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Sex at Dawn, revisited

Almost exactly two years ago I reviewed Sex at Dawn on this blog. One of the things I predicted was that it would sollicit a massive counterattack on the part of those who found its central tenets too threatening. I am happy to say that this reaction has been a lot more muted than I expected, despite the book’s success. Our species is readier than I thought to look at its image in the mirror.

A lot of the criticism of the book that we have seen in fact does nothing to invalidate its core conclusions – it’s more like sniping from the bushes than all-out warfare. And I do not doubt that some of those who criticise it really think some important ideas are missing, and some of them are right. However, tedious trawling over references misses the central point: there never was any scientifically reasonable account of a monogamous organization in pre-agricultural human societies, and other accounts are much more plausible. Having shown this, Sex at Dawn has, for now, become the standard narrative. The authors don’t have to show beyond all possible doubt that their account of early human sexuality is correct in every detail, because they are not taking on an established scientific theory, they are taking on a cultural narrative which has polluted the science. There never was any monogamy “theory” worthy of the name.

I am therefore unimpressed by and, given that I am a multidisciplinarian, not a narrow specialist, do not intend to read, reviews which purely criticize this or that aspect of what ithe authors say. I invite the critics to correct the account so we can get to a more accurate and plausible story than Ryan and Jetha have managed. I myself can see that there are some phenomena which their theory does not explain (it is after all not a theory of everything). I do not doubt at all that future accounts will differ in many respects from theirs, but they will not differ in respect of the central conclusion – there never will be a robust theory of primitive monogamy.

I also believe that there is quite a volume of evidence which I believe points in a convergent direction and Sex at Dawn does not even review, in particular the evidence from the psychoanalytic tradition and recent work on somatoform disorders. To my mind, Sex at Dawn does not really endeavor to explain those elements of contemporary behavior which some might (and do) cite as evidence in support of primitive monogamy, but had it had this goal, there is plenty more it could have done.

This article for instance sheds light on the (predictably) almost ignored subject in psychiatry of morbid jealousy, and to my mind is highly suggestive of the conclusion that jealousy itself is part of a neurotic complex due to the system of property which has been overlaid on human nature. Definitely, jealousy does have a psychodynamic explanation as the theory of the Oedipus complex implies; in that sense it is “natural”. No one is saying that there is no competition within the cooperative unit of the tribe. But it is expressed in contemporary society in ways, under circumstances and with consequences which would certainly not have arisen in primitive societies. This is extensively discussed in Salovey’s 1991 compilation of essays on the psychology of jealousy and envy which presents plenty of reasons to caution against highly simplistic conclusions about innate human nature based on how jealousy is experienced and expressed in contemporary society.

Essentially, the cooperative tribal unit becomes competitive when resources are scarce – including when scarcity is manufactured. The socially manufactured scarcity of sexual expression and opportunity leads to jealousy very predictably, and replacing it by abundance erodes jealousy even today, as plenty of couples can testify. Simply put, jealousy is a capacity we all have to employ emotional manipulation in order to hoard scarce resources to the detriment of wider social units. Sexual jealousy would have been highly disruptive of primitive tribal societies for the reasons which Ryan and Jetha point out. That it occurs under entirely different circumstances today does not tell us anything relevant at all In fact, in bonobos it seems that sex serves precisely the opposite purpose, namely to elicit sharing of resources such as food where it might otherwise not have occurred. This leads to group cohesion and greater resilience vis a vis external threats.

So Sex at Dawn has done better than I had hoped – it seems there is no longer anyone seriously defending the naturalness of sexual exclusivity as a social institution on the basis of scientific evidence. That means the way is open to investigate a host of issues which until now have been taboo.

Ultimately, I doubt though that paleoanthropology will tell us much more about human nature than it already has. The great appeal of Sex at Dawn is that it makes sense of feelings we may all have, but have been taught to suspect. In this way it opens a way forward for a much more generous humanity than we have been conditioned to believe possible. The sentiments on which proponents of monogamy base their conclusions have in reality been generated by they themselves, and we are at liberty to construct alternative narratives. I am told I should love only my children, but in fact I love all children. I am told I should desire only my spouse, but in fact desire is much broader. I am told I should be jealous of men who are interested in my spouse, but in fact it has the propensity to create a deep bond with them. And I am told that if I display any of these sentiments there must be something “wrong” with me or my primary relationship, but in fact acknowledging all of this makes both my sense of self and my relationship only stronger.

