【007】人类性进化的启示|Are we designed to be sexual omnivores?

Speaker：Christopher Ryan

Key words：性 进化 社会性 人类学

Abstract：在农业文明之前，人类实际上已经相当混杂了。作者Christopher Ryan向我们展示了具有争议的证据，证明人类天性即为性杂食者，同时也呼吁更深刻的理解与包容来杜绝歧视、羞辱和不切实际的期望以消除这种性杂食关系。

Content：

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Key view :

human beings are sexual omnivores by nature

human sexuality is first a bonding device and only secondarily procreation.

• Evidence 1: before algreculture our ancester as hunter-getherers are promiscuous other than engage in sexually exclusive realtionships
  • shared reasources leads to shared sex.[fierce egalitarianism].
  • They not only share things, they demand that things be shared: meat, shelter, protection, all these things that were supposedly being traded to women for their sexual fidelity, it turns out, are shared widely among these societies.[extend this sharing behavior to sexuality]
  • as a way of establishing and maintaining the complex, flexible social systems, networks, that our ancestors were very good at, and that's why our species has survived so well.
• Evidence 2: Anatomy
  • Sexual swellings: chimps have sexual swellings through 40 percent, roughly, of their menstrual cycle, bonobos 90 percent, and humans are among the only species on the planet where the female is available for sex throughout the menstrual cycle
  • Sex times per birth: The average human has sex about 1,000 times per birth VS the other three apes, the gorilla, the orangutan and the gibbon, who are more typical of mammals,having sex only about a dozen times per birth.
  • Large penis: The human, some of you will be happy to hear, has the largest, thickest penis of any primate.
  • External testicles:They keep the sperm cells cool so you can have frequent ejaculations

True life:

Mosuo from southwestern China. In their society, everyone, men and women, are completely sexually autonomous.

In the Amazon, we've got many tribes which practice what anthropologists call partible paternity. So a woman who wants to have a childwho's smart and funny and strong makes sure she has lots of sex with the smart guy, the funny guy and the strong guy, to get the essence of each of these men into the baby, and then when the child is born, these different men will come forward and acknowledge their paternity of the child. So paternity is actually sort of a team endeavor in this society.

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链接：TED|Open163