Bonobos are know for being sexually liberal. They have sex frequently and not for reproductive reasons, often for mood enhancement and other social reasons. Chimps, on the other hand, have sex primarily for reproduction. Here's an interesting table from page 77 of Sex at Dawn:
-Human and bonobo females copulate throughout the menstrual cycle, as well as during lactation and pregnancy. Female chimps are sexually active only 25% to 40% of their cycle.What I've been taking away from this is the standard model's desire to maintain that humans have a chimp-like mindset. It seems that we act like chimps because we've been denying that we are supposed to live like bonobos. Ryan and Jetha mention earlier in the above quote chapter that upon encountering another group at a territorial boundary, bonobos engage in sex to alleviate tension.
-Human and bonobo infants develop much more slowly than chimpanzees, beginning to play with others at about 1.5 years, much later than chimps.
-Like humans, female bonobos return to the group immediately after giving birth and copulate within months. They exhibit little fear of infanticide, which has never been observed in bonobos- captive or free-living.
-Bonobos and humans enjoy many different copulatory positions, with ventral-ventral (missionary position) appearing to be preferred by bonobo females and rear-entry by males, while chimps prefer rear-entry almost exclusively.
-Bonobos and humans often gaze into each other's eyes when copulating and kiss each other deeply. Chimps do neither.
-The vulva is located between the legs and oriented toward the front of the body in humans and bonobos, rather than oriented toward the rear as in chimps and other primates.
-Food sharing is highly associated with sexual activity in humans and bonobos, only moderately so in chimps.
-Genital-genital (G-G) rubbing between female bonobos appears to affirm female bonding, is present in all bonobo populations studied (wild and captive), and is completely absent in chimpanzees. Human data on G-G rubbing are presently unavailable.
-While sexual activity in chimps and other primates appears to be primarily reproductive, bonobos and humans utilize sexuality for social purposes (tension reduction, bonding, conflict resolution, entertainment, etc.).
This reminds me of Nisa by Marjorie Shostak, in which a stunning portrayal of an African forager society is given. In their culture, sexuality is introduced at an early age and there is little that is taboo about it save for violent sexual acts. Small children practice sex with each other before maturity. I have often wondered if this portrayal is more accurate than the puritanical monogamy we claim to have here in America that we don't actually follow.
Our modern society seems to be based on creating unnecessary needs - and it all began with the need to preserve food stocks due to a sedentary lifestyle followed by the need to control the woman's reproductive abilities. Now we have a backwards idea of what makes us happy. One of the things that makes for a happy human is women having complete sexual freedom. Denying women their sexual freedom is close to impossible, for one, because they have prominent breasts at all times (unlike ANY OTHER MAMMAL), lack any external cues as to when they are ovulating, and exhibit noises during intercourse that are unique and impossible for any other human to ignore. To assume that women don't like sex and that their bodies should be controlled by a monogamous male simply invites relationship disaster, as we can see in all societies that identify themselves as monogamous.
Women try to hide their sexual nature or become ashamed of overtly expressing their sexuality or even appearing sexual- think of all the different approaches American women have to bearing or covering their cleavage. And then think of their response should they find a male looking at their cleavage! The amount of breast shown and the amount of offense taken are usually independent of each other. Then there's the dreaded female areola- if males are meant to control sex, the female's bare breast has a strange and incongruent potency over the male.
Trying to assume paternity leads to fighting when the male has no idea if he had sex with his chosen mate when she was fertile and he is investing all of his time raising one female's offspring. We should be raising kids as a village, where paternity doesn't matter. Our reproductive developments make it almost impossible without sophisticated genetic technology to determine fatherhood. If we didn't have the need to confirm paternity, we wouldn't feel the need to control our women. And if half the population is under control, the whole population feels the effects.
Most fascinating- we won't have assumed for 100s of years that women didn't experience orgasmic pleasure when prostitutes/ porn stars are trained to simulate that exact thing. It seems that much of the literature that has been published around human sexuality has this Victorian bend where to admit that having a liberal view of sex is to invite sin. Sin in this case not being restricted to going to Christian hell, but also including disease, single parenthood, orphans, and, this is the big one- that if women gave it away for free, they would have no bargaining chips for resources and would fall to the bottom of society (or even further to the bottom).
Of course, in primate societies the opposite is observed, liberal sexuality is correlated with a matriarchal society. The females don't have an aggressive-must-defend type of hierarchy, rather the oldest females simply have more influence. So liberal sex attitudes lead away from war and toward matriarchy.
Conversely, in our societies where women have the least sexual freedom- in Muslim and many Christian societies, for example- we also see the most warmongering. Women in these cultures are desexualized as much as possible- the ostensible reason being that if the women we to be sexual "on the street" so to speak, they would be inviting male attention and thus compromising the monogamous bond they share with their mate at home. This appears to make for a miserable time for everyone, the women don't have freedom to do much of anything and the men have to view porn, visit prostitutes or at least masturbate while fantasizing about other women to be satisfied. True, this seems to work out for the males okay, but factoring in the fact that they could be having all the sex they wanted while not being at war pales in comparison to what's going on now.
What's fascinating to me is how blatantly obvious this all is to the modern human, and yet how the scientific community continues to disagree. To say humans would be happier having more sex with each other is just a wrong thing to say. It's treated as if some research proves that humans would be happier if they killed more humans. Researchers wouldn't believe it and wouldn't publish it. Somehow sex has gotten to be just as bad as violence in modern society and to suggest it's healthy somehow seems wrong to most of the traditionalists out there, and most humans are traditionalists.
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