In fact, all of the inherited narrative (as I shall henceforth call what Ryan and Jetha call the “standard narrative”) seeks to constrain me; I do not recognize myself in it all and see it only as a tool of social control. It would not exist if most did not take the opposite view; but that is proof only of its perfidy, not of its truth.

Cycles of sexual history

I was just listening to an episode of Chris Ryan’s excellent podcast, Tangentially Speaking, in which he talks with Tony Perrottet, who is a historian and travel writer one of whose main themes is sexual practices in times past. By the way, let me in passing rave about the podcast. Ever since leaving Cambridge I have felt deprived of the kind of intelligent and wide-ranging conversation committed to understanding and to changing the world which characterizes undergraduate life there. The podcast is like a window on a lost world which one day I hope to rediscover…

Anyway, in the discussion the theme comes up of whether the sexual mores of past civilizations were more liberated than our own and whether perhaps there is some cyclicality involved. The most abrupt transition they discuss is that between a supposedly libertine 18th century and the Victorian 19th, epitomized by the difference in attitudes between the puritanical Charles Darwin and his paternal grandfather Erasmus, a social progressive and supposedly an avowed libertine (though this appears incidental to his biography).

Is this a correct characterization and, if so, what forces are at work?

I believe this characterization has the potential to be very misleading. The periods in question certainly were characterized by different attitudes to sex, which may have involved sex with more partners or in a wider range of styles, at least in certain strata of society, but leaping to qualify this as more liberated or less repressed is, I think, mistaken.

These styles of sexuality, at least the 18th century aristocratic one which may in large part anyway be accessible to us only through the vehicle of myth, are in many ways reminiscent of things to be found in today’s swinging and BDSM communities. In my opinion, it is problematic to qualify sexuality in these communities as, on the whole, less repressed; to do so rests on a misconception of sexuality which Ryan’s account invites us to reconsider, since it is clear throughout the pages of Sex at Dawn that sexuality plays in human evolutionary biology a social role.

What Sex at Dawn shows us is that this social role remains programmed into our biology and that, therefore, sex in forms which seem superficially to resemble the forms it took in the past are continually sought after. Ryan makes the point that many pornographic memes are likely to be remnants of this collective memory (many of course are not). However, reenacting orgies a la Eyes Wide Shut, where absolutely nothing other than lust drives the proceedings, may well, for a time, be liberating because one dimension of the social taboos on sexuality is momentarily lifted, but it is lifted at the cost of repressing the social dimension of sexuality to which monogamous institutions and their mythology give at least some expression. It is therefore hard to qualify one set of values and practices as more or less repressed than the other, though it is psychodynamically and therefore sociohistorically unsurprising that there may be an oscillation between the two.

The French revolution vectored egalitarian notions which were opposed to the corruption and decadence of the Ancien Regime. The revolutionaries were scarcely prudes, but partook of a widespread indignation at a ruling class which dissipated its sexuality in debauchery and nonetheless repressed the peasantry with great violence (evidence, if ever it were needed, that they were not really sexually liberated, because truly sexually liberated people, like their bonobo cousins, are by default peaceful and loving). The fate of women in this society (whose willing participation, lest I should need to recall this, is required for gratifying heterosexual sex) was a particular concern. Any romanticism regarding a supposedly lost Eden seems to me deeply misplaced.

When we look at classical antiquity we also need to be very careful. Greece and Rome were highly stratified, developed agrarian societies in which, by definition, sexuality no longer played the role it played in primitive societies but was taken up into the mesh of power and property relations upon which such societies were built. Bacchalian orgies were then no more than what they are now: a way to let off steam. The very need to let off steam is perfect evidence of the degree of repression from which natural sexuality suffered at that time.

