I decided to finally post my question. We have very high expectations of monogamy in most societies. Our kids stay home at least 18 years in most cases, so there is an incentive to stay together.
Speaking for me, I don’t see how we could be. First of all, you’re asking every human being to be the same: fall in love with (or just marry) one person and stay with them forever. We are the most complicated life form on earth, and vary the most from individual to individual.
Secondly, we change. Every single one of us reacts to circumstances and changes throughout our lives. We need different things at different stages of our lives.
Thirdly, if we are so intelligent, we get bored.
Now, I think some people might be naturally monogamous, but think about it: it’s not 5 years, or 12 - sometimes it’s as long as 50. I’m not saying we can’t stay together for 50 years, but do we really need to be forced to? And is it really right to say “50 % of marriage ends in divorce” as if it’s a bad thing? if you just take all the marriages that occur with either partner not yet 20, then how much do you change between 20 and 28 alone?
By “naturally monogomous,” do you mean that we have some sort of natural or innate predisposition to remain or not remain for lifetime in a strictly monogomous relationship? I would say no to either one. Strict monogamy in a male-female relationship is the only universally accepted marital pattern, but in only about 20% of cultures is it the only marital pattern. Our own culture accepts serial monogamy, where multiple marital partners are acceptable so long as they don’t overlap. In other cultures it often exists alongside polygamy and polyandry just fine. I don’t think it would be safe to say that we’re any more predisposed to any one marital pattern than we are any one pattern of religious belief. Then again, I’m a heathen.
I’m a heathen, too, and I believe divorce is healthy. My first cousin* is - a wife abuser. He yells at her, demeans her, and even slaps her around when he feels like it. And there is no way they would ever consider divorce because it’s so taboo in India.
But everyone acts like you’re supposed to be together forever. Hindu marriages are for seven generations, godsdamnit.
*I find this really angering and humiliating. I only found out about last week. I don’t know how to ever be friends with him again.
No, humans are not naturally monogamous. I state that with 99% certainty. I find human sexually incredibly fascinating and I am currently studying it with a possible intention to recieve a degree in it.
Biologically, humans are not monogamous. Only 1/3 of sperm is used for procreation, 1/3 is used to form a barrier and the other 1/3 is used to fight off other sperm. It has been suggested (although never proven) that the shape of the penis was to scoop out sperm left behind from another male. The amount of sperm and the size of the testicles also tends to correspond with the sexual activity of the animal. Humans are not the most promiscous of animals, but we are far from the most chaste and monogamous. Only 3% of mammals are monogamous. Humans are not one of them.
From an anthropological aspect, I have yet to hear of a society where monogamy was practiced reguarly without force. Of course, I have not studied every single society in great detail, so there could be one out there. But for the majority of people, monogamy is not practical.
I’ve seen threads on this topic in the past on the board but I’m too lazy to look them up at work. My take on this question has always been that biologically we probably aren’t monogamous. There are simply too many mechanisms that evolution has built into us to deter ‘cheating’ (for both males and females) to think otherwise. For that matter, true monogamy in nature I think is a pretty rare thing…at least my viewing of various shows on Animal Planet and TLC/TDC seem to indicate that. Even species previously thought to be completely monogamous turn out to have ‘cheating’ going on.
Then one can look at our closest relatives in the animal kingdom and compare our behavior and physiology to theirs. Apes aren’t monogomous…they have harems where a dominant male basically keeps a group of females. Prolly TMI, but looking at their scrotums they are quite small compared to human males…because ‘cheating’ isn’t as much of a factor so they need less sperm. Chimps on the other hand are also not monogomous, though they don’t keep harems (that I know of or remember anyway). And their scrotums are more like ours because of the free wheeling mating they do. Same with monkeys. There is a type of ape that begins with a ‘B’ (Benobo? Something like that) thats supposed to be one of our closest relatives…and they are definitely not monogomous (I’ve heard they even use forms of ‘prostitution’ where the females will give sex for choice bits of food and such).
All of the above is strictly from memory and will probably be torn to shreds on this board as experts in the field come in and show me how wrong I am…and so should be taken with a rather large grain of salt.
I think that culturally though humans TRY to be monogomous because it helped smooth things over for our ancestors when we were small bands of roaming foragers on the edge of survival. Even later on, when we as a species had settled down somewhat, it helped to glue our society together, as well as smooth over potential rough spots in our family units. Even today there is something to be said for monogomy, though IMO it should be a choice among concenting adults…and that other options should be available if desired.
Thats just my opinion of course…I could (and probably am) be wrong.
To correct myself, I meant to say “polygyny” instead of “polygamy,” polygyny and polyandry both being forms of polygamy. A majority of the world’s cultures throughout history have allowed polygyny, usually among wealthy males.
On the subject of the similarity or dissimilarity of human and chimp scrotums, my knowledge is woefully lacking.
Well, I did say it was TMI…and probably wrong to boot as I’m going on something I saw on cable years ago and not exactly from a reputable source (I’ll let people guess who the guy was on the show talking about human sexuality vs our close cousins).
Anyway, I think its pretty appearent that biologically we as a species aren’t adapted to even pretend to be monogomous. Culturally though we have tried to make monogomy the norm, at least in most of our civilizations, though as you said polygyny is fairly common as well in various cultures at various times.
Gorillas have small balls (compared to us) and are not very promiscuous. They generally live in harem societies where the dominant male, the silverback, pretty much has sole access to all the females. Chimps have large balls (compared to us) and they are very promiscuous-- the males are almost constantly competing for access to the femles. Neither of these apes is monogomous.
