If you haven’t read the book Sex At Dawn, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethà, you better read it. This entry in my Blog is a critique of the critique made by Emily Nagoski about the book. But you will find, today, a quite extensive list of books along the lines of Sex At Dawn, like How to Think More about Sex by Alain de Botton, who has applied to practical life some immediate conclusions of scientific studies cited in the book.

One more quite interesting book, also very much to the dislike of Emily Nagoski, is Daniel Bergner’s What do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. It is an extensive review of Meredith Chivers’s study, one of the interesting foundations of the thesis suggested by the book Sex At Dawn.

But then, again, this is about Emily Nagoski’s stubbornness in neglecting one, to me, extremely simple fact, which I proceed to quote here:

It’s true that the human brain itself doesn’t come with a built-in sexuality model. No, it doesn’t. Not the brain. It isn’t that, the part of the human animal that defines the biological sexuality model that would be 100% acceptable for all human individuals. The human brain is capable of designing all sorts of models of sexuality and also of elaborating mechanisms—culture, society, economy, religion, the law—to force entire populations to follow the elaborated model. The acceptable human sexual model is chaotic but coherent and it is built into the species' integral biological entanglement, not in the brain.

Franz J Fortuny Here and Today, June 18, 2013

 

We need—it’s urgent—to discuss the critique of Nagoski against Sex At Dawn; the critique is so extremely wrong, that it needs special attention…

Nagoski is a great writer. Her wording is excellent! She has an incredibly persuasive way of exposing her views. However, fortunately, her clarity of language makes it even easier to notice immediately what her mistake is.

Statistics show that the main stream solution to sex life is not working. Polyamory is not natural, just like monogamy isn’t. For the human species, the only thing natural as far as sex is concerned, is total freedom, acceptance, certainty and abundance.

Freedom of Eroticism

The human animal requires to feel free of engaging in erotic behavior at any time, anywhere and with anybody. The human animal will end up suffering if this need isn’t met or constantly repressed.

All known cultures have needed to repress and/or organize eroticism leading to sexual activity and reproduction.

This needed freedom of erotic behavior does not necessarily lead to reproduction. It doesn’t.

However, this needed freedom is a constant provider of bliss to the individuals of the species when they can exert it, just as it—the needed freedom—becomes the source of a constant feeling of deprivation when it is encased within any form of conditioning.

The problem becomes especially hard on the individuals of the species when the feelings of eroticism are provided as a reward and only after they have earned it. This really stinks!

In the book Sex At Dawn, they suggest that in any post-agricultural model, something needed to be designed in order to tame sexuality and control reproduction. Of course, the human brain has been very capable of designing models to keep sexuality tamed. However, it has been a constant that the first transgressors of all systems, have been the social leaders, the highest in rank.

How am I going to prove this Need of Erotic Freedom? I don’t need to: go ask anybody ready to give an honest response; they will all agree. They will also say that they want such freedom for themselves, but not for the others, and here, of course, is where the ego business of culture walks in.

Unconditioned Acceptance

The physical differences among human individuals of 2013 are incredibly substantial and acute. Some individuals really look like they belong to a different species, since they have grown to look so far from the average. No matter how much they may argue in “good will” about everybody being accepted, some people’s appearance is far from acceptable and automatic rejection happens.

This subject of “appearance” must be understood also as a subjective appreciation. Some people are sure they will never be accepted; then they revert to really terrifying crimes.

There was a time when our species didn’t need to design methods to combat the contestants competing for the common resources. These were not conceived as scarce; so there was no need to store them and keep them protected from “thieves”. Survival resources were scattered all over the initial densely populated and perfectly coherent ecological tropical system.

Since all resources were available for everybody, nobody was different from the others due to more or less agility to accumulate anything—as today, the thing is money, for instance. Things like sexual manifestations would happen in groups; sexual coitus was probably something done in the open and with the participation of several males with one or more females.

So, everybody was accepted, because nobody was supposed to be seen as the partner for life. They were all human colleagues for life, to enjoy in groups and to face their—truly—minor problems in groups, too.

Thus, it was possible to live without the deprivation of general acceptance. Who doesn’t want to be accepted? Do you know anybody that suffers from acceptance deprivation? Who needs to prove this need?

Sexual Certainty

Deprivation from sexuality is today’s norm. Please, listen to this very carefully: yes, it’s true that it seems to be available everywhere and by everybody. But, is it really? With the lack of Freedom of Eroticism and the lack of Guarantee of Acceptance, who can be 100% sure that a good sexual encounter will happen?

