Christopher Ryan: Are we designed to be sexual omnivores?

Published on Feb 20, 2014 by TED

An idea permeates our modern view of relationships: that men and women have always paired off in sexually exclusive relationships. But before the dawn of agriculture, humans may actually have been quite promiscuous. Author Christopher Ryan walks us through the controversial evidence that human beings are sexual omnivores by nature, in hopes that a more nuanced understanding may put an end to discrimination, shame and the kind of unrealistic expectations that kill relationships.

References

Wikipedia: Christopher Ryan (author)
Christopher Ryan is an American author best known for co-authoring the book Sex at Dawn. He received a BA in English and American literature in 1984 and an MA and Ph.D. in psychology from Saybrook University, an accredited hybrid low-residency/online learning program based in San Francisco, CA twenty years later. He spent the intervening decades traveling around the world working odd jobs (e.g., gutting salmon in Alaska, teaching English to prostitutes in Bangkok and self-defense to land-reform activists in Mexico, managing commercial real-estate in New York’s Diamond District, helping Spanish physicians publish their research). His masters thesis examined difference in specific personality measures between working fashion models and the general public. His doctoral dissertation analyzes the prehistoric roots of human sexuality, and was guided by the psychologist, Stanley Krippner, a humanistic psychologist, with additional committee members Sabrina Zirkel and Jürgen W. Kremer.

Wikipedia: Sex at Dawn
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality is a book dealing with the evolution of monogamy in humans and human mating systems. First published in 2010, it was co-authored by Christopher Ryan, PhD and Cacilda Jethá, MD. In opposition to what the authors see as the 'standard narrative' of human sexual evolution, they contend having multiple sexual partners was common and accepted in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Mobile self-contained groups of hunter gatherers are posited as the human norm before agriculture led to high population density. According to the authors, before agriculture, sex was relatively promiscuous, and paternity was not a concern, in a similar way to the mating system of Bonobos. According to the book, sexual interactions strengthened the bond of trust in the groups; far from causing jealousy, social equilibrium and reciprocal obligation was strengthened by playful sexual interactions.

Vice - June 2/2015
​I Grew Up in a Polyamorous Household by Benedict Smith
As a kid, I lived with my mom, my dad, and an interconnected network of grownups who were all banging each other.

2015-06-10

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