Sex at dawn : how we mate, why we stray, and what it means for modern relationships / Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá.

Author
Ryan, Christopher, 1962- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
Kindle edition.
Published/​Created
  • New York, NY : Harper, [2011]
  • ©2010
Description
1 electronic book (420 pages) : illustrations, map

Availability

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        Details

        Subject(s)
        Author
        Summary note
        "Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science--as well as religious and cultural institutions--has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages. How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethå̊. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book. Ryan and Jethå's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity. With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and Jethå show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality. In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do."
        Notes
        • Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers.
        • Originally published in hardcover in 2010, with a different subtitle.
        Bibliographic references
        Includes bibliographical references (pages [317]-382) and index.
        Source of description
        Description based on print version record.
        Contents
        • Preface: Primate meets his match (a note from one of the authors)
        • Introduction: Another well-intentioned inquisition
        • Few million years in a few pages
        • Part 1: On The Origin Of The Specious:
        • Remember the Yucatan!
        • You are what you eat
        • What Darwin didn't know about sex
        • Flintstonization of prehistory
        • What is evolutionary psychology and why should you care?
        • Lewis Henry Morgan
        • Closer look at the standard narrative of human sexual evolution
        • How Darwin insults your mother (the dismal science of sexual economics)
        • Famously flaccid female libido
        • Male parental investment (MPI)
        • Mixed strategies in the war between the sexes
        • Extended sexual receptivity and concealed ovulation
        • Ape in the mirror
        • Primates and human nature
        • Doubting the chimpanzee model
        • In search of primate continuity
        • Part 2: Lust In Paradise (Solitary?):
        • Who lost what in paradise?
        • On getting funky and rockin' round the clock
        • Who's your daddies?
        • Joy of S E Ex
        • Promise of promiscuity
        • Bonobo beginnings
        • Mommies dearest
        • Nuclear meltdown
        • Making a mess of marriage, mating, and monogamy
        • Marriage: the "fundamental condition" of the human species?
        • On matrimonial whoredom
        • Paternity certainty: the crumbling cornerstone of the standard narrative
        • Love, lust, and liberty at Lugu Lake
        • On the inevitability of patriarchy
        • March of the monogamous
        • Jealousy: a beginner's guide to coveting thy neighbor's spouse
        • Zero-sum sex
        • How to tell when a man loves a woman
        • Part 3: Way We Weren't:
        • Wealth of nature (poor?)
        • Poor, pitiful me
        • Despair of millionaires
        • Finding contentment "at the bottom of the scale of human beings
        • Selfish meme (nasty?)
        • Homo economicus
        • Tragedy of the commons
        • Dreams of perpetual progress
        • Ancient poverty or assumed affluence?
        • On Paleolithic politics
        • Never-ending battle over prehistoric war (brutish?)
        • Professor Pinker, red in tooth and claw
        • Mysterious disappearance of Margaret Power
        • Spoils of war
        • Napoleonic invasion (the Yanomami controversy)
        • Desperate search for hippie hypocrisy and bonobo brutality
        • Longevity lie (short?)
        • When does life begin? When does it end?
        • Is 80 the new 30?
        • Stressed to death
        • Who you calling a starry-eyed romantic, pal?
        • Part 4: Bodies In Motion:
        • Little big man
        • All's fair in love and sperm war
        • Truest measure of a man
        • Hard core in the Stone Age
        • Sometimes a penis is just a penis
        • Prehistory of O
        • "What horrid extravagancies of Minde!"
        • Beware the devil's teat
        • Force required to suppress it
        • When girls go wild
        • Female copulatory vocalization
        • Sin tetas, no hay paraiso
        • Come again?
        • Part 5: Men Are From Africa, Women Are From Africa
        • On Mona Lisa's mind
        • Pervert's lament
        • Just say what?
        • Kellogg's guide to child abuse
        • Curse of Calvin Coolidge
        • Perils of monotomy (monogamy + monotony)
        • Few more reasons I need somebody new (just like you)
        • Confronting the sky together
        • Everybody out of the closet
        • Marriage of the Sun and the Moon
        • Author's note
        • Acknowledgments
        • Notes
        • References and suggested further reading
        • Index.
        Other title(s)
        How we mate, why we stray, and what it means for modern relationships
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