Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (60 page)

9. Coventry (2000).

10. Hrdy (1999b), p. 259.

11. Sherfey (1972), p. 113.

Chapter 19: When Girls Go Wild

1. Pinker (2002), p. 253.

2. Not to exclude women or gay men, but there is a dearth of scientific data on this particular angle. Interestingly, though, several people have reported to us anecdotally that when they’ve overheard their neighbors (both gay male and lesbian couples) having sex, the partner they considered to be the more feminine was the one who was making more noise.

3. When the director, Rob Reiner, showed the screenplay to his mother, she suggested that at the end of that scene, the camera cut to an older woman in the restaurant about to order, who says, “I’ll have what she’s having.” The line was so brilliant that Reiner told his mother he’d insert it, but only if
she
agreed to deliver the line in the film, which she did.

4. Semple (2001).

5. Small (1993), p. 142.

6. Small (1993), p. 170.

7. Dixson (1998), pp. 128–129.

8. Pradhan et al. (2006).

9. These quotes are from Hamilton and Arrowood (1978).

10. The intensity of the female’s vocalizations could, for example,

guide

the

discerning

male’s

orgasmic

response—thus increasing the chances of simultaneous or near-simultaneous orgasm. As we discuss below, there is evidence such timing could be to the male’s reproductive advantage.

11. The title, far from being the frat-boy declaration it may seem (“Without tits, there is no paradise.”), is the name of a Colombian television drama about young women who get breast implants hoping to attract the attentions of local drug lords and thereby escape poverty.

12. For example, Symons (1979) and Wright (1994).

13. See Morris (1967), Diamond (1991), and Fisher (1992).

14.

http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/style/2002/05/28/

booty_call/.

15. Though they can be considered permanently swollen, this is not to say that breasts don’t change throughout a woman’s life (and menstrual) cycle. They typically swell further at pregnancy, menstruation, and orgasm (up to 25 percent greater than normal, according to Sherfey), and diminish in size and fullness with age and breastfeeding.

16. Small (1993), p. 128.

17.

Haselton

et

al.

(2007).

Available

online

at

www.sciencedirect.com.

18. Many accounts of human sexuality incorporate this explanation, but that of Desmond Morris is probably still the most widely known.

19. Dixson (1998), pp. 133–134.

20. Dixson refers specifically to macaques and chimps in this passage, though he’s speaking of the capacity for multiple orgasm in female primates in general in the section where the passage appears. Passages like this led us to wonder why Dixson hadn’t followed the data to where they seem to so clearly lead. We sent him an email outlining our argument and requesting his comments and criticisms, but if he received our message, he chose not to respond.

21. Symons (1979), p. 89.

22. Lloyd, a former student of Stephen Jay Gould, recently published an entire book in which she reviews (and rather contemptuously dismisses) the various adaptive arguments for the female orgasm
(The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in
the Science of Evolution).
For a sense of why we don’t recommend her book, take a look at David Barash’s review, available online (“Let a Thousand Orgasms Bloom”).

Download

at

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/

ep03347354.pdf.

23. As noted above, some of the findings of Baker and Bellis are highly controversial. We mention them because they are known to many in the general audience, but none of their findings are necessary to our argument.

24. Barratt et al. (2009). Available online at http://jbiol.com/

content/8/7/63.

25. Pusey (2001).

26. Both quotes appear in Potts and Short (1999). The first quote is from the main text, page 38, and the second is quoting Laura Betzig, p. 39.

27. Dixson (1998), pp. 269–271. An excellent review of the development of the concept of postcopulatory sexual selection can be found in Birkhead (2000). Copious evidence for this filtering function can be found in Eberhard (1996), where the author presents dozens of examples of females exerting “post-copulatory control” over which sperm fertilize their eggs.