It seems to me that countless males around the planet are still trapped in this primary patriarchal perversion when they evaluate sexual practices and norms. They display a preference for patriarchal practices and are deaf and blind to the sexual voice of the feminine, which in its turn seeks exasperated refuge in romantic fantasy. In none of these supposedly “liberated” periods did women enjoy anything like an equal voice alongside men in determining the expression of sexuality.

Men have still not ridden themselves of the idea that giving women such a voice would mean behaving in a way which was much less sexually gratifying. They seek to rebuild patriarchal sexual empires, in necessary opposition to an equally powerful social force pulling in the other direction. The primary social neurosis in all of this is the system of property and the violence which it does to our egalitarian tribal nature. In Ancient Greece that had been going on for thousands of years already; it is intrinsically unlikely we should look to such a society for clues as to how to live a more gratifying social life.

I venture to suggest, therefore, that we really are going through a period of transformation which is qualitatively different from what has happened before. I am under no illusion that it will result in a utopia or that it is irreversible, but it is important to see that this phase of sexual history is different from what has gone before for one simple reason. In the past, elevation of the feminine has implied more “repressed” sexual practices and elevation of the masculine, sexual practices which were more “liberated”. But the patriarchy invented sexual repression, even if it dislikes some of its consequences. As it has lost the power to defend its erstwhile islands of “sexual freedom” (brothels, geishas and similar institutions, based on objectivization of women in a state more or less close to slavery), its manifesto has become increasingly opposed to its basic interests. As feminism has made inroads into this system, it starts to reach the point where it can reclaim the primal right from which women have been excluded: their right to an authentic feminine sexuality.

This wave of deconstruction of sexual mores is therefore, using terms admittedly very grossly, led by women/the feminine and mistrusted by entitled males. In this lies the hope that it is really different from the past.

Grrl power

Their aims and methods can be discussed, but the activists of Ukrainian women’s rights organization Femen, which recently opened a “training camp” in Paris, have surely hit on a means of protest – female public nudity – which deserves, and will probably receive, more prominence in the future. This is one of those phenomena which, to me, captures a fundamental shift in the Zeitgeist and may prefigure important and long overdue social changes. For this to happen, however, there is a need for a further shift in feminist self-understanding. Due to recent advances in research into the ontogenesis of patriarchy and its social costs, such a shift, I believe, is at hand; all it needs are sufficiently eloquent advocates.

Femen got started as a means to alert young women in Ukraine to the dangers of the sex industry and to try to get attention from the authorities to this problem. With its move to Paris, a city which once had a global reputation as a cradle of progressive social movements, once wonders if this will change. The group (or incipient movement) has an enviable brand identity, but so far seems lacking in ideological focus.

Femen’s methods are hard to resist because they tap into some deep cultural veins. On the one hand, the patriarchy has, as part of its subversive strategy vis-a-vis female sexuality, offered women a trade-off whereby they have given up their rights to sexual self-expression in return for physical protection and, in recent years, increasing opportunities for personal (of course non-sexual) expression. This protection is far from having been universally effective, but it has entailed inculcating a moral code according to which it is widely considered unmanly to use force against women. Men accordingly, and society as a whole, therefore have difficulties in deflecting these women from their goals, and the more vulnerable they are and the more obvious it is that this is what is going on, the more encumbered is the response of the patriarchy to it, since repression generates greater and greater indignation, even on the part of those who normally tacitly acquiesce in the existing order.

In the past, public nudity might have been enough of a taboo that the fuss around it would have overwhelmed the reaction of solidarity; but it is likely that this is no longer the case. Female public nudity is, in the West, no longer a breach of social contract; violence against women is.

However, aside from this issue of social contract there is also, I believe, a much deeper and far more significant attitude to the naked female body on the part of men which renders this type of protest very powerful in the collective unconscious. This attitude is biologically rather than culturally determined or at least, if culturally determined, draws on archetypes which are much older than agrarian society.

The presence of such a pre-cultural representation of woman in the male imagination underlies Carl Jung’s theory of the anima. This representation portrays women as sexually empowered, strong, intuitive and wise; in many ways the polar opposite of the culturally constructed role – virgin, demure, weak, in need of protection etc – from which almost all seductive power has been eradicated.

