I really thought a lot about that too. If it weren't for the spectacular failure of the anti-norms for relational and sexual behavior during the last ten years, I would never defend the monogamy norm. I was one of those who questioned it a decade ago, but I must admit that the alternative we are currently seeing is much worse.
I really thought a lot about that too. If it weren't for the spectacular failure of the anti-norms for relational and sexual behavior during the last ten years, I would never defend the monogamy norm. I was one of those who questioned it a decade ago, but I must admit that the alternative we are currently seeing is much worse.
As I got old and boring, I'm increasingly leaning toward the hope that sexuality can at least partially be ignored. Polysexuality is not only limited by jealousy. It is a logistics challenge as well. With five kids to care for and a house to build, I would have too little time for affairs even had I wanted to. I think many parents would agree with that. There comes a point when having sex at all becomes a privilege rather than a suboptimal alternative to having the most exciting sex that can be imagined.
Sex will probably always be both a problem and an opportunity in relationships. I think things could be improved a lot if people knew themselves and others better. If we can think consciously about our urges and the probable reasons for them, I think they would become easier to handle.
Having had three kids myself, I can certainly relate to having little time (or energy) for adventurous sex, or even sex at all. But I also think that this is a very unnatural state of affairs.
Looking at child rearing among hunter-gatherers, one of the things that stand out is how little time they actually spend with their children. Not in in the modern sense of shipping them off to an institution obviously, the kids are always around them, but there are just so many more interesting people to interact with in a tribe, other kids of all ages, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc, that the actual time they spend with their parents (after weaning) is pretty minimal (if you are interested in this topic, I can recommend "Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods", by Hewlett et al)
This gives parents a lot of free time to do other activities, which more often than not means sex ;)
As an example, Daniel Everett, the first missionary to learn the Pirahã language, in his book "Don't sleep, there are snakes":
> "The Pirahãs all seem to be intimate friends, no matter what village they come from. Pirahãs talk as though they know every other Pirahã extremely well. I suspect this may be related to their physical connections. Given the lack of stigma attached to and the relative frequency of divorce, promiscuousness associated with dancing and singing, and post- and prepubescent sexual experimentation, it isn't far of the mark to conjecture that many Pirahãs have had sex with a big percentage of other Pirahãs. This alone means that their relationships will be based on an intimacy unfamiliar to larger societies (the community that sleeps together stays together?), Imagine if you'd had sex with a sizeable percentage of the residents of your neighbourhood and that this fact was judged by the entire society as neither good or bad, just a fact about life - like saying you had tasted many kinds of food"
I think that unless we can show the world that it is possible to have a great family life with kids, without having to deeply repress our basic needs (or have them disappear from shear exhaustion), then there is no chance that the next generations will want to procreate. Now that the act of having children is an active choice, it is just not a tradeoff most people are ready to accept.
But if we can show that you can have both a family _and_ the most exciting sex that can be imagined, then I think there is hope.
This is very interesting. And a new book to my reading list.
I haven't read enough about those Amazonian small-scale societies. The little I have read is that such levels of promiscuity has a darker side: Male irrelability in food provision for children. Should we guess they consist of sexually happy and content people? Or should we guess they consist of worried and cunning mothers who are more concerned with provision than pleasure? I guess I will learn more when I read more about them.
>But if we can show that you can have both a family _and_ the most exciting sex that can be imagined, then I think there is hope.
There is only one reason why I disagree: I think that for females, the most exciting sex that can be imagined is not something entirely positive. In the past, I have actively sought out groups of people containing females with strong and openly expressed sexualities. Close to one hundred percent had significant psychological issues. I asked whether there was anyone who didn't. I got a name, but never met her in person.
I have also read all the autobiographical books I have encountered on women with strong sexual desires who follow that sexual desire in real life. Not a single one seemed very happy. Catherine Millet, who wrote "The Sexual Life of Catherine M" seemed neutral, matter-of-factly more or less. But all the others seemed outrightly unhappy.
Those observation have made me grateful for being a female with rather low levels of sexual desire and very high levels of sexual inhibitions. I think that allowed me to shape my life more the way I wanted it, instead of being led to men I might desire sexually, but whom I don't genuinely like.
I think female sexuality is so fundamentally ambivalent that having the most exciting sex possible doesn't make most women happy. What sexually excites us is simply too far away from what we want. Maybe one can say that women are the perpetual obstacles to human sexual and relational bliss. It makes things complicated, but I think it's true.
I have also met plenty of women who were openly expressing their sexuality, but deeply unhappy. But I think we might get the causality mixed up. In our culture, women are expected to act and look like sex objects, while they at the same time get severely shamed for actually being sexual. This is bound to mess anyone up.
Also, drifting from man to man is a sure recipe for feeling lonely and empty (I actually think the end result is the same for men going from girl to girl, but for them there is at least some reward from society seeing them as a success).
I think this is why marriage is a solid mainstay across all human cultures, even the most promiscuous ones.
The few women I have met who both seemed able to fully express their sexuality and also seemed happy and mentally stable, were in long-term relationships with a partner who shared their drive to explore and play.
I think we all need that anchor.
