"We're All Perverts": The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality with Author Christopher Ryan

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"We're All Perverts": The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality with Author Christopher Ryan

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"If you look at us as a species, we're not very impressive. What we're good at is forming complex social networks," says Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. "The purpose of human sexuality - the function - is social."

Together with Cacilda Jethá, Ryan has written about the history of human sexuality and why we should fight against "socially imposed restrictions." By looking at archaeology, primate biology, human physiology, and anthropological studies of pre-agricultural tribes from around the world, Ryan says we aren't meant to be in life-long monogamous unions.

Ryan sat down with Reason contributor Thaddeus Russell for an in-depth discussion about his book, the role of sex in society, and the harmful consequences of repressing healthy sexuality.

About 27 mins.

Produced by Sharif Matar. Camera by Zach Weissmueller and Matar.

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Comments

[Live Free or Diet]

"We're All Perverts"

YES I AM!
There's nothing sadder than a clean-minded young man.

[Lord Humungus]

Ryan says we aren't meant to be in life-long monogamous unions.

I wish someone would convince one or two women I know of this...

[IceTrey]

We ARE supposed to be in life long relationships, it's jut that our lives are only supposed to last 40 years!

[Ketogenic Paleo]

The idea that cavemen didn't live long is mostly myth; the reduced average lifespan is a result of the high rate of infant mortality.

[Habeas Dorkus]

So true.
That's why, when Ayn Rand exhorted us to "give thanks to the grimiest smokestack we could find" in her thesis that extractive industry directly led to human longevity, I shook my head.

[Live Free or Diet]

Historical life expectancy varies widely according to how they lived and ate.
Paleolithic adults lived to about 54.
Neolithics lost considerable lifespan, strength and health.
Bronze Age and Iron Age were a slow crawl back up.
By Classical Rome adult life expectancy was about 47.
In Medieval Britain, adults lived to about 64.

There's certainly utility in understanding people didn't just drop dead at age 20 in the Neolithic or at 27 in Pre-Columbian North America. Still, I have a problem with how most people toss around the idea that dead children don't count.
Of course, the biggest decrease in 20th Century adult mortality came from the understanding that women were dying from childbirth because their doctors were infecting them with diseases from corpses from also doing autopsies.

[Jquip]

Why bother? The idea here is that if it is what chimpanzees do then we should ditch the 'socially imposed restrictions' and act like chimpanzees.

Chimpanzees don't ask permission to mate. Because, shut up, Bitch. We're primates.

[Zakalwe]

How much screen time does Warty get in this? It's got most of his non-rapey keywords.

[AlmightyJB]

I didn't think Warty worked with amatuers.

[Thane of Steelport]

When it comes to what Warty's into, everyone's an amateur.

[Almanian!]

Except Warty

[Mad Scientist]

Flies all green and buzzing in his dungeon of despair
Prisoners grumble and piss their clothes and scratch their matted hair
A tiny light from a window hole a hundred yards away
Is all they ever get to know about the regular life in the day
It stinks so bad the stones been choking
And weeping greenish drops
In the room where the giant fire puffer works
And the torture never stops
The torture never stops

[Acosmist]

Most of us aren't meant to work UP to monogamy, to be fair.

[Episiarch]

Look, yes, I have banged hundreds of broads, internationally, but know this: I wrap my rascal TWO times 'cause I like it to be joyless and without sensation, as a way of punishing supermodels.

[Almanian!]

derpfee, you are a god among men

[Robert]

You've banged hundreds internationally? Meaning you had to straddle a border with them?

[Harvard]

[You've banged hundreds internationally?]

I think he meant unintentionally.

[Troy muy grande boner]

Speaking of perverts, Warty invented a new way to masterbate.

http://www.vice.com/read/pool-noodle-girlfriend

[William of Purple]

I knew I should not have read that.
Why did I read that?

[fish_remote]

Complain all you want...that was a hell of an opening paragraph!

[William of Purple]

why can't he just buy a fleshlight like the rest of us?

[Thane of Steelport]

He says near the end that it's too expensive and doesn't have a suction cup on the end.

[SugarFree]

They should make a combo fleshlight/bong. Your own semen cools the smoke.

[Troy muy grande boner]

The older I get, the less cum there is. So I don't know how practical this would be. Pretty soon I think I'll be cumming dust.

[SugarFree]

Do you feel the urgent need to urinate after sex? You might be diverting semen into your bladder.

[R C Dean]

Which, actually, is a very advanced Tantric technique.

Err, I think I read that on the internet, anyway.

[SugarFree]

I've done it. It's not a pleasant feeling.

[Robert]

When I was little I think my orgasms were anejaculatory. Some have told me that's not possible, must've been retrograde ejacul'n (into the bladder), but I don't think so.

Then I quit masturbating for a few yrs., thinking that was baby stuff like thumb sucking. When I resumed, my orgasms were ejaculatory, which was disconcerting. I was like, huh, this didn't happen before when it felt like that.

[Zeb]

I don't know. I think that was the most awesome thing I have read all day. I love weirdos like that.

[Brett L]

Goddamn. I got my stomach all tore up from a pool noodle once. No way is that going anywhere near my tender bits.

[Thane of Steelport]

Story time.

[William of Purple]

and it better involve banging a Milf

[Hyperion]

I learned that lesson well.

[Hyperion]

I got here too late to warn everyone to not click on that link.

[Almanian!]

"We're All Perverts"

You're mom's a pervert...

/Kip Dynamite

[Paul.]

I'm trying to work with a grammar joke here. Give me a minute.

[Winston]

You Know Who Else opposed "socially imposed restrictions"?

[CE]

Miley Cyrus?

[Dr. Frankenstien]

STEVE SMITH?

[Paul.]

My wife?

