Table Of Content

Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality Michael R. Kauth, PhD Editor HandbookoftheEvolutionofHumanSexualityhasbeenco-published simultaneouslyasJournalofPsychology&HumanSexuality,Volume 18, Numbers 2/3 and 4 2006. First published by The Haworth Press, Inc. 10 Alice Street Binghamton, N Y 13904-1580 This edition published 2012 by Routledge Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 711 Third Avenue 2 Park Square, Milton Park New York, NY 10017 Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN HandbookoftheEvolutionofHumanSexualityhasbeenco-published simultaneouslyasJournalofPsychology&HumanSexuality,Volume 18, Numbers 2/3 and 4 2006. ©2006byTheHaworthPress,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisworkmaybereproducedoruti- lizedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includingphotocopying,microfilmandre- cording,orbyanyinformationstorageandretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe publisher. Thedevelopment,preparation,andpublicationofthisworkhasbeenundertakenwithgreatcare.How- ever, the publisher,employees,editors, and agents of The Haworth Press and all imprintsof The HaworthPress,Inc.,includingTheHaworthMedicalPress®andPharmaceuticalProductsPress®,are notresponsibleforanyerrorscontainedhereinorforconsequencesthatmayensuefromuseofmateri- alsorinformationcontainedinthiswork.Withregardtocasestudies,identitiesandcircumstancesof individualsdiscussedhereinhavebeenchangedtoprotectconfidentiality.Anyresemblancetoactual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. TheHaworthPressiscommittedtothedisseminationofideasandinformationaccordingtothehighest standardsofintellectualfreedomandthefreeexchangeofideas.Statementsmadeandopinionsex- pressedinthispublicationdonotnecessarilyreflecttheviewsofthePublisher,Directors,management, or staff of The Haworth Press, Inc., or an endorsement by them. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580 USA Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of the evolution of human sexuality / Michael R.Kauth, editor. p. cm. “Co-publishedsimultaneouslyasJournalofpsychology&humansexuality,volume18,numbers 2/3 and 4 2006.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7890-3507-3 (hard cover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7890-3507-3 (hard cover : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7890-3508-0 (soft cover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7890-3508-1 (soft cover : alk. paper) 1. Humanevolution.2. Sex(Biology)–Evolution.3. Evolution(Biology)4. Sex–History. 5.Sociobiology.6.Evolutionarypsychology.I.Kauth,MichaelR.II.Journalofpsychology&human sexuality. GN281.4.H36 2006 576.8(cid:1)55–dc22 2006021720 Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality CONTENTS The Evolution of Human Sexuality: An Introduction 1 Michael R. Kauth, PhD A Brief History of the Theory of Evolution: Context, Concepts, Assumptions, and Sexuality 23 Michael R. Kauth, PhD The Origins of Human Sexual Culture: Sex, Gender and Social Control 69 Timothy F. Taylor, PhD, FSA The Evolution of Sexual Pleasure 107 Felicia De la Garza-Mercer, MA The Evolutionary Psychology of Human Mate Choice: How Ecology, Genes, Fertility, and Fashion Influence Mating Strategies 125 Jon A. Sefcek, MA Barbara H. Brumbach, MA Geneva Vasquez, MA Geoffrey F. Miller, PhD Sexual Strategies Across Sexual Orientations: How Personality Traits and Culture Relate to Sociosexuality Among Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Heterosexuals 183 David P. Schmitt, PhD Function and Phylogeny: The Evolution of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior in Primates 215 Paul L. Vasey, PhD The Evolution of Plasticity in Female-Female Desire 245 Lisa M. Diamond, PhD The Evolution of Male-Male Sexual Behavior in Humans: The Alliance Theory 275 Frank Muscarella, PhD The Mind’s Eyes: Human Pheromones, Neuroscience, and Male Sexual Preferences 313 James V. Kohl Epilogue: Implications for Conceptualizing Human Sexuality 371 Michael R. Kauth, PhD Index 387 ABOUT THE EDITOR MichaelR.Kauth,PhD,isaclinicalpsychologistattheDepartmentof Veterans Affairs (VA) Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care Sys- tem, New Orleans, Louisiana. He is currently Co-Director of the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (SCMIRECC)andheadstheSCMIRECCEducationCore.Hehaspub- lished several articles on HIV prevention and counseling and on education,basedonhisworkattheVA.Asanindependentscholar,Dr.Kauth has written several chapters and articles on models of sexual orienta- tion, attraction theory, and human sexuality and is the author of True