Promiscuous Past: The Evolution of Hominid Sexual Response

In his article, Hominid Promiscuity and the Sexual Life of Proto-Savages: Did Australopithecus Swing?, Richard G. Whitten examines the ways in which hominid sexual response might be an indicator that ancestral roots of Homo Sapiens might not be so pure. Whitten explains that studies about sexual response have been limited by the fact that researchers have been more interested in studying sexual relations than primate sexual response. (Whitten 1982: 99) Whitten suggests that further study of primate sexual response would be beneficial to our understanding of our own sexual response.

In regards to primate sexual response, Whitten focuses extensively on female sexual response with special emphasis on the female orgasm. Whitten's reasoning for this is that, "It is possible that we have underestimated the importance of the orgasm as positive reinforcement for primate behavior." (Whitten 1982: 99) In the context of his work, this observation is an important one because Whitten acknowledges that attitudes about sexuality are socially constructed. The evolution of hominid sexual response, it would seem, points to a past where serial mating was not the exception but the norm.

Whitten uses studies on the sexual response of humans, chimpanzees, and macaques to demonstrate the similarities in sexual response and mounting postures. Whitten explains that the use of a variety of positions suggests that "a certain amount of play, learning, and reward is involved" and that the females have the "superior orgasmic potential." (Whitten 1982: 99) In speak of the orgasmic potential, Whitten is referring to the ability to have multiple orgasms without a refractory phase. Whitten explains how in the chimpanzee and macaque populations multiple males copulate with the females, and how "female orgasm is a phenomenon present among several primate groups but most obvious in humans." (Whitten 1982: 101)

Whitten's observations are relevant to our study of promiscuity because they put a new spin on the issue of promiscuity--what if behavior that we view as promiscuous is actually how our bodies' are designed to perform? In many ways, Whitten's observations serve as a reminder of how much sexuality and promiscuity are socially constructed.


Hominid Promiscuity and the Sexual Life of Proto-Savages: Did Australopithecus Swing? Author(s): Richard G. Whitten, Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 99-101, Publisher: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research ,Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2742554