Sexuality has become a random—at its best—happening, with total uncertainty about its actual happening. Also, the quality of the event will mostly leave a lot to be desired. Apply a poll and you’ll have your proof.

Did this feeling of sexual uncertainty ever exist in the dense initial environment where our species primarily evolved? Another blatantly and heavy NO. Freedom of Eroticism along with constant Guarantee of Acceptance, didn’t allow any room for sex uncertainty. Sex, for each and every individual and gender, was, like eating daily, a fact of life, shared by the group.

The human brain is undoubtedly a determinant part of the species; however, no matter how well connected it may be to the rest of the human body, it is still, by gene determination free to elaborate “on the go” any solution or response to problems posed to the species as it struggles to survive in different environments.

Of course, Sexual Certainty was not a problem or anything the brain needed to elaborate about within the ecological condition of no-scarcity, and no need to control, store, distribute, measure, and all those things necessary when scarcity becomes the norm. Which is exactly what happened when the human brain was challenged to elaborate solutions to survive in a different environment.

I say to the Nagoskis of the world, that the reasoning in the book Sex At Dawn is indicative that, no matter how efficient and fantastic the human brain may be, it isn’t infallible when it comes to elaborating a response for survival. As it all works in nature, all of the elaborations of the brain produced during the last ten thousand or so years—since agriculture became a necessity—have been a compromise.

In this case, Sexual Uncertainty was one of the prices to pay. Sex has become a goal that must be earned; in the process, the individual invests a lot of energy; however, there isn’t any certainty as to the final outcome, no matter how much energy is invested.

Abundance of Sex

Abundance is a concept to be understood at the level of the perception of the individual. If anybody needs one anything of certain kind daily and it’s there, for her to pick up, every single time she feels like having one, then there is abundance of it, whatever it may be.

Abundance can also be visualized as a desire that is felt when certain stimulus is received, being what generated the stimulus itself the element that will satisfy the desire that it evoked by just being there.

I’m not hungry, but I see a beautiful fruit at my reach as I walk by a tree. I can feel the juices flowing inside my mouth; so I grab the fruit and enjoy it!

That’s what I call abundance. Do we enjoy this kind of abundance today?

Did you say yes? Come on, please, think again! This kind of abundance is exactly what we lack today, in spite of being surrounded by abundant everything… As long as you pay a price, mostly with money, everything is scarce, because money is seldom abundant—or never for 99.8% of human beings. And that includes sex, even if it’s at home. And this is not only the guys; it’s everybody. Sex has become a reward, not an abundant source of pleasure, joy and peace. Sex has become a merchandise to trade for or to trade in.

We live in a world of scarcity. Nothing is abundant for the individual, except uncertainty.

This is the socio-economic-cultural environment our fantastic brains have elaborated for us. And along with the system, a sexual model has also been elaborated to go along with the complete mess. Of course—who said no?—it has evolved, into what we see in the world of today, 2013.

So, not because the human brain can elaborate all kinds of responses, they are all natural and thus, must be acceptable.

Monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, polyamory, celibacy, polyandry, masculine homosexuality, feminine homosexuality, and the rest, are all elaborations of the brain; but not because the human brain designed them, they have to be right or must be acceptable—and fees to psychiatrists and psychologists must be paid in order to adapt the maladapted ones.

Has anybody seen a human group in the habitat where the species as we know it today, first appeared circa 220,000 years ago? Unfortunately, no. However, are there any species alive today, very close in genes to humans? Yes, the closest one is called with the scientific name of Pan paniscus or “Bonobo”.

Our line of evolution separated from that of the Bonobos only about 2 million years ago. Any other species close to us between then and now has extinguished. Bonobos and Humans are the only two species left from that point of departure 2 million years ago. Bonobos and Humans are so close genetically that we better get a good understanding of what the Bonobos have to teach us about ourselves. (Humans are significantly closer to Bonobos than to Chimps).

Bonobos, even though they probably would be able to, have not needed to elaborate, with their brains, alternative social organizations from those naturally formed without any brain elaboration.

So, we need to emphatically affirm that the human brain depends on the adequate human sexual model, which is embedded in the whole essence of the human species. The brain might generate elaborations to adapt the human natural sexual model to survival conditions, but as long as those elaborations contradict basic needs of the human sexual model, human life will not be as blissful as it most probably was during the initial 150,000 years of the species. Ultimately, the adequate human sexual model is NOT a creation of the brain, inasmuch as the brain, though, is very capable of elaborating a better adaptation than all the variations we have seen throughout the last 10,000 years—which have been rather of cruelty for most individuals.

The thesis of the book Sex At Dawn, thus, is on the right track to make the human brain generate a better elaboration for a less cruel culture.