Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior

377 Pages·2013·3.57 MB·English

by  Peter B. Gray

Evolution
& Human
Sexual Behavior
P E T E R B . G R A Y 6 J U S T I N R . G A R C I A
Evolution and
Human Sexual Behavior

Evolution
and
Human Sexual Behavior
PETER B. GRAY
JUSTIN R. GARCIA
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, En gland | 2013
Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Gray, Peter B., 1972–
Evolution and human sexual behavior / Peter B. Gray and
Justin R. Garcia.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 07273- 2 (hbk. : alk. paper)
1. Sex (Psychology) 2. Sex (Biology) 3. Sex. 4. Human evolution.
I. Garcia, Justin R., 1985– II. Title
BF692.G687 2013
306.7—dc23 2012037630
PBG:
For Megan
JRG:
For Helen

Contents
Preface ix
1 Th e Evolution of Sex, Sex Diff erences, and Human Sexuality 1
2 Th e Garden of Variety: Cross- Cultural Variation in
Human Sexuality 33
3 Love and Maybe Marriage: Patterns of Pair- Bonding and
Romantic Love 61
4 Raising Human Sexuality: Pro cesses of Sex Diff erentiation
and Sociosexual Expression 89
5 Playing at Sex: Learning, Practicing, and Developing Sociosexual
Behavior in Context 112
6 Welcome to the Party: Puberty and Adolescent
Sexual Development 137
7 Kinsey Takes Anatomy Class: Human Reproductive Anatomy and
Physiology within Evolutionary Perspective 165
viii CONTENTS
8 Turning the Key: Human Sexual Response and Orgasm 190
9 Th e Evolution of Baby Making: Mechanisms of Fertility,
Infertility, and Variation in Fertility Outcomes 216
10 Born to Be Less Wild: Peripartum Shifts in Human Sexuality 244
11 Th e Sands of Time: Aging and Sexuality 265
12 Sexual Revolutions: Contemporary Human Sexual Practices 290
Ac know ledg ments 311
References 315
Index 349
Preface
For may we not infer as probably . . . t hat marriage between near
relations is likewise in some way injurious,— that some unknown
great good is derived from-the union of individuals which have
been kept distinct for many generations?
—Charles Darwin, On the Various Contrivances by Which
British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilized by Insects,
and on the Good Eff ects of Intercrossing
While Darwin’s journals and books inform us of his ideas, his experiments,
and his theories, they are largely silent on the most intimate of details. We
do know that he was concerned over potentially negative eff ects of father-
ing children with his wife and cousin, Emma; the epigraph above refl ects
this concern, though Darwin’s worries w ere later assuaged through research
conducted by his son George. We do know that his marriage was a fruitful
union, for he and Emma had ten children. We also know that, despite any
fears of inbreeding, he felt a deep love for his wife and enjoyed a long, com-
mitted, marriage to her.
We can make some level- headed guesses about the sexual world Darwin
inhabited based on the time and place in which he lived. Rather than at-
tempt to personalize, in a sordid and uneasy way, what actually happened
in Charles and Emma Darwin’s bedroom, let us instead imagine a typical
couple of the late nineteenth-c entury Eng lish gentry. Doing so will help il-
lustrate how any given individual’s sexual behavior bears the sexual marks
of his or her evolutionary ancestors in addition to the cultural environment
in which he or she was raised.