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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Inside the chimp habitat, I noticed a sign which read: Look here for a “zoo” born! When I saw it, I recalled that earlier during the day, a senior docent named Rhonda who worked with the gorillas had told me that there was recently a newborn chimp. She said to look very closely to find the baby because the mother was extremely protective of it. She had also mentioned that the newborn’s furless skin would be very pink. At first, I looked very keenly for the small new chimp who had just been born this year, but I couldn’t find it. I finally spotted the baby after I moved to a different position to view the chimps from the open air viewing area. The infant was just as Rhonda had described it: nestled in its mother’s arms as she shielde...
Risky sex is described as having more than one sexually driven relationships with more than the primary one. Cherlin (2013) talks about serial monogamy, when individual engage in sexual activity with multiple individuals in a lifetime. Further sugg...
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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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Men have developed different mating strategies to solve problems in both long term and short term mating. In pursuing a short-term sexual strategy men face four man problems: partner number (variety), identifying women who are sexually accessible, identifying women who are fertile, and avoiding commitment and investment. Men evolved over evol...
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