Sex at Dawn

It is a common mistake to assume that evolution is a process of improvement, that evolving organisms are progressing toward some final, perfected state. But they, and we, are not. An evolving society or organism simply adapts over the generations to changing conditions. While these modifications may be immediately beneficial, they are not really improvements because external conditions never stop shifting.

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Asking whether our species is naturally peaceful or warlike, generous or possessive, free-loving or jealous, is like asking whether H2O is naturally a solid, liquid or gas. The only meaningful answer to such a question is: It depends.

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So, here’s another book that I’d heard so much about on the bookrageous podcasts that I knew I was going to have to read (apparently whenever someone gushes repeatedly about a book I must read it). Sex At Dawn takes a look at humans throughout their history and paints a picture on the opposite end of the spectrum of the “naturally monogamous” species of today. The book lays out how it was only with the rise of agriculture and of private property that the whole idea of one man and one woman exclusivity came to be. Out went the sharing lifestyle of the hunter gatherers, and in came ownership, over all things.

Sex at Dawn covers a lot of ground in its 400 or so pages and most of the time its breadth is to its benefit. It’s funny and engaging, informative without getting to bogged down in the weeds for the most part. If the idea that monogamy is a new social construct and in fact is most likely not inherent to humans is foreign to you, be prepared to have your mind blown. I mean seriously, the arguments and logic the authors put forth are pretty solid and there are a ton of great nuggets of information in here as well. Reading about the different cultures that handle sexuality and marriage in different ways is utterly fascinating. I think those were the parts I enjoyed the most.

This book isn’t saying that we shouldn’t form families, or pair bonds, or be used as a get out of jail free card for infidelity; it just asks that people reconsider the “inherentness” of monogamy, the “naturalness” of it, the idea that prehistoric life was “nasty, brutish, and short”. All in all, it’s an engaging and interesting book that makes the reader think. What does it mean for our society as a whole? Who knows, perhaps just knowing that every day in our relationships, we are making a conscious choice of how to act is something. Knowing that even if we are hard wired to want something other than monogamy that this is the choice we are making for whatever reason may make people look at things in a different light. Interesting read regardless of how to take the authors’ conclusions.