We need both the safety and connection we get from a life partner, and the variety and novelty we get from freely expressing our sexuality. Limiting ourselves to either/or seems to be a recipe for unhappiness.
I really thought a lot about that too. If it weren't for the spectacular failure of the anti-norms for relational and sexual behavior during the last ten years, I would never defend the monogamy norm. I was one of those who questioned it a decade ago, but I must admit that the alternative we are currently seeing is much worse.
As I got old and boring, I'm increasingly leaning toward the hope that sexuality can at least partially be ignored. Polysexuality is not only limited by jealousy. It is a logistics challenge as well. With five kids to care for and a house to build, I would have too little time for affairs even had I wanted to. I think many parents would agree with that. There comes a point when having sex at all becomes a privilege rather than a suboptimal alternative to having the most exciting sex that can be imagined.
Sex will probably always be both a problem and an opportunity in relationships. I think things could be improved a lot if people knew themselves and others better. If we can think consciously about our urges and the probable reasons for them, I think they would become easier to handle.
Having had three kids myself, I can certainly relate to having little time (or energy) for adventurous sex, or even sex at all. But I also think that this is a very unnatural state of affairs.
Looking at child rearing among hunter-gatherers, one of the things that stand out is how little time they actually spend with their children. Not in in the modern sense of shipping them off to an institution obviously, the kids are always around them, but there are just so many more interesting people to interact with in a tribe, other kids of all ages, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc, that the actual time they spend with their parents (after weaning) is pretty minimal (if you are interested in this topic, I can recommend "Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods", by Hewlett et al)
This gives parents a lot of free time to do other activities, which more often than not means sex ;)
As an example, Daniel Everett, the first missionary to learn the Pirahã language, in his book "Don't sleep, there are snakes":
> "The Pirahãs all seem to be intimate friends, no matter what village they come from. Pirahãs talk as though they know every other Pirahã extremely well. I suspect this may be related to their physical connections. Given the lack of stigma attached to and the relative frequency of divorce, promiscuousness associated with dancing and singing, and post- and prepubescent sexual experimentation, it isn't far of the mark to conjecture that many Pirahãs have had sex with a big percentage of other Pirahãs. This alone means that their relationships will be based on an intimacy unfamiliar to larger societies (the community that sleeps together stays together?), Imagine if you'd had sex with a sizeable percentage of the residents of your neighbourhood and that this fact was judged by the entire society as neither good or bad, just a fact about life - like saying you had tasted many kinds of food"
I think that unless we can show the world that it is possible to have a great family life with kids, without having to deeply repress our basic needs (or have them disappear from shear exhaustion), then there is no chance that the next generations will want to procreate. Now that the act of having children is an active choice, it is just not a tradeoff most people are ready to accept.
But if we can show that you can have both a family _and_ the most exciting sex that can be imagined, then I think there is hope.
This is very interesting. And a new book to my reading list.
I haven't read enough about those Amazonian small-scale societies. The little I have read is that such levels of promiscuity has a darker side: Male irrelability in food provision for children. Should we guess they consist of sexually happy and content people? Or should we guess they consist of worried and cunning mothers who are more concerned with provision than pleasure? I guess I will learn more when I read more about them.
>But if we can show that you can have both a family _and_ the most exciting sex that can be imagined, then I think there is hope.
There is only one reason why I disagree: I think that for females, the most exciting sex that can be imagined is not something entirely positive. In the past, I have actively sought out groups of people containing females with strong and openly expressed sexualities. Close to one hundred percent had significant psychological issues. I asked whether there was anyone who didn't. I got a name, but never met her in person.
I have also read all the autobiographical books I have encountered on women with strong sexual desires who follow that sexual desire in real life. Not a single one seemed very happy. Catherine Millet, who wrote "The Sexual Life of Catherine M" seemed neutral, matter-of-factly more or less. But all the others seemed outrightly unhappy.
Those observation have made me grateful for being a female with rather low levels of sexual desire and very high levels of sexual inhibitions. I think that allowed me to shape my life more the way I wanted it, instead of being led to men I might desire sexually, but whom I don't genuinely like.
I think female sexuality is so fundamentally ambivalent that having the most exciting sex possible doesn't make most women happy. What sexually excites us is simply too far away from what we want. Maybe one can say that women are the perpetual obstacles to human sexual and relational bliss. It makes things complicated, but I think it's true.
I have also met plenty of women who were openly expressing their sexuality, but deeply unhappy. But I think we might get the causality mixed up. In our culture, women are expected to act and look like sex objects, while they at the same time get severely shamed for actually being sexual. This is bound to mess anyone up.
Also, drifting from man to man is a sure recipe for feeling lonely and empty (I actually think the end result is the same for men going from girl to girl, but for them there is at least some reward from society seeing them as a success).
I think this is why marriage is a solid mainstay across all human cultures, even the most promiscuous ones.
The few women I have met who both seemed able to fully express their sexuality and also seemed happy and mentally stable, were in long-term relationships with a partner who shared their drive to explore and play.
I think we all need that anchor.
We need both the safety and connection we get from a life partner, and the variety and novelty we get from freely expressing our sexuality. Limiting ourselves to either/or seems to be a recipe for unhappiness.