Sex at Dawn summary

How many people have you ever had sex with?

Can you count on one hand? Did you have to reach for a pen and paper?

If you’ve ever watched a trashy daytime talk show, you’ll know that, in the Western world, people really want to know for certain who their real father is.

But in some tribes in South America, paternity of a single child is shared among many men – even at the moment of conception. The Achè tribe, for example, believe in four types of fathers for each child: the one who “put it in,” those who “mixed it,” those who “spilled it out” and those who supplied the child’s “essence.” Therefore, Achè women are encouraged to have sex with and collect semen from various men.

Although the standard narrative has been that agriculture was a huge leap forward for humanity, many scientists today believe it was one of the worst things to happen to us. When we began to cultivate plants and domesticate animals, not only did the new, unvaried diet damage our general health, but our social and sex lives suffered a blow: agriculture fostered possessiveness, jealousy and greed.

Prior to agriculture, in their nomadic hunter-gatherer-life, our ancestors had little to be greedy about. They shared whatever food they found, so it wouldn’t be wasted, and because they were constantly on the move, they couldn’t burden themselves with unnecessary possessions.

By way of education and convention, we tend to believe that men have larger sexual appetites than women – a belief that’s reflected in the long established view that prudeness and coyness are prominent feminine traits.

But is there any truth to this notion?

Humans share close ancestry with many primates, and are the closest genetically to chimps and bonobos, whose DNA differs from ours by just 1.6 percent.

It makes sense, then, that if we want to understand the basis for our own behavior, we can look to these primates for a relevant perspective on our own human nature.

The human penis is, relative to body size, the largest of all in the primate kingdom. Male testes are also large, and located outside the body to keep a large amount of sperm cells at their optimal temperature.

Why?

Thousands of years have passed since the invention of agriculture and the subsequent clampdown against socially shared sex. Because those intervening millennia have involved the establishment of strict religious, cultural and moral codes, it might follow that humans no longer bear any traits of their former, polygamous nature.

But actually, we see remnants of our ancestors' promiscuity. For example, have you ever wondered why some women are loud enough during sex that even people far away can hear?

When you truly love someone, you won’t ever need anyone else in your life, and sex with that one special person will always be great.

Right? Well, it’s a nice story, but it’s certainly not a true one.

The breakdown in our traditional understanding of love is a direct result of the disparity between our culture’s promotion of monogamy and our actual, biological desire for sex with different people.

How do we bridge the gap? Like any social issue, we should start simply by talking about it.