Nature:ATheoryofSexualAttraction(2000).Dr.Kauthservesonthe EditorialBoardsoftheJournalofPsychopathologyandBehavioralAs- sessment and the Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality and is a frequentreviewerfortheJournalofSexResearchandHealthPsychol- ogy. The Evolution of Human Sexuality: An Introduction Michael R. Kauth, PhD SUMMARY.Humansaresexualcreatures.Humanpreoccupationwith sexandsexualitymakessensefromanevolutionaryperspective.Inpar- ticular,EvolutionaryPsychology(EP)hasproventobeavaluableheu- ristic approach for generating and testing hypotheses about human sexuality.Themainthemeofthisvolumeistheevolutionofhumansex- uality, or evolved human sexual psychologies. A second theme is the identificationofimplicitconceptualassumptionsaboutsexualattraction and the operational definition of key terms in order to promote greater integrity of conceptual models. doi:10.1300/J056v18n02_01[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800- HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>©2006byTheHaworthPress,Inc.Allrights reserved.] KEYWORDS. Evolution, psychology, human sexual attraction, assumptions Michael R. Kauth is Clinical Psychologist, Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health CareSystem,NewOrleans,LA,andAssistantProfessor,DepartmentofPsychiatry& Neurology, Tulane University School of Medicine. Address correspondence to: (E-mail:[email protected]). TheauthorthanksFrankMuscarellaforhishelpfulcommentsonanearlierversion of this manuscript. [Haworthco-indexingentrynote]:“TheEvolutionofHumanSexuality:AnIntroduction.”Kauth,Mi- chaelR.Co-publishedsimultaneouslyinJournalofPsychology&HumanSexuality(TheHaworthPress, Inc.)Vol.18,No.2/3,2006,pp.1-22;and:HandbookoftheEvolutionofHumanSexuality(ed:MichaelR. Kauth)TheHaworthPress,Inc.,2006,pp.1-22.Singleormultiplecopiesofthisarticleareavailableforafee fromTheHaworthDocumentDeliveryService[1-800-HAWORTH,9:00a.m.-5:00p.m.(EST).E-mailad- dress:[email protected]]. Available online at http://jphs.haworthpress.com ©2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1300/J056v18n02_01 1 2 HANDBOOK OF THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SEXUALITY Art is the sex of the imagination. –George Jean Nathan, art critic, 1929 We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation. –Lily Tomlin, comedian Humansareinherentlysexualcreatures(Symons,1979).Sexualityis pervasive in human activities, essentially producing a sexual culture (Taylor,1996;Taylor,thisvolume;Tooby&Cosmides,1992).Aclear exampleofhowsexualhumancultureiscanbefoundinaquicksurvey of popular Western culture. Sexy images of young, beautiful, and se- ductivelycladwomenandmenareemployedinadvertisementsforany numberofproducts(automobiles,beverages,couture,deodorant,erec- tileenhancingdrugs, floor cleaners,etc.)with thepurpose of associat- ing attraction to the sexual images with attraction to the product. The factthatsexyimagesareusedsofrequentlyforsomanyproductsisevi- dencethatthestrategyworks.Acquiringtheproductmaythenevokein theconsumerafeelingofsexiness,orthepossibilityofsexualconquest and sexual fulfillment that is alluded to by the advertising images. SexualbehaviorandsexualityarecentralthemesofpopularWestern entertainments: books and magazines, computer games, movies and television,theater,music,andevensports.Assubjectmatter,sexuality seemstobeafathomlesswell;similarstoriesofloveandlosshavebeen told and re-told for thousands of years. In Western culture, sexual be- haviorandsexualityarefrequenttopicsof discoursethaton anygiven day may include speculation about possible sexual activity, relation- ships, condoms, masturbation, orgasm, abstinence, pregnancy, abor- tion,homosexuality,sexualinfidelities,or sexualjealousy.In addition to talking frequently about it, many people experience sexual arousal mostdaysorengageinsomeformofsexualactivity–flirtations,sexual fantasies, masturbation, or intercourse. Although men and women are sexually aroused by different sexual stimuli and prefer different types andfrequenciesofsexualbehaviors,mostpeopleattendandrespondto sexual stimuli in the environment (Chivers, 2005). Why are humans so consumed with sexuality? “Why” questions abouthumannaturearedifficulttoanswerandinvariablyelicitpassion- ate and diverse religious, political, and social responses, which often Introduction 3 come down to faith in one’s personal beliefs (Pinker, 2002). No less provocativebutperhapsmoretangiblearescientificexplanationsofhu- mannaturethatarebasedonestablishedtheoryandsystematicobserva- tion.Scientificexplanationshavetheadvantageofbeingobservableby othersandgeneratingtestablepredictions.Inthisvolume,contributors