Human sexuality in evolutionary perspective
Research Topics
I have never worked specifically on this fascinating topic, however I briefly discussed this topic in my book Tigers, Lions and Humans. To me sexuality in social species, apart from the function of propagation, has a very important function of social coherence and bonding. With this we can explain the great number of animal species that use homosexuality as a social glue between the same sex animals in a group.
For me humans are by nature bisexuals, but existing cultural prejudices and religious bans strongly affect (mostly limit) their sexual orientation and desires. I discuss how homosexuality was used in human history to strengthen the morale of early fighters.
For further reading you can see:
- "Human sexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality, or who can defeat 300 Spartans?": chapter on this subject from my book Tigers, Lions and Humans: History of Rivalry, Conflict, Reverence and Love.
[...] It is becoming increasingly obvious that human sexuality is much more than a
mere tool for procreation. Contrary to the popular misconception that humans
develop their sexuality during the puberty, humans have sexual desires from the
moment of their birth. Some suggest that even while in the mother’s womb a baby is
already having orgasms. Humans can also have lifelong desires towards the
individuals of the same sex, or sometimes even towards inanimate objects, which
does not make any sense in procreation. Hardly any other sphere of human psychology and behaviour commands such
widespread public and scholarly interest as sex, and yet it is still so badly
understood. Even after the Freudian theory, which put sexuality in the very centre of
human psychology, the famous Kinsky Report came as a shock to many. For us the
principal question is whether sex was a vehicle for competition between humans for
mates and procreation (Darwin, Miller), or if sex was a tool for cooperation between
the early hominid and human groups until the late introduction of monogamous
families. American Evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden proposed that sex was
primarily used for social cohesion, and even suggested the original altruistic model
of “social selection” which she believes should replace the selfish model of “sexual
selection” (Roughgarden, 2004). She was severely criticized by colleagues but it is
certainly true that love is probably the most altruistic emotion, a cornerstone of
human sociality. It is not accidental that in all religions the climax of religious feel is
presented and described as “love.” I do not want to go into details of this incredibly
interesting sphere, but in relation to our subject I propose that the intense feel of
attachment that love produces between humans has very strong connections to the
powerful state of the battle trance. The issues of homosexuality and bisexuality are of
crucial importance to this discussion – let me briefly address them [... Continue reading]