28. Dixson (1998), p. 2.

29. Small (1993), p. 122.

30. Gallup et al. (2002).

Part V: Men Are from Africa, Women

Are from Africa

1. Wright (1994), p. 58.

Chapter 20: On Mona Lisa’s Mind

1. Kendrick et al. (1998).

2. Baumeister (2000).

3. Chivers et al. (2007).

4. Much of the research reviewed here is mentioned in Bergner’s

excellent

article

“What

Do

Women

Want?—Discovering What Ignites Female Desire,” January 22,

2009.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/

magazine/25desire-t.html.

5. Anokhin et al. (2006).

6. Georgiadis et al. (2006). Or, for a review: Mark Henderson,

“Women Fall into a ‘Trance’ During Orgasm,”
Times Online,
June

20,

2005.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/

life_and_style/health/article535521.ece.

7. Tarin and Gómez-Piquer (2002).

8.

Little’s

quote

is

from

BBC

News

article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2677697.stm.

9. Wedekind et al. (1995). A more recent follow-up that confirms these results is Santos et al. (2005).

10. Birth control pills don’t just interfere with women’s ability to sense MHC in men, but appear to affect other feedback systems as well. See Laeng and Falkenberg (2007), for example.

11. For a recent survey of this research, see Alvergne and Lummaa (2009).

12. This isn’t meant as an indictment of the pill. But in light of these changes, we’d strongly recommend that couples spend several months together using alternate forms of birth control before making long-term plans.

13.

Lippa

(2007).

Available

online

at

http://psych.fullerton.edu/rlippa/bbc_sexdrive.htm.

14. See Safron et al. (2007). A good review of related research is here: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/

2004/04/63115? currentPage=all.

15. Alexander and Fisher (2003).

Chapter 21: The Pervert’s Lament

1. Dixson (1998), p. 145.

2. Both these interviews appear on NPR’s
This American Life,
Episode #220. Available via free download at iTunes or at www.thislife.org.

3. According to Reid (1989), it was considered wise and healthful for young Chinese men to share their abundant sexual energies with older women, who would benefit from absorbing the energy released by male orgasm; likewise, it was felt that young women’s orgasms would infuse older men with increased vitality. The same pattern is found in some foraging societies, as well as among some South Pacific island cultures.

4. One example among many: Dabbs et al. (1991, 1995) found, “Offenders high in testosterone committed more violent crimes, were judged more harshly by the parole board, and violated prison rules more often than those low in testosterone.”

5. Gibson (1989).

6. One wonders about the long-term social repercussions of widespread sexual frustration in adolescent males. To what extent, for example, is this frustration a contributing factor to the misogynistic rage many men experience? How does this frustration affect young men’s willingness to fight wars or join street gangs? While we don’t agree with arguments like those advanced by Kanazawa (2007) claiming that Islam sanctions polygyny in order to increase the male sexual frustration that creates a pool of available suicide bombers, it’s hard to dismiss the notion that intense frustration will often be expressed as misdirected rage.

7. Georgia has a serious problem with oral sex. Until 1998, it was illegal—even between a married couple in their own bedroom—and punishable by up to twenty years in prison.

8.

For

example,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/

story.php?storyId= 102386952&ft=1&f=1001.

9. Fortenberry (2005).

10. All quotes from this section are taken from Prescott (1975).

11. See Elwin (1968) and Schlegel (1995).

12. “Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism,” a speech delivered to the Stomach Club, a society of American writers and artists.

13. Money (1985).

14. See http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/USA/.

15. Money (1985), pp. 101–102.

16. These men believed that any spices or strong flavors excited sexual energies, so they recommended bland diets to dampen the libido. Graham crackers and unsweetened breakfast cereal were originally marketed to parents of adolescent boys as foods that would help them evade the evils of masturbation. For a fictionalized—though largely accurate—depiction of these men and their movement, see Boyle (1993).

17. Interestingly, Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, is considered one of the founders of public relations and modern advertising. Among his many famous ad campaigns was the first to associate cigarettes with increased autonomy for women. In the 1920s, Bernays staged a legendary publicity stunt still taught in business classes today. He arranged to have fashion models march in New York’s Easter parade, each with a lit cigarette and wearing a banner calling it a

“torch of liberty.” For more on this, see Ewen (1976/2001).

