Here’s why men have boneless penises

A bone at the tip is linked with longer intercourse and more competition.


Read the whole story

 

[DStaal]

Bernardo Verda[/url]":u7vwzpof]

DStaal[/url]":u7vwzpof]A bit of penis-bone trivia: The word commonly translated as 'rib' in the garden of Eden story in Genesis was likely a slang term for a baculum.

I have absolutely no clue whether or not that's actually true...

Voted up, anyhow

In part because there's a big discussion going on about unsubstantiated claims, here's my reference:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dail ... rom-where/

 

[Jousle]

Hack-n-Slash[/url]":8kd08acc]

isparavanje[/url]":8kd08acc]

Jousle[/url]":8kd08acc]

Bad Monkey![/url]":8kd08acc]

Jousle[/url]":8kd08acc]

Cupid Stunt[/url]":8kd08acc]Whats with all these science stories, i thought this was a politics website?

/gd&r

Well, it is about the penis, a very popular topic among liberals.

Actually, it's about mate competition and not getting "cucked" by more sexually virile competition, which is a very popular topic among the alt-right white supremacists.

Oh, so that's why kind of subject must be appealing in Ars... weird.

Because not everyone has so little going on in their lives that they are solely defined by their sexuality. Some people can read a science article without being worried about the fidelity of their partner.

You think Jousle's concerned about the fidelity of his hand?

Well... I guess it is possible... and it is Jousle, after all.

See?, you are obsessed ha ha

 

[Bernardo Verda]

DStaal[/url]":1bb6m7i4]

Bernardo Verda[/url]":1bb6m7i4]

DStaal[/url]":1bb6m7i4]A bit of penis-bone trivia: The word commonly translated as 'rib' in the garden of Eden story in Genesis was likely a slang term for a baculum.

I have absolutely no clue whether or not that's actually true...

Voted up, anyhow

In part because there's a big discussion going on about unsubstantiated claims, here's my reference:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dail ... rom-where/

It appears quite easy to find arguments "pro" and "con".
Unfortunately, I'm not well enough informed to choose between them (that said, I personally find both side persuasive in some respects and weak in others).

 

[Marid]

If you ever get a chance to handle (sorry) a baculum, those of marine mammals are pretty amazing for their weight. Marine mammals use their bones as ballast.

 

[Madestjohn]

isparavanje[/url]":1npu3wbv]

Madestjohn[/url]":1npu3wbv]

isparavanje[/url]":1npu3wbv]

Madestjohn[/url]":1npu3wbv]

keltor[/url]":1npu3wbv]

Madestjohn[/url]":1npu3wbv]"With monogamy becoming popular among humans after our split from chimpanzees and bonobos,"


Ahhh sorry?
Where are you getting that from?
Time to check your western european bias.

We spilt from chimps million of years ago (6-7million) and monogamy as a cultural norm is at most only a few thousand years old and no where near universal in fact being a minority lifestyle today and even rarer in past.

While largely promoted in the western world it isn't and has never been the norm.

Genetic evidence suggests that at most you could push it back to 18000 years ago as before that the evidence is pretty strong that many women generally mated with few men in likley a harem structure as with our distant cousins the gorillas.

18000 is far short of 6 million

Let's agree never to use check and bias again in a sentence.

More than likely the bone is tied into some other bone that was advantageous.

Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

And now, if you could answer my question, that'd be nice. Why do you assume it's a western bias instead of just a modern bias? Or is that your bias?

Because while monogamy has wide eurasian roots being adopted traditionally from japan to ireland the promotion and inforcement of monogamy as the accepted social form has been strongly associated with western goverance.
Oringially this could be seen as a social method of fiancial control with Augustus Caesar promoting marriage in hopes of rival aristocratic fortunes being split among many hiers ( they just ended up having many non inheriting bastards) and later the church using both marriage norms and inforced celibacy of preist to increase its take, but later this became a form of social control and huge part of colonial expansion and imposed on subjugated cultures world wide.

Read any of the great western cultural reform movemets of the 19 and twentieth century and see how important they saw the imposition of the monogamy norm on the disreputable (as they saw it) cultures they were reforming be it in the amazon delta or slums of London.

The promotion of monogamy as a universal salve for social ills has been a core belief of western social policy for much of the modern age and while it may be nearly worldwide now it would foolish not to recognize its place of origin and colonial means of spread.

English is a language spoken accross much of the entire modern world ... english is a western language.

 

[Steve Barnes]

Madestjohn[/url]":2l0y36y5]

isparavanje[/url]":2l0y36y5]

Madestjohn[/url]":2l0y36y5]

keltor[/url]":2l0y36y5]

Madestjohn[/url]":2l0y36y5]"With monogamy becoming popular among humans after our split from chimpanzees and bonobos,"


Ahhh sorry?
Where are you getting that from?
Time to check your western european bias.

We spilt from chimps million of years ago (6-7million) and monogamy as a cultural norm is at most only a few thousand years old and no where near universal in fact being a minority lifestyle today and even rarer in past.

While largely promoted in the western world it isn't and has never been the norm.

