Have there been any studies or historical searches that have determined when man went from sex purely for procreation to sex for fun?
I think it’s the other way around. All animals do it for fun - that is, they (we) all have a desire to do it, and gain satisfaction from it. Humans are the only animals capable of thinking “I want a child, so I really should have sex.”
There was a time when it WASN’T fun!?
What makes you say that?
I recall reading a (partly tongue in cheek) comment that among the things the Normans introduced to England after 1066 were the concepts of recreational sex and eating for pleasure.
Not sure scr4 is right about all animals having sex for pleasure. Guy spiders who end up being eaten after sex can’t be having a particularly good time.
sex in animals is more of an instict drive then for procreation or pleasure. Some ‘higher’ animals do do it for fun but most just do it and sometime it can be very painful for both. a male cat will rip a female at the end which in turn unless the male has a very tight grip on her scruff will turn around and bite the male.
Obviously it’s always been for fun which is why their are so many taboos about it.
Although I would also say that in modern times it became OK again to have sex for fun in the 60s. I’m not sure you could pin it down much more then that. But again there’s always been groups of people willing to have sex for fun. Like Socrates and his boy friends.
This is, of course, an American-centric statement. And other nations may, and most likely do, have other answers.
Sex for fun? You mean there’s places where I could get laid just for telling good jokes? I like that! Now, where can I learn some good jokes? 
Leaving aside a few species of lizards that reproduce by cloning, all animal species have to have some “reason” for undergoing sex. A species that didn’t wouldn’t be here for us to observe, since copulation has no immediate results and offspring are mostly a nuisance anyway (except for species that just create them and boot them out and even in those species, creating eggs is still a major expense). In many, maybe most, animal species (and I am including insects, worms, etc. here) it is instinctual. For many mammals it seems to be an overwhelming compulsion (ever see a cat in heat, how she gathers males), but for most of the great apes what has evolved instead is that it is overwhelmingly pleasurable. Even among the apes, it is not universal. I think it is the gibbons that mate for life (no cheating, from what I have read) and they copulate only once in every couple years (how do they know to?). Among humans, chimps, gorillas, the compulsion is that it is hard wired to be pleasurable. Similarly, raising kids seem to be hard wired to be pleasurable, although sex is intense for a short time, while the pleasure from kids is much lower level for a LONG time.
“Alas, despite the attempts of the Protestant Reformed Church to promote such ideas as sex for pleasure, children continue to multiply around the world.”
-Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
I remember reading that simians, humans, and dolphins are the only creatures that have sex for pleasure purposes as well as procreative(<-- is this even a word?) purposes… If all the bugs in the world had sex for fun as well as procreation, we’d be knee deep in illegitimate bug-spawn. ><
:rolleyes:
No, it is not. Remember that it not until the 1960’s that the pill was widely available, providing safe, effective means of contraception.
Mind if you take those roll-eyes back? I think if you will look around you will find countries where sex for recreation is frowned upon. Just because you can have sex without having risk of children does not mean that the attitudes towards sex have changed. There are many places on this Earth where pre-marital sex is extremely frowned upon, and that is an understatement.