Therefore men have created a role for women in which they no longer desire them. This may have seemed to matter little as long as part of the female population was reserved by men to stand outside this stereotype – prostitutes, courtesans, mistresses, priestesses, witches and so on. These women were permitted to don perfectly contrary attributes. And, as time has gone on, men, who have imagined themselves able to get by on images of women quite unlike the culturally manufactured real thing, have had no problem in going on doing so, in art, fiction and pornography. As the man often cares only about the congruence between the image and his anima, projecting this onto the screen of reality through the vehicle of erotic fantasy, this has given birth to a prodigious parallel oeuvre of imaginary social re-engineering.

The imaginary figures to which this oeuvre has given birth are, however, at least as potent a cultural force as their equally imaginary counterpoints. By donning the mantle of the superheroine, Femen rejects the “acceptable” role given to women by society and taps into a powerful erotic script over which the patriarchy is conflicted and to which it therefore has inadequate means to respond. Significantly, this seems almost inevitably to entail an attack on organized religion; consciously or not, the equation between religion, the patriarchy, and the repression of female sexual self-expression seems axiomatic to this new generation of feminist revolutionaries.

In hindsight it seems inevitable that real women would step up to the anima, since in substance it is not a mere projection of the male imagination but an actual, biological representation of innate feminine qualities, albeit (as I understand Jung’s thought) from a male perspective.

Femen make this clear, calling themselves “new Amazons” and adopting a militaristic discourse full of (what is taken to be) characteristically male imagery. But they are equally the symbolic heiresses of historical figures like Joan of Arc, constructed icons like Marianne, and the pantheon of female superheroes so beloved of pubescent boys, from Superwoman through an army of her ever more buxom and unclad avatars: often decried by feminists as sexualized stereotypes and screens for male projection and objectification of women, but in reality not only that: also a hommage to another, indubitably more empowered idea of woman.

The empowered, wild woman is erotically charged for men in a way her tamed sister can never be. This means one simple thing: the male erotic imagination is on the side of this force for social change. And, as women know, this is a very powerful ally.

That they are no longer afraid collectively to appeal to it in defense of their own interests (and of course in reality also of male interests, because humankind has only one set of real interests) represents a sea-change in the balance of power between the sexes. Ultimately, the more authentically we are ourselves, the closer we will come together; this process is naturally self-reinforcing.

What we see at this point of history are social institutions in the eye of a tornado, battered and starting to give way under the accumulated force of our repressed biological nature; they are so weakened that the moment is ripe for something quite new. Beyond their specific social agenda, whatever it may ultimately turn out to be or not to be, Femen points to the coming into being of a fundamentally new space in which conceptions of society will inevitably be reshaped.

Smartphonitis

I just read this article on WebMD which discusses the endemic compulsive use of smartphones in modern society, its possible reasons, consequences, and how to deal with it. Here is a summary sentence: “the smartphone, more than any other gadget, steals from us the opportunity to maintain our attention, to engage in contemplation and reflection, or even to be alone with our thoughts.”

I believe this is true and it is a matter about which we should be concerned. Yet the question of why this compulsion arises is not satisfactorily answered in the article, though it gives a few clues. Therefore I would like to put forward an alternative explanation. Continue reading “Smartphonitis”

Somatic climatology

In a previous post, I discussed John Sarno’s ideas on the psychological etiology of pain and other pathologies. In this context I would like to add some further hypotheses on how emotional repression affects the body and the felt sense.

The repression of emotions from consciousness does not merely prevent their expression in the neocortex. Emotions are naturally linked to the much more ancient endocrine system, which affects the body by means of hormones produced in the glands and vectored through the bloodstream and ultimately the extracellular matrix. The nervous and endocrine systems are interdependent, with response coordinated by the hypothalamus in the brain. The repression of emotions is a process which affects both the nervous system and certain key endocrine functions related to the evolutionarily adaptive response to the emotion in question. However, the body’s natural response to these locked emotions is not altogether disabled – they continue to produce effects in parts of the somatic and autonomic nervous systems as well as in parts of the endocrine system. The key point to understand is therefore that repression from consciousness is not equivalent to complete somatic disactivation. Repression by the ego is an imperfect dam, around which the stored emotions must find routes in order to maintain homeostasis. Because these routes do not provide for a full discharge of the emotions, however, the body is under constant tension.

