RK ARCHIVE - Archeology Study: Prehistoric Man Had Sex for Fun

Archeology Study: Prehistoric Man Had Sex for Fun

By: PM
Published On: 4/30/2007 8:40:47 AM

http://www.foxnews.c...

But I thought sex was for procreation? (No, dumbo, "go forth and multiply" was God's command to learn math.")

From Fox news on the fourth anniversary of Mission Accomplished Day ("MAD") comes news of this serious look into what sexual practices may have been like before mankind settled down into farming and hunting. "Experts believe research such as Taylor's may help overturn false assumptions that sex for the purposes of reproduction is the form closest to nature."

This Venus figurine from Willendorf, Austria, dates from about 23,000 BCE. The figure is only 4.5 in high, and experts say was probably designed to be held in the hand.

He may have come down from the trees, but prehistoric man did not stop swinging. New research into Stone Age humans has argued that, far from having intercourse simply to reproduce, they had sex for fun. Practices ranging from bondage to group sex, transvestism and the use of sex toys were widespread in primitive societies***
According to the study, a 30,000-year-old statue of a naked woman -- the Venus of Willendorf -- and an equally ancient stone phallus found in a German cave, provide the earliest direct evidence that sex was about far more than babies.
Timothy Taylor, reader in archeology at Bradford University, reviewed evidence from dozens of archeological finds and scientific studies for his research. "The widespread lay belief that sex in the past was predominantly heterosexual and reproductive can be challenged," said Taylor. He argues that monogamy only became established as hunter-gatherer societies took up agriculture and settled in houses, allowing the social roles of men and women to become more fixed.

Of course in modern society sex is more sophisticated. Powerful men call up for women like calling out for pizza, to paraphrase former Ambassador Tobias.

TIMOTHY TAYLOR teaches in the Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, UK, and conducts research on the later prehistoric societies of southeastern Europe. He regularly publishes in Scientific American, Nature, The American Journal of Archaeology, Antiquity, World Archaeology, and Current Anthropology. The book containing the ideas mentioned in the Fox News report is at http://www.amazon.co... The summary of the book states:

He traces sexual inequality to the invention of farming in the Near East 10,000 years ago, where the availability of animal milk allowed women to raise many children, tying themselves to hearth and home. Disputing feminist claims that Neolithic figurines of the "Great Earth Mother" emerged from a prehistoric matriarchy, he argues that the clay figurines do not symbolize motherhood, but rather suggest that dominant males practiced polygyny. Surveying Eurasian erotic practice in areas ranging from the great city of Mohenjo-Daro in India circa 2000 B.C. to Iron Age Denmark, he documents tremendous variation in human sexuality?homosexuality, prostitution, male and female transvestitism, transsexuality, vigorous interest in contraception, sex as both acrobatic pastime and spiritual discipline?a diversity that went underground with the advent of Christian sexual attitudes.

I have the book on order and will report any interesting findings.

Unrelated sidebar -- Bushism for the month of April, said at Easter by our leader:

http://www.cnn.com/2...

Comments

Yes, by all means, read it carefully (Catzmaw - 4/30/2007 8:56:54 AM)

and highlight the most interesting passages. We're all about the scholarship in this blog, aren't we? ;)

I need something to tide me over until the May 4 DC Madam Interview (PM - 4/30/2007 9:50:29 AM)

I must tell you one of the funniest ripostes I've ever heard, from a woman I'll call A. I have now been a friend of A for 25 years, and this took place during our first conversation, in 1982. I had just met the young female attorney at a reception for new attorneys at my agency, and it was clear from the outset that she was very far left. She was complaining about all the Reaganites in her presence. (I was, then, one of them.) My boss, a very conservative Republican (who was a great and honest intellectual, and a marvelous boss) toddled over and asked:

"So you're new to DC. What do you think of it?"

She responded: "With all the public phalluses, what's a girl not to like about it?"

[Rim shot]

For a few years whenever I was at a gathering at her house, I was introduced as "my one Republican friend" -- sometimes with the addition "he's a Democrat; he just doesn't know it."

Best. Riposte. Ever (Catzmaw - 4/30/2007 11:40:51 AM)

The guy's jaw dropped about three inches (PM - 4/30/2007 1:00:47 PM)

But he was a good man. He had an interesting management technique which he used at our weekly meetings where we were expected to present our new project ideas (it was an antitrust policy office). Once one presented one's initiative, one was expected to join the group's attempt to savage the idea. Instead of getting the author of the idea defensive, it produced good spirited debate.

well, my favorite is still PM's (Andrea Chamblee - 5/1/2007 10:34:49 PM)

PM on The Vagina Monlogues:

"I was going to see the sequel, The Clitoris Monologues, but I could never find it."

