Sex At Dawn - A Review
As I've made abundantly clear, I am found of Dan Savage. SQUEEE!!! So when the Great Sex Advice Lord highly recommended the book "Sex at Dawn" claiming it would blow my mind, and he meant BLOW MY MIND with it's sheer awesome rightness. I got it and read it, albeit reluctantly. Why? Because it is an evolutionary pysch book, and my jerked knee reaction is... 'Blargh. How can we possibly know what human groups were doing hundreds of thousands of years ago. I mean, clan of cave bear sexy times leaves no trace in the fossil record. I call shenanigans.'
I was wrong. The book did a good job explaining how this is not the case in accessible terms. A million years of prehistoric sex does leave traces on our bodies and DNA. The central thesis of the book is that we as a species did not develop in a state of monogamy. Prehistorically, we humans, not just men, but particuliarly women, were naturally slutty little strumpets, just like our closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos (who as we know are natures dirty little monkeymen harlots). Nobody was monogomously pair-bonded, instead humans lived in "omnigamy" (my new favorite word, which I plan to use in company more often then is wise) and raised children in common, in small hunter gathering groups, with paternity being mostly irrelevant. But then we had to go and start farming and inventing junk like the shelf, the harem and the cow. And that this invented civilization ruined our sex lives forever. Because we invented the idea of ownership, extending it to women in the form of polygomy and monogomy. I rather liked the book when it was in full on academic, anrthopoligist mode. I think they did a good job proving their thesis.
However, the end left a bad taste in my mouth like the blowing of one too many husbands one night in an evolutionarily sanctioned omnigamous union. You see the authors inserted themselves in a surprisingly unscholarly way into the end of their book. They came out for ployamory and swinging as sort of cures for the profoundly unhappy state of monogomous marriage today. Because as you know 50% of marriages end, but those divorcees would have TOTALLY stayed together if they each got to have societally accepted side-show sex. They don't back this arguement up with anything other then the 'Hey our ancestors and nearest ape relatives are whores, so we should all be to.' Umm, no that is not how science works and so your book just got a big dose of de-sciencing. You should have left that conversation out of your book and in the bedrooms, bars and swing clubs across America.
I have to say I am disappointed in the authors when everyone knows the only thing a marriage needs to keep it happy is a pair of matching dakimakuras.
I was wrong. The book did a good job explaining how this is not the case in accessible terms. A million years of prehistoric sex does leave traces on our bodies and DNA. The central thesis of the book is that we as a species did not develop in a state of monogamy. Prehistorically, we humans, not just men, but particuliarly women, were naturally slutty little strumpets, just like our closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos (who as we know are natures dirty little monkeymen harlots). Nobody was monogomously pair-bonded, instead humans lived in "omnigamy" (my new favorite word, which I plan to use in company more often then is wise) and raised children in common, in small hunter gathering groups, with paternity being mostly irrelevant. But then we had to go and start farming and inventing junk like the shelf, the harem and the cow. And that this invented civilization ruined our sex lives forever. Because we invented the idea of ownership, extending it to women in the form of polygomy and monogomy. I rather liked the book when it was in full on academic, anrthopoligist mode. I think they did a good job proving their thesis.
However, the end left a bad taste in my mouth like the blowing of one too many husbands one night in an evolutionarily sanctioned omnigamous union. You see the authors inserted themselves in a surprisingly unscholarly way into the end of their book. They came out for ployamory and swinging as sort of cures for the profoundly unhappy state of monogomous marriage today. Because as you know 50% of marriages end, but those divorcees would have TOTALLY stayed together if they each got to have societally accepted side-show sex. They don't back this arguement up with anything other then the 'Hey our ancestors and nearest ape relatives are whores, so we should all be to.' Umm, no that is not how science works and so your book just got a big dose of de-sciencing. You should have left that conversation out of your book and in the bedrooms, bars and swing clubs across America.
I have to say I am disappointed in the authors when everyone knows the only thing a marriage needs to keep it happy is a pair of matching dakimakuras.