attempttoexplainthe“why”ofhumansexualityfromanevolutionary sciences perspective. EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS Evolutionary theory is adept at addressing “why” questions; this is the evolutionist’s stock-in-trade. That is, evolutionary theory helps to explainhowparticulartraitsevolvedwithinaspeciesandwhetheratrait isadaptiveorfunctional(Symons,1979).Adaptivetraits(adaptations) evolved to solve problems related to survival and reproduction in the ancestralenvironmentof theorganism.Reproductivesuccess, notsur- vival,istheultimatefunctionofatrait:thatis,thetraitresultsintheor- ganism leaving more robust offspring, who also possess the adaptive traitandpassitontotheiroffspring.Eventraitsthatconferverysmall selective advantages can, over many generations, enhance the repro- ductivesuccessoforganismswiththefavoredtrait,untileventuallythe trait spreads throughout the population (Haldane, 1927). Common hu- manfeaturessuchasuprightposture,walking,verballanguage,andin- terest in sexual stimuli, for example, can be explained by natural selectiontheoryasadaptationsthatenhancedthereproductivefitnessof our early ancestors and so spread through the population. Other fea- tures,suchasphysicaldifferencesbetweenthesexes,canbeexplained bysexualselectiontheoryastraitsassociatedwithreproductivefitness and favored by one but not the other sex. Sexual selection theory also helpstoexplainsexdifferencesinsexualpsychologiesthatresultindif- ferentialmatingbehaviors.Byincorporatingbothnaturalandsexualse- lection theories, Evolutionary Psychology (EP) has emerged as a productive approach for generating hypotheses about human sexual psychologies and testing them. AnthropologistDonaldBrown (1991) has claimed that human so- cieties share similar ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, which arelikelyaresultofourevolutionaryhistoryasaspecies.Brownhas documented numerous universal human characteristics, including abstract thinking, belief in the supernatural/religion, color terms, classification of sex, culture/nature distinctions, division of labor by 4 HANDBOOK OF THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SEXUALITY sex, ethnocentrism, etiquette, facial expressions, father and mother as kincategories,foodsharing,gossip,grammar,inheritancerules,insults, jokes,law,loveofsweets,malesoccupyingpublic/politicalroles,mar- riage,mealtimes,music,myths,nepotism,nouns,play,rape,reciproc- ity,ritesofpassage,sexualattraction,sexualregulation,socialstatuses, speech, tools, trade, turn-taking, units of time, violence, and a world- view,tonameafew.Auniversalhumannature,orevolvedpsychology, makesitpossibleforhumanstocommunicatewithandunderstandalien human cultures (Pinker, 2002). Evolutionists assert that human nature evolved in response to competing survival and reproductive strategies (Cosmides, Tooby, & Barkow, 1992; Pinker & Bloom, 1992; Wilson, 1975/2000).Thus,weshouldexpectthathumannatureishighlyattuned to sexuality and sexual communication. From an evolutionaryperspective,human preoccupationwith sexu- alitymakesperfectsense(Taylor,1996).Peopleshouldbepreoccupied with sexuality because our ancestors were; that is, early humans who werefocusedonsexualityweremostlikelytohaveengagedregularlyin conceptivesexualbehaviorandhavechildrenwhoalsosharedtheirpar- ents’heightenedsexualinterest.Bycontrast,earlyhumanswithonlya modestorinfrequentinterestinsexwouldrapidlyhavebeenout-repro- duced by sex-focused members of the species. Contemporary humans are the product of generations of reproductively successful ancestors who were preoccupied with sexuality. Evolutionists have argued that our human sexual psychologies evolvedovertensofthousandsofgenerationstosolvespecificconsis- tentecological,psychological,andsocialproblemsintheancestralen- vironment (Pinker & Bloom, 1992). However, few humans today live exclusivelyinthenaturalenvironmentunderconditionssimilartothose experiencedbyourancestors.Aswell,modernlifepresentschallenges and opportunities that early humans never faced and could not have imagined.Nevertheless,knowledgeofhumanevolutioncanhelptoex- plain,forexample,whypeopletodayrespondfavorablytocertainsex- ual images (readily exploited by advertisers), why people fall in love, whypeopleareattractedtoparticularsexualfeatures,whypeopleexpe- rience sexual jealousy, why males feel protective of their mate and readily fight with other males, why partners sometimes cheat on each other,andwhyfemalesstrivetoappearsexybutarechooseyinselect- ingamate.Evolutionarytheorycanalsohelptoexplainwhysomesex- ualbehaviorsaretabooandperceivedas disgusting,andpossibly why many people experience varied sexual attractions.