[Robert]

Amnesty Int'l?

Oh wait, that's socially imposed restrictions. AI opposed socially imposed constrictions, of the neck.

[AlmightyJB]

"If you look at us as a species, we're not very impressive"

I'm still pissed about the dinosuars beating us to the moon.

[Hyperion]

I'm still pissed about the dinosuars beating us to the moon

And causing global warming first.

[fish_remote]

That was just gas....no credit for biological functions.

[Hyperion]

Ok, this thread really needs a hijacking.

I don't know if I'm ever going to understand Europolitiks. I don't even know if I want to put forward the effort to try. Anyway:

Far right taking over France

Really? I'm assuming that being far right in Europe means that you are not a hardcore commie? They seriously have a communist party that gets votes. Didn't they get the message from their comrades in Murika that they were supposed to change their name to something purtier, like progressive?

[Brett L]

National socialists are hard right, International socialists are hard left.

[#]

"Far right" in euro politics means socialism for nationals as opposed to international socialism.

People who like relatively restricted government are called liberals in Europe.

[#]

"Far right" in euro politics means socialism for nationals as opposed to international socialism.

People who like relatively restricted government are called liberals in Europe.

[#]

"Far right" in euro politics means socialism for nationals as opposed to international socialism.

People who like relatively restricted government are called liberals in Europe.

[#]

"Far right" in euro politics means socialism for nationals as opposed to international socialism, the "left".

People who like relatively restricted government are called liberals in Europe.

[#]

"Far right" in euro politics means socialism for nationals as opposed to international socialism, the "left".

People who like relatively restricted government are called liberals in Europe.

[#]

God damn it.

[Lord Humungus]

I think you just broke a record... or something.

[Sam Grove]

I think you just broke a record... or something.

Is that why it was skipping?

[Ketogenic Paleo]

If that's true, Europe is cufked. cufked I tell you. Beyond recognition.

[William of Purple]

3PM!!!

[Brett L]

Post it as many times as you like, I was still faster.

[Robert]

The "right" in Europe usually refers to some form of nationalism?neither necessarily more nor less socialist than their competition; that part varies.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

If you look at us as a species, we're not very impressive

Speak for yourself!

Ryan and Jeth? show that our ancestors lived in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, often overlooked evidence from anthropology, archeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature sexual monogamy really is.

...White Indian?

[cavalier973]

As I understand it, "historical" polygamy involved one guy with several females, whom he could beat and abuse without legal consequence, since women were considered property of either their fathers or their husbands.

[silent v]

Their research deals with Human Behavior on the Evolutionary Time Scale, the polygamy you are referring to is too new to be reflected in our biology.

[Juice]

People forget that "modern" humans have been around as a species for about 200,000 years. Only the past 10,000 (5%) or so can be considered "civilized." We know very little about what was going on during that other 95%.

[fish_remote]

...White Indian?

Doubtful....not a single reference to gamboling.

[R C Dean]

Which could be taken as evidence that full-on communitarianism is appropriate for subsistence/tribal living, but the rise of more structured social arrangements with more structured and productive economic arrangements, everywhere and every time, means that its not appropriate for anything more advanced than subsistence/tribal living.

[Paul.]

So everything was like that Paul Rudd/Jennifer Aniston movie?

[Azathoth!!]

Why don't we ever see this with the other great apes then? All of us are territorial. Chimps, Orangs and gorillas don't raise young communally. And, with the exception of humans, nobody's having pass-er-around sex parties.

GIGO

[Eduard van Haalen]

And there's a tribe in the Amazon that thinks if a woman has sex with several men and gets pregnant, she carries the genetic material of all the men she did it with! Therefore let us snuff out the lights of science and experience and gambol through field and forest in search of poontang! QED.

[Zeb]

Who knows. Everyone should just what they want and stop worrying about what other people do.

[Eduard van Haalen]

But guys like this don't share your ideal. Live-and-let-live isn't the goal at all. They want to normalize behavior previously regarded as wrong, and stigmatize behavior previously known as admirable. So a woman struggling to preserve her marriage is a naive doormat who should just say f___ it and either take a lover or get a divorce. And if she doesn't, that means there's something wrong with her.

[Ketogenic Paleo]

As an unintended consequence you sort of have a point but I'm not sure if they literally want this. I can imagine some idiot taking these people's theories and doing that. Non-monogamous/polyamorous people I know, books I've read don't have this we're better than you attitude. But in a dystopian future it could happen if the free-love peeps are too insensitive to the monogams. I mean, who would have believed that we'd live in a world where salt is banned in some citie(s)? The people who wrote Demlition Man, maybe

[Robert]

I sure hope this guy is right.

[DRM]

If you look at us as a species, we're not very impressive

Right, we're only the unchallengeable best at throwing rocks and the unchallengeable best at endurance running in the whole animal kingdom, before you get to the part where we're the unchallengeable best at thinking.

The species of great ape that has no particular excellencies compared to the rest of the animal kingdom and uses sex for community formation and reconciliation is the bonobo species, not the human. And it's the least successful of all the extant great apes, outnumbered by each of the chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans.

[Ketogenic Paleo]

OMG you said we're the best at endurance running... how did you come to this conclusion? Did you read Born to Run?

[DRM]

No, I didn't read Born to Run. I don't think I ever consciously took note of the existence of Born to Run before now. I prefer my anthropology, anatomy, and evolutionary science rather less "pop" than that.

[Mickey Rat]

"The purpose of human sexuality - the function - is social."

This seems to be of a piece with "gender is a social construct". Taking a secondary feature of a biological reality and expanding it beyond reason to be the only truth. I imagine there are several layers of instinct that form human sexuality, but since humans have had long helpless childhoods I expect that that long term pairing have been a net positive for survival.