It took me a while to remember exactly the punchline, but it was worth the search.

The monogamists won out (Rebecca - 4/30/2007 3:35:29 PM)

And in many cultures men had more than one wife (funny how they never talk about the women who had more than one man which was the case in some cultures). The Arabs and other poligamists had so many wives that their sons spent most of their adult lives fighting over the old man's land and wealth thus creating a warring and unstable society. We certainly see the problems of competing heirs with stories like that of Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament. These struggles sometimes became multi-generational.

When the Jews established monogamy it stabilized society and establish the heirs so that everyone could live in peace, if not happily. This also created more stable relationships. Thus Christians adopted this practice from the Jews.

The Mormons who settled Utah practiced poligamy because there were few men available. However this all depended on an insufferably patriarchal society. Then later the US gov went after them and forced them to stop this practice.

I like the ancient Hammurabic law of Babylonia(Iraq) where a woman could divorce her husband because she was unhappy with him and marry a man she loved. Believe it or not, this was actually written in the law. So we see everything wasn't biased in favor of men in these ancient times.

If the economy doesn't improve we may have to revert to some sort of multiple marriage arrangments so people can pay the rent since life is so hard for the nuclear family (just joking). But seriously, if the fundies believe in monogamy and happy families they need to work for social and economic justice.

Yes, they did. Sort of. (PM - 4/30/2007 3:48:20 PM)

Some people say we now have serial monogamy, especially with so many people being married 2 and 3 times and so many people having pre-marital intercourse.

But it's pretty clear sexual mores have changed over time.

I've cited it before, but John Boswell's book on homosexuality raises lots of interesting questions about why homosexuality went out of favor around 1100.

Some thoughts on the homosexuality issue (Rebecca - 4/30/2007 6:08:47 PM)

The church saw homosexuality as a threat because it was tied closely with the Greek culture of paganism. I think in their minds the two were closely linked. Also, you know the church fathers saw many of the pagan practices as primitive and harmful, not the least of which was human sacrifice. Hence, they created Christ as the last human sacrifice, a rather brutal concept of a divinity. But it served to divert some of the impulse to string somebody up now and then, -er I mean offer a sacrifice to the Gods.

The "founding fathers" (PM - 5/1/2007 8:36:36 AM)

of the church were not working in a sociological/religious vacuum, which many modern people overlook. They had to contend with the popularity of the pagan religions as well as reject the dreadful aspects of those religions; the popularity of Judaism; what to do about retaining Jewish practices in the new religion (and of course whether to recruit Gentiles into the new religion); and what to do once the "end time" had not come, as had been predicted. It's hard to know exactly what was on the minds of the Gospel writers (because remember this initial writing was happening about 30 to 70 years after Christ's death) and the early church fathers, though there are lots of interesting theories from theologians.

It is also pretty well agreed now that there was tremendous diversity in Christian thought in the first and second centuries -- just as there is now. There was a fight then among those who said "my way or the highway" and those who said "the divine is in all of us -- seek God through yourself". Elaine Pagels and many others talk about this. Here's a link to an interview with Pagels. http://www.beliefnet...

Irish before the Catholic church came in (Andrea Chamblee - 5/1/2007 10:36:03 PM)

The pagans of Ireland allowed a woman to divorce her husband rather easily.

Nice statue. Is that what I'll look like when I'm 23,000? n/t (Andrea Chamblee - 5/1/2007 10:14:02 PM)

A-ha-a-ha + George Tenet & Ron Jeremy (PM - 5/1/2007 10:37:07 PM)

That was really funny.

Getting off topic here -- have you read that George Tenet and Ron Jeremy were high school classmates? Here's a link, with high school yearbook pictures. http://wonkette.com/...

Speaking of sex for fun (PM - 5/1/2007 10:46:32 PM)

I laughed out loud at Raw Story being shocked, shocked, I tell you, about a review by someone who had been to one of Pamela Martin's employees. http://rawstory.com/... Apparently the women in the service were often well educated:

"DaBossTx" wrote that he "had a very pleasant experience" with the same escort. "While she does talk quite a bit, I found the conversation very stimulating," he wrote. "She does indeed have a PhD based on the level of our conversation. The extra 30 minutes beyond the industry norm allowed us time to talk and relax."

Why is those so funny? Because life imitates art -- have you ever read Woody Allen's short story "The Whore of Mensa?" One can find it online (takes a while to load) at:
http://woodyallenita...

It's about a call girl service used by men who want to "date" super intellectuals. A sampling:

But it wasn't just intellectual experiences. They were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York.