreds of thousands of years that make up "evolutionary history." And this is simply not the case.

As it turns out, testicular volume is extremely responsive to environmental factors ranging from exogenous estrogens, toxins in the air and water, and growth hormones used in the food supply, even the dictates of fashion (think: tight jeans). Men's testicles shrink with age, and there are marked differences in the average testicular ratio of Africans, Europeans and Asians -- which calls into question the notion that testicular ratio is some universal figure based upon extended evolutionary processes. At least one primate, the capuchin monkey, experiences radical changes in his testicular size seasonally!

So as far as we know, there is no reason to believe that human testicular ratios offer reliable evidence of anything other than current conditions. If the size of human testicles changes with environmental (and possibly cultural) factors, then certainly their current state cannot be used to support tenuous conclusions about conditions 100,000 years ago.