Last night I was listening to Tech Nation on public radio, as one does, and the guest was Leonard Shlain, author of a new book called “Sex, Time and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution.” I found what he had to say so fascinating, I put the book on my amazon wish list.
His premise seemed to be that the uniqueness of the human female’s sexuality as compared to other mammals and primates helped civilization to move forward and helped women to actually gain reproductive power — that is until religion put a stop to that. Once the first woman made the connection between sex and childbirth, she then realized that having sex was in fact putting her life at risk, since so many women died in childbirth due to the large size of human baby skulls. Therefore, women began to be choosy about whom they mated with, realizing that what they were doing actually had consequence. THUS, males began to actually have to make a case for themselves in order to have the sex: be the strongest, the best hunter, the least smelly. With other animals, yes, the strongest and biggest gets to mate with the most females, but she doesn’t pick him because he has something to offer, she picks him because she is in estrus and is raging with hormones.
But human women no longer have estrus. They don’t give off a signal to men that they are ready to mate; that has been transferred to the male side, who are ALWAYS ready to mate. It is small things like this that have helped our species take over the planet, consciousness about our bodies and our place in the world, our potential.
Another example: menstruation was one of the first ways to tell time. It is a lucky coincidence that the human cycle happens to be exactly the same as the lunar cycle — for other primates it ranges from 24-35 days. In fact the word “menses,” “moon,” and “measure” all come from the same root. Keeping track of time over long periods is of course a uniquely human trait.
Anyway he had tons of interesting stuff to say about evolution, which is one of my pet interests.
MAN am I a nerd or what.
So I checked the SF library to see if they had this book in the catalogue; the answer was no. Hmph.
Wow, thats amazing. I believe I need to get this here book.
Many species in the animal kingdom demonstrate sexual selectivity on the part of the female. Do you happen to know how he differentiates human civilization and culture from these other species, and how our female selectivity differs from that of other species?
Well mainly the great big brains we have, consciousness, reasoning. I think he was mainly talking about mammals, but I’m not sure.
I really want to read this book! Damn you SF library.
Did you talk to a human at the library or just check the catalogue? Because at least here, you can ask them to order books and then they’ll call you when it comes in. Or maybe it’s on order already and you can get on waiting list for it.
I LOVE THE LIBRARY. And I would especially recommend using library books instead of buying for anyone who is planning a move in the near future due to books being so goddamned heavy.
I checked online.
Then it turns out the whole catalogue is closed all week long due to some reorganization. They even closed the library for two days!
So I will call next week.
Inga Musico writes breifly about reproductive power in her book, “Cunt.”
Required reading for every girl in High School. Hell even the boys.
-Rob