On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 11:44:32 -0400, ardeith l carter <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>.just imagine using the pleasures
>of sexual activity to calm tense situations at the United

>Nations!   Special little rooms set up to take incensed

>delegates to......soft lighting, soothing music, smooth

>silky sheets, sensual pleasures......and the delegate

>returns to the conference table in a far more peaceful

>mood!!!!   Just imagine that!!

Soziobiology is the science concerned with such questions, as weather
"group sex" in the cave was usual or if  Lucy had some more to offer as
tubers (no doubt!).

Jared Diamond wrote a book on it, which i haven't read (got) yet. But
looks promising, if it's equally well thought as Diamond's other books.

Bonobos are sexually active for most of the month, unlike most other
species which are resticted to fertile times.
Much of Bonobos social life works through exchange of sexuality, which is
somewhat disconnected from mere offspring producing.

Humans are somewhat similar, as they have the hidden oestrus.
So, a man can't know when the fertile moments of a woman are and has to be
active the whole month to have it's chance of a own child.
If it shouldn't be "by accident".

And a woman has the chance to bind the activities of a man to her alone.
Because he's unsure and because she's sexually active the whole month.

Among chimps, the females use to raise all children in a group of females
only, and the males are venturing around, trying to take their chance.

In humans, i think the situation is different, because the extreme long
and intense caretaking a child needs, before it's a full grown adult.
A human who enjoyed care from a father *and* a mother  has (or had) much
better chances to be successful later. So double caretaking was evolutionary
successful.
But, how a male be shure that it's caretaking efforts for a child goes to
his *own* child? Well, he can't. But a stable partnership (for the time it
needs to bring up a child) could have the best possibility.
Men can make it very probable that the child is their own. By frequent
"practise" and by watching. And women can bind men by satisfying all the sexual
tendencies and capacity of a man.

After all that, i think
occasional group sex in the cave wouldn't make sense, except for Lucy (or
Grog) to attract a permanent partner. Otherwise the "accident" childs
wouldn't have had much of a future (with a mother, but "no" father).
Sex without the possibility of a child is not paleo, is it?

In these times, more and more it's developping to a chimp society....

just a few sociobiological thoughts

Amadeus

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