The Evolution of Human Sexuality

The Evolution of Human Sexuality

Cover of the first edition
Author Donald Symons
Country United States
Language English
Subject Human sexuality
Published 1979 (Oxford University Press)
Media type Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages 358 (first edition)
ISBN 978-0195029079

The Evolution of Human Sexuality is a 1979 book about human sexuality by anthropologist Donald Symons. Commentators have called it a classic work on human sexual evolution, though the work has also been criticized on various grounds.

Background

Symons presented an early draft of The Evolution of Human Sexuality during a 1974 seminar on primate and human sexuality he co-taught with anthropologist Donald Brown.[1]

Summary

Symons surveys human sexual behavior and discusses human sexual evolution, including the development of human ovulation.[2][3] He argues that in all societies, sex is typically conceived of as a female service or favor.[4] In his analysis of homosexual behavior, Symons concludes that the reason gay men have on average more sexual partners than straight men, and many more than straight women, is that gay men do not have to compromise with the different sexual tastes and inclinations of women. Gay men's sexual behavior is an exaggerated version of universal male tendencies, while lesbian women's sexual behavior is an exaggerated version of universal female tendencies. Symons suggests that straight men would have as many sexual partners as gay men if they had the opportunity.[5] In his discussion of homosexuality, Symons cites Clarence Arthur Tripp's The Homosexual Matrix (1975).[6]

Discussing rape, Symons criticizes Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will (1975) and her argument that rape is not sexually motivated. Symons remarks of Brownmiller's book that, "Perhaps no major work since Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression has so inadequately documented its major thesis".[7]

Scholarly reception

Author Jared Diamond calls The Evolution of Human Sexuality an "outstanding" book in The Third Chimpanzee (1991).[8] Law professor Richard Posner calls the work the "best single book on the sociobiology of sex, as far as I am able to judge".[9] Anthropologist Helen Fisher criticizes Symons's views on homosexuality, writing that he wrongly believes that "homosexual behavior illustrates essential truths about male and female sexual natures".[10] Journalist Robert Wright calls The Evolution of Human Sexuality "the first comprehensive anthropological survey of human sexual behavior from the new Darwinian perspective" in The Moral Animal (1994).[2]

Sociologist Tim Megarry dismisses Symons's work as, "a projection of American dating culture onto prehistory."[11] Anthropologist Meredith Small writes that there is evidence to support Symons's view that the female clitoris has no purpose in evolutionary terms, and instead results from an embryonic connection with the male penis. Citing the work of Masters and Johnson, she notes that the clitoris is made of the same tissue as the penis and responds sexually in a similar manner.[12] Biologist Paul R. Ehrlich describes Symons's book as a "classic but controversial treatise on human sexual evolution", and identifies his study of the development of human ovulation as a landmark.[13]

Biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer write in A Natural History of Rape (2000) that Symons was the first author to propose that rape is "a by-product of adaptations designed for attaining sexual access to consenting partners." They note that Symons has falsely been accused of basing his arguments on the assumption that "behavior is genetically determined", even though he explicitly rejects that assumption and criticizes it at length.[14] Psychologist Steven Pinker calls Symons's book "groundbreaking" in The Blank Slate (2002).[4] Anthropologist Melvin Konner calls it "the classic introduction to the evolutionary dimensions" of sex.[15]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Brown 1991. p. vii.
  2. 1 2 Wright 1994. p. 43.
  3. ↑ Ehrlich 2000. p. 187.
  4. 1 2 Pinker 2003. p. 114.
  5. ↑ Ridley 1993. p. 176.
  6. ↑ Symons 1979. pp. 121, 264, 292, 297, 298.
  7. ↑ Symons 1979. p. 278.
  8. ↑ Diamond 2006. p. 374.
  9. ↑ Posner 1992. p. 20.
  10. ↑ Fisher 1992. p. 89.
  11. ↑ Megarry 1995. p. 89.
  12. ↑ Small 1996. p. 138.
  13. ↑ Ehrlich 2000. pp. 389, 391.
  14. ↑ Thornhill 2000. pp. 61, 110, 111
  15. ↑ Konner 2002, p. 506

Bibliography

Books
  • Brown, Donald E. (1991). Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN 0-07-008209-X. 
  • Diamond, Jared (2006). The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-084550-6. 
  • Ehrlich, Paul (2000). Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect. Washington: Island Press/Shearwater Books. ISBN 1-55963-779-X. 
  • Fisher, Helen E. (1992). Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-03423-2. 
  • Konner, Melvin (2002). The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-7167-4602-6. 
  • Megarry, Tim (1995). Society in Prehistory: The Origins of Human Culture. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-5538-0. 
  • Pinker, Steven (2003). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-140-27605-X. 
  • Posner, Richard (1992). Sex and Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-80279-9. 
  • Ridley, Matt (1993). The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-029124-5. 
  • Small, Meredith F. (1996). Female Choices: Sexual Behavior of Female Primates. New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8305-0. 
  • Symons, Donald (1979). The Evolution of Human Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19502535-0. 
  • Thornhill, Randy; Palmer, Craig T. (2000). A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-20125-9. 
  • Wright, Robert (1994). The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. London: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-87501-5. 
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, February 15, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.