Bonobos are a seperate species of chimpanzee, and use sexual activity (hetero and homo) for all sorts of social reasons. Their groups are similar to chimps in that they are a mix of males and females, but they don’t fight as much, and the females are not as subordinate to the males as chimps are.
Chimps and Bonobos are equally closely related to us. Since the chimp/bonobo line split after the human/chimp/bonobo line split, neither can be said to be more closely related to humans than the other is.
I fail to see why this is an argument for polyamory, though. We have to work at being a lot of things that don’t come “naturally.” I’m not naturally patient, for example. Should I just give up trying to improve myself and just let myself say and do anything I want whenever I get impatient about something?
Humans are able to control themselves. Just because we WANT to sleep with everyone we’re attracted to doesn’t mean we have to, or that we should.
Let me clarify the genetic/evolutionary relationship better than I did in that last post.
Humans belong to the genus Homo. Chimps and bonobos both belong to the genus Pan. The ape line leading to Homo and the ape line leading to Pan split about 6-7M years ago. Two species of Pan survive today-- the chimp and bonobo-- and they split off as species about 2-3M years ago. It would therefore be incorrect to say that bonobos are more closely related to humans than chimps are, or that chimps are more closely related to us than bonobos are. Both are equally closely related to us.
Okay way too much info ahead…I have a cousin who studied the exact theory that you’re talking about and rented dozens of um, shall we say adult films in which the young lady received the loving of several gentlemen…and well, the sperm was scooped out when the next gentlemen’s turn came.
I don’t know if he used the video or not in his final, but he seemed pretty convinced that, that’s what the shape was designed to do.
Yes, I understood that in your first post. Actually I DID know that chimps and bonobos (though obviously I didn’t know how to spell it) were a branching of the chimp line, though I had forgotten that until you mentioned it. Still, together they are our closest LIVING relatives evolutionarily speaking…no? Not that this tells us a lot I suppose about our sexual habits on reflection.
However, I suppose my over all point was that NONE of our close relatives are monogomous in any way (afaik anyway), so that should say something at least on the biological side as far as the question asked by the OP.
Er…yes. Thats exactly why the penis is shaped like it is. Not only that, some percentage of the sperm injected into the female by a male human actually has nothing to do with procreation at all…at least not directly. It acts as kind of a net I suppose, or a blocker…to block that second males sperm from getting to the target. So its defenses within defenses…first male injects sperm that acts as a net (and I think some of them might even act as sort of hunter killers for other males sperm, though I could be wrong about that), second male’s penis is used to ‘scoop’ out first males sperm in an attempt to give his own sperm an advantage.
Not only that, if I’m remembering correctly, at a subconsious level, if a male THINKS his ‘mate’ might have been unfaithful, his sperm count goes way up…again, in an attempt to give him an advantage over the other male.
The females have some defenses also…I don’t remember exactly how, but again at a subconsious level their bodies can select which sperm they want to have the better chance to succeed in impregnating them if there are multiple males involved.
Yeah, I have seen more than a few of those videos and they seem to support the theory pretty well!
Of course, the videos could’ve been edited. The only way to know for sure is to conduct an experiment ourselves. I am sure there are several dopers who would be willing to engage in such activities - for the sake of science of course.
Bonobos are extremely promiscuous and males rarely participate in the upbringing of offspring. They also engage in a variety of homosexual activities. In addition, bonobos are well known for engaging in non-reproductive heterosexual activities: they give each other hand jobs and practice oral sex. Group sex is not unknown, although I have be unable to figure out exact rates of incident. Sex is often traded for food, but is so often given that males will turn it down frequently only to be attacked by horny females. Bonobos also engage in kissing and are said to gaze deeply into each other’s eyes when having sex.
As for chimps, these creatures are also quite promiscuous, both males and females having many partners. Chimps also engage in oral sex and manual stimulation of the genitals. They engage in sexual play even when the female is pregnant or not in heat. When the female is in heat, they tend to have sex many times with many partners. Females may have had sex 300 times with 6 different males for one pregnancy. In addition to fooling around with males in the group, female chimps will have sex with male chimps outside their groups, leaving the offspring to be raised by males in her group.
These being are closest relatives, I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a human back in those times!
We must remember the purpose of the work of Jane Goodall, et.al. The reason Leakey arranged for her to go to Gombe in the first place was to do an in-depth study of chimp behavior, because, as our closest primate relatives, any behavior they exhibit that is similar to ours was likely inherited from our common ancestor. Thus we hope to understand what behavior we come by “naturally”.
By that logic, if it is true that chimps and Bonobos split later, then their common ancestor probably exhibited whatever sexual behavior they have in common. And whatever behavior that creature exhibited that is common to us tells us the heritage we received prior to this. Does anyone know what similarities Chimps and Bonobos share in their sexual behavior.
I have heard this “attack sperm” finding bandied about as proof that we are not meant to be monogamous. But do other primates have the same characteristics in their sperm? If so, then, while it’s certainly still possible that we are not meant naturally to be monogamous, it could also simply be a trait that was beneficial to an evolutionary ancestor that never presented enough of a survival detriment to end up selected against in ourselves.
Well, I did say it was TMI…and probably wrong to boot as I’m going on something I saw on cable years ago and not exactly from a reputable source (I’ll let people guess who the guy was on the show talking about human sexuality vs our close cousins).