The Norm of Promiscuity
Human beings commonly accept the notion that when in a relationship, both people should be faithful. Monogamy can be defined as “the state or practice of having only one sexual partner during a period of time” (Merriam-Webster.com. n.d.). Promiscuity is on the complete opposite spectrum of monogamy. Promiscuity can be defined as having more than one sexual partner at one time. People like to believe that humans are among the few creatures to remain monogamous in a life time. This idea of monogamy between two people, however, is not the human norm (Small, 1995, p. 19). Promiscuity can be seen in everyday life through promoting reproductive fitness, complicating the human pair-bond, and through examining primate behavior.
Reproductive fitness can be defined by the number of times healthy offspring is successfully produced from an individual (Birkhead, 2007, p. 13). In this sense, the more children that can continue to pass on genes, the more reproductively fit a person is. Having sexual encounters with multiple partners will increase the probability of coitus that will lead to pregnancy. Men are physically able to have more children than woman are because sperm production never stops. Women, however, are much more restricted with the number of children they can produce. The only factor limiting how many children a man conceives is solely based on how many mates are available to him (Birkhead, 2007, p. 13). This suggests that as long as there are a variety of women willing to reproduce with him, he will be able to conceive as much as he wants. This directly shows how promiscuity is a cultural norm in human society. Men have this advantage of passing down their gene pool to any woman who is willing to engage i...
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Actually monogamy had developed long before religion became interested. According to Fisher’s estimate, nearly every human society has been monogamous to some degree (69), and she claims that human beings have a biologically natural preference for mo...
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In order to understand the present lifestyles relating to different approaches and tactics applied by humans in mate choice preferences, there is the need to refer to Darwin (1859, 1871) evolutionary perspectives. Darwin (1871) sexual selection is the driving force for males and females reproductive quest for their genes survival. These driving forces have been classified into two categories as intra-sexual and intersexual mate selection.Intersexual selection is male sexual selection process whereby males compete with other males and the females choose the strongest as their ideal partner. Intra-sexual selection occurs when the male species fight among themselves and the strongest gain access to females for
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The world is an ever evolving habitat, with its inhabitants rapidly altering from old to new as time progresses. The subject of infidelity is seemingly unsolvable and unavoidable. Populations have noticed a constant increase in these numbers throughout recent years. Many factors may contribute to this movement, ranging from technological advances to just change over time. People will continue to learn and adjust to these modifications as they appear.
In the article “An Anthropological Look at Human Sexuality” the authors, Patrick Gray and Linda Wolfe speak about how societies look at human sexuality. The core concept of anthology is the idea of culture, the systems of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors people acquire as a member of society. The authors give an in depth analysis on how human sexuality is looked at in all different situations.
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In his lecture, primatologist Robert Sapolsky explains the uniqueness of humans as well as our similarities to other primates. In doing so, he broke it down into six points of interest: aggression, theory of mind, the golden rule, empathy, pleasure in anticipation and gratification postponement, and lastly, culture. Professor Sapolsky approaches each point with interesting fact-based examples thus allowing me to gain insight on humans and other primates. Sapolsky’s knowledge of primates along with his scientific background allows him to make a clear argument that one cannot simply ignore.
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