SEX 101: [1+1=2+99=101-100=1]

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BySalon.Com
By: Tracy Clark-Flory
June 25, 2011



Can we learn from animals' sex lives?

It's tempting to look to critters for insight on human sexuality
-- monogamy especially --
-- but beware ...

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"Studying other animals shows how complex and interesting mating behavior can be, and that there are many choices on nature's menu."

There are animals that mate for life and co-parent, while other species practice a degree of promiscuity you would only find in the human world on the set of "The World's Biggest Gangbang."

Oftentimes, when researchers call animals monogamous, they mean that "the pairs stay together just long enough to launch their young into the world, but in popular discourse, this would be 'serial monogamy' at best," Flam explains.

This sexual diversity exists not only "between species but also within species," Herbenick told me by email.

That's also true of humans, of course.

We have a rainbow's array of sexual orientations, fantasies and practices.

Few people manage lifetime monogamy -- as in having one sexual partner for one's entire life -- but serial monogamy is "very common," she says.

"Open relationships and outright cheating are less common but still prevalent."

There is also tremendous personal variety: "Sometimes the same individual can be a complete slut in one phase of life, and a devoted spouse in another.

It's also very hard to detangle our biology from our culture, since both are powerful influences on our behavior."

There is of course merit in looking to the animal kingdom for insight on sexual evolution, but extrapolating conclusions about ourselves is highly problematic.

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If they can
'do it in the middle of the road'
then why can't we?
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When my girl wants to go "all night long",
I turn to the only state and season that will
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July 9, 2011



(This is part of an ongoing Salon series of conversations about monogamy)

Scouring the globe for sex advice.
Sociologist Judith Stacey spent over a decade searching
for worldly wisdom on alternatives to monogamy.

Whether in need of examples to bolster the fight for same-sex marriage or boost one's spirits in the face of disillusioning high-profile failures of monogamous marriage, one need only look to Judith Stacey.

The sociology professor at New York University is something of an expert on alternatives, having spent more than a decade studying everything from "monogamish" arrangements among gay men in California to polygamy in South Africa to nonmonogamous, matriarchal households in southwest China.

The result is her fascinating book, "Unhitched."

It doesn't simply offer a mind-bending cross-cultural perspective
that you can find that in any Anthropology 101 textbook.

Instead, Stacey uses her observations to underscore just out how stifling and unstable the Western romantic ideal of marital monogamy can be for some people, as well as the vast array of romantic arrangements that are already out there in the world.

She isn't recommending a break from tradition for everyone and, while she may have utopist leanings, she doesn't actually expect Americans to suddenly reject amorous restriction in favor of free love.

She just wants people to be a little more honest, with themselves and their partners, about what they want and need -- regardless of whether that's a "Big Love"-esque arrangement or strict sexual exclusivity.

In that sense, she falls right in line with Dan Savage who preached about the same ideal of romantic truthfulness in a much-talked-about piece in last weekend's New York Times Magazine.

Stacey spoke with Salon by phone -- fittingly enough, it somehow seems, during a break from a boot camp for tango dancing -- about jealousy, sexual integrity and why her ideas have earned her enemies.

I posed this question to Stephanie Coontz last week and now it's your turn:

Why do we still believe in monogamy? [/size][/center]
"Well, I think monogamy is a powerful ideal and it appeals to a lot of people.

There are a lot of arguments in its favor, but it's obviously an ideal that's honored in the breach.

A lot of people are afraid of the alternatives.

For many people, the notion is that if you give up that ideal then no one will make any commitments or no relationship will stay together.

There's a strong cultural conviction about that, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Ultimately, it's an ideal that leads to its own undoing, because what's natural is human variation.

For a lot of people, and probably disproportionately for women, sexual exclusivity is a preference and even something that they truly want to practice but to the extent that it becomes a universal ideal, then any breach of it becomes a source of public humiliation as well."[/b][/color][/size]

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