We may consider that the primary emotional response is the alloplastic one – the one which is directed to changing the situation at the origin of the emotions being felt – and that it is this alloplastic response which is suppressed (if we are anything like our bonobo cousins, the repressed instinct may frequently be to have sex; this response does not change the external situation as such but rather its social expression, and could be termed mesoplastic or socioplastic). In its place, an autoplastic response is favored – the organism tries to change itself.

The inappropriate and sustained nervous and endocrine response to repressed emotions is what gives rise to the pathologies discussed, and it is important to realize that this is not just a “trick of the mind” but rather that it takes place on a biochemical level which, while not fully autonomous, enjoys a degree of autonomy from the conscious functions which we tend to think of when we use the term “mind”. In reality, of course, it is our terminology and its intrinsic duality which is at fault, because the bodymind operates as an integrated system in which certain material may be withheld from consciousness, but the vast majority is unavailable to consciousness in the first place.

The same objection has to be raised in respect of a focus on pathological syndromes only. In fact, the repressed response does not produce candidate pathologies only, but directly influences the biochemical environment of the body, proprioception, and our mental somatic map. It is not only pain, allergy or disturbed bowel function which may be provoked by emotional circumstances, but more generally also our level of somatic energy, our self-perception and our sense of wellness: aspects which we may think of as an innate part of our personality, but in reality are no more so than these other more obvious disturbances.

This raises, from my perspective, the interesting question of how an undisturbed individual would experience the body and embodiment. If it was not immediately obvious to me that my pain had emotional causes, it was even less obvious that the same was true for my general sense of self, for my general sense of inhabiting the body I inhabit. If this experience can also be altered by an awareness of its etiology, then interesting times lie ahead.

I wish all my readers a happy 2013!

The new blog

As my readers will have noticed, I have decided to rename the blog “Becoming Human”. This is the fruit of a long process, and it is already a long time that most of my writing has moved beyond at least the obvious sense of the original theme of “Sex and Spirituality”, even if I still view the world in much the same way as I did when I began writing in 2008. I have done an extensive rewrite of the home page of the blog, so if you want to check out how I now see what I am trying to write about, check it out.

When I chose the new title, which was quite some time ago, I was unaware that Carl Rogers, one of the great pioneers of humanistic psychology, had entitled a collection of his essays, back in 1961, On Becoming a Person. Sadly, psychological science has not advanced nearly as quickly as it might or should have done since Rogers formulated some of his seminal insights. This disappointingly slow progress should not, however, discourage us, for it is still true, as Rogers wrote, that “it is not upon the physical sciences that the future will depend; it is upon us who are trying to understand and deal with the interactions between human beings” (p.57 of the London 2004 edition)

Life’s stages

I publish here my prose translation of Hermann Hesse’s poem Stufen (prompted by the poor quality of other translations I found on the internet). I am more and more convinced that he must have been an enlightened master!

Stages

As every flower fades, and youth turns always into old age, so every stage of life, all wisdom and all virtue, flowers also, yet cannot last forever.

Whenever life beckons, the heart must be ready to take its leave and start over, venturing into new commitments bravely and without sorrow. For a magic dwells in each beginning, which protects us and teaches us how to live.

Cheerfully, then, let us traverse realm on realm, cleaving to none as to a home. The spirit of the world does not desire to fetter or restrict us, but to raise us higher, step by step. For whenever we are accustomed to some station in life, we risk falling into sleep. Only he who is prepared to make a break and move on can escape the crippling force of habit.

Perchance even the hour of death will send us out afresh towards undreamt-of lands. Life’s call to us is unending. Take courage then, my heart, take leave and fare thee well.

The bondage of self

Just a share. Seems to me what the guy is talking about goes way beyond substance abuse. We use relationships to distract ourselves from our inner conflicts. And yet, once the effect wears off, they inevitably do the exact opposite.

“There were many [girls]… They all represent the same thing, the reason I pursued them: dopamine. It wasn’t just for the blowjob, or the frayed jean shorts. It was for the release of neurotransmitters that briefly relieved the bondage of self. It was a way to get high without ingesting chemicals. …Dopamin[e] and I had our fun, but we never really connected. We were incapable of anything beyond carnality and co-dependency. We used each other to feel better, and consequently, we felt worse.”