18. Farmers know that in order to get a bull to mate with the same cow more than a few times, the bull has to be tricked into thinking it’s a different cow. They do this by rubbing a blanket on another cow to absorb her scent and then throwing it on top of the cow to be mated. If the bull isn’t fooled into it, he’ll simply refuse—no matter how attractive the cow may be.

19. Sprague and Quadagno (1989).

20. See, for example, the documentary film
Rent a Rasta,
written

and

directed

by

J.

Michael

Seyfert:

www.rentarasta.com, or the feature film
Heading South,
directed by Laurent Cantet, about women going to Haiti in the 1970s.

21.
The New Yorker,
July 6 and 13, 2009, p. 68.

22. Additionally, the so-called
Westermark effect
appears to strongly dissuade sex between close familiars.

23. See, for example, Gray et al. (1997 and 2002) and Ellison et al. (2009).

24. See, for example, Glass and Wright (1985).

25. Roney et al. (2009), but also see Roney et al. (2003, 2006, and 2007).

26. Davenport (1965).

27. Kinsey et al. (1948), p. 589.

28. Symons (1979), p. 232.

29. Bernard (1972/1982).

30. Berkowitz and Yager-Berkowitz (2008).

31. Symons (1979), p. 250.

32. See, for example, Roney et al. (2003). Regular aerobic exercise, lots of garlic, stress avoidance, and plenty of sleep are also good ways to “keep it up.” We should note that despite the anecdotal evidence, few scientists have risked ridicule by applying for grants to study the hormonal changes in philanderers. The phenomenon is well documented in other mammals, however (see, for example, Macrides et al., 1975).

It’s possible the effect may be mediated not by actual intercourse so much as by pheromones, which might explain the
bulusela
shops where Japanese men purchase girls’

vaccum-packed (but used) panties from vending machines.

Enterprising graduate students might want to consider research similar to Wedekind’s “Sweaty T-shirt study,” but with women’s panties instead of men’s shirts in the plastic bags, to see whether exposure to novel women’s genital pheromones alone is enough to affect testosterone blood concentrations in men.

33. For example, for depression: Shores et al. (2004); heart disease: Malkin et al. (2003); dementia: Henderson and Hogervorst (2004); mortality: Shores et al. (2006).

34. Squire quoted by Phillip Weiss in his provocative article in
New York
magazine: “The affairs of men: The trouble with sex and marriage.” May 18, 2008. Available here: http://nymag.com/relationships/sex/47055.

Chapter 22: Confronting the Sky Together
1. Wilson (1978), p. 148.

2. Holmberg (1969), p. 258.

3. “Is There Hope for the American Marriage?” Caitlin Flanagan
Time,
July 2, 2009. http://www.time.com/time/

nation/article/0,8599,1908243,00.html.

4. These quotes from Druckerman were taken from a review of her book in
The Observer,
July 8, 2007.

5. Jaynes (1990), p. 67.

6. “What does marriage mean?” Dan Savage. In Salon.com, July 17, 2004: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/07/

17/gay_marriage/index.html.

7. Squire quoted by Weiss in
New York
magazine: “The affairs of men: The trouble with sex and marriage.” May 18, 2008. Available here: http://nymag.com/relationships/sex/

47055.

8. “Only You. And You. And You. Polyamory—relationships with

multiple,

mutually

consenting

partners—has

a

coming-out party.” By Jessica Bennett.
Newsweek
(Web Exclusive) July 29, 2009. http://www.newsweek.com/id/

209164.

9. Hrdy (2001), p. 91.

10. “Scenes from a group marriage.” By Laird Harrison.

Salon.com. http:// mobile.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/06/04/

open_marriage/index.html.

11.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

2009/01/tedhaggard-a-1.html.

12. McElvaine (2001), p. 339.

13. Perel (2006), p. 192.

14. Gould (2000), pp. 29–31.

15. After all, in the 1970s,
somebody
bought nearly four million copies of
Open Marriage,
by Nena and George O’Neill.