See http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/my_twisted_rehab_sex_life/

Paraphilia

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, Dan Savage, whose work I generally respect, sometimes really grates on me. One of the subjects on which he clearly has no idea whatsoever is sexual paraphilia. In this letter, someone writes to him clearly tortured by extreme violent sexual fantasies (“EVSFs”). Although he does at least urge that person to see a therapist, he also writes:

You could be seeing causation where there is only coincidence. There are a lot of people out there who didn’t suffer the kind of abuse you did—or any kind of abuse at all—but who nevertheless have EVSFs.

This statement is typical of Dan’s views on kinks, but he has never to my knowledge made any attempt to justify it. And, quite honestly, what does he, or does any of us, know about the life experiences of people who may well themselves have repressed all recollection of early childhood trauma? Whilst I support the position of accepting paraphilia and the safe exploration of paraphilia, I entirely disagree as regards its etiology; paraphilia is obsessive-compulsive and it is always attributable to a disturbance in natural sexual development. Persons with a paraphilia, even if they do not experience it as suffering, would have a lot to gain from the path of inquiry to which it invites.

The psychodynamics of paraphilia, predictably misinterpreted by the American Psychiatric Association, have been explored in the path-breaking work of Robert Stoller. As I have mentioned before, Stoller’s view was that paraphilia was ubiquitous but neurotic. He argued for its tolerance, but not for missing its psychoanalytic message. As more recent work has emphasized, the primary biological role of human sexuality is group bonding. Scripted sexual behavior, on the other hand, attempts to discharge ego trauma; it is not oriented to the other but to oneself. This should be only a transient phase in sexual development, but persons with paraphilias are stuck there. (It should also be emphasized that paraphilia is a narrower category than kink – sexual behavior is acquired, in part also cultural and a question of fashion, and interest in certain forms of behavior, even if it may have been formed in somewhat unnatural circumstances in childhood, should not be labelled paraphilia if it is merely a part of repertoire and not an obsession. The neutral label of kink is often misapplied to paraphilia.)

Paraphiliacs will argue that they can be in loving relationships, in which bedroom fantasy does not spill out into all other domains of life. I accept this. We all know that it can be compassionate to indulge another’s addiction, and uncaring constantly to point out that they would be better off without it. Nonetheless one lives a freer, fuller life when addictions are overcome.

Paraphiliacs will also tell us that they are happier than the rest of us. That may also be true. Many of us are walking around with an entire buried world of fantasies in our preconscious, unavowed and unbefriended; they are sought outlets for drives which instead have to find less healthy outlets elsewhere. Embracing this submerged shadow world would make us all healthier and happier.

Nonetheless, Dan makes categorical and unsubstantiated statements in his attempts to normalize kink. Why? It seems this is because, at root, his position on homosexuality tends often to be unreflectingly nativist. He presents matters as if no homosexual has any choice as to their sexual orientation and that it is for this reason that it must be respected. The more other socially frowned upon forms of sexual behavior that can be found and similarly labeled innate, the more he can rally voices behind the (laudable) gay rights agenda.

This is not only unscientific; whilst understandable, and possibly good tactics in the past, it is at this stage in our collective social development a grave mistake. Without loss of generality, I believe it is obvious enough that some people’s homosexual orientation is innate, whereas others engage in homosexual behavior rather because it is, for them, in the nature of a paraphilia. Whether consensual, victimless behavior is native or elective should not matter from the standpoint of the law. After all, religion is the ultimate elective fantasy; if its exercise is protected, all other rights must follow.

Persons with EVSFs have them certainly because they have suffered some form of abuse – they are not innate. Being able safely to avow and explore these fantasies may well be a crucial stage in the process of emancipation from the collective consequences of this abuse in their adult life, which doubtless goes way beyond the fantasies in question. Whether, unaided, BDSM is sufficient as therapy is, to put it mildly, much more open to doubt. Compassion requires us to recall the broader picture and to support the individual in all aspects of their healing process.