Genetic evidence suggests that at most you could push it back to 18000 years ago as before that the evidence is pretty strong that many women generally mated with few men in likley a harem structure as with our distant cousins the gorillas.

18000 is far short of 6 million

Let's agree never to use check and bias again in a sentence.

More than likely the bone is tied into some other bone that was advantageous.

Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

Many seem to have a bone to pick with your argument here.
On one hand we have Harems and with that a point of difference to "Western" norms.
However, it seems to be an off the cuff remark based on far from ridged assumptions.
A female human can become pregnant but once a year whereas a male of the same species may be able to impregnate a female once a day and if he is lucky maybe twice on a Friday. If a species or, for that matter, a culture feels the urge to rapidly increase its numbers then monogamy means you is doing it wrong, like your spelling....
;-)

 

[Studbolt]

Nice article, Beth. Stand proud.

 

[Madestjohn]

Steve Barnes[/url]":1z1eok5x]

Madestjohn[/url]":1z1eok5x]

isparavanje[/url]":1z1eok5x]

Madestjohn[/url]":1z1eok5x]

keltor[/url]":1z1eok5x]

Madestjohn[/url]":1z1eok5x]"With monogamy becoming popular among humans after our split from chimpanzees and bonobos,"


Ahhh sorry?
Where are you getting that from?
Time to check your western european bias.

We spilt from chimps million of years ago (6-7million) and monogamy as a cultural norm is at most only a few thousand years old and no where near universal in fact being a minority lifestyle today and even rarer in past.

While largely promoted in the western world it isn't and has never been the norm.

Genetic evidence suggests that at most you could push it back to 18000 years ago as before that the evidence is pretty strong that many women generally mated with few men in likley a harem structure as with our distant cousins the gorillas.

18000 is far short of 6 million

Let's agree never to use check and bias again in a sentence.

More than likely the bone is tied into some other bone that was advantageous.

Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

Many seem to have a bone to pick with your argument here.
On one hand we have Harems and with that a point of difference to "Western" norms.
However, it seems to be an off the cuff remark based on far from ridged assumptions.
A female human can become pregnant but once a year whereas a male of the same species may be able to impregnate a female once a day and if he is lucky maybe twice on a Friday. If a species or, for that matter, a culture feels the urge to rapidly increase its numbers then monogamy means you is doing it wrong, like your spelling....
;-)

I would to blame my iPhone autocorrect. But i would have to know how to spell on mymown for that to be fair.

 

[jdale]

Madestjohn[/url]":1xeq68pc]

isparavanje[/url]":1xeq68pc]

Madestjohn[/url]":1xeq68pc]

keltor[/url]":1xeq68pc]

Madestjohn[/url]":1xeq68pc]"With monogamy becoming popular among humans after our split from chimpanzees and bonobos,"


Ahhh sorry?
Where are you getting that from?
Time to check your western european bias.

We spilt from chimps million of years ago (6-7million) and monogamy as a cultural norm is at most only a few thousand years old and no where near universal in fact being a minority lifestyle today and even rarer in past.

While largely promoted in the western world it isn't and has never been the norm.

Genetic evidence suggests that at most you could push it back to 18000 years ago as before that the evidence is pretty strong that many women generally mated with few men in likley a harem structure as with our distant cousins the gorillas.

18000 is far short of 6 million

Let's agree never to use check and bias again in a sentence.

More than likely the bone is tied into some other bone that was advantageous.

Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

Although as you put it, monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate, very few monogamous species are actually strict about it. Cheating is surprisingly common once you start looking more closely (especially at the genetics). My point in saying this is just that while labeling a species (like humans) as monogamous means that it is the main mating pattern but doesn't mean it happens without exception. In biology, very little happens without exceptions....

 

[Madestjohn]

jdale[/url]":3p27vhix]

Madestjohn[/url]":3p27vhix]

isparavanje[/url]":3p27vhix]

Madestjohn[/url]":3p27vhix]

keltor[/url]":3p27vhix]

Madestjohn[/url]":3p27vhix]"With monogamy becoming popular among humans after our split from chimpanzees and bonobos,"


Ahhh sorry?
Where are you getting that from?
Time to check your western european bias.

We spilt from chimps million of years ago (6-7million) and monogamy as a cultural norm is at most only a few thousand years old and no where near universal in fact being a minority lifestyle today and even rarer in past.

While largely promoted in the western world it isn't and has never been the norm.

Genetic evidence suggests that at most you could push it back to 18000 years ago as before that the evidence is pretty strong that many women generally mated with few men in likley a harem structure as with our distant cousins the gorillas.

18000 is far short of 6 million

Let's agree never to use check and bias again in a sentence.

More than likely the bone is tied into some other bone that was advantageous.

Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

Although as you put it, monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate, very few monogamous species are actually strict about it. Cheating is surprisingly common once you start looking more closely (especially at the genetics). My point in saying this is just that while labeling a species (like humans) as monogamous means that it is the main mating pattern but doesn't mean it happens without exception. In biology, very little happens without exceptions....

Well. You wouldn't ( or maybe shouldn't) label humans as a biologically monogamous species.
And my point was that monogamy in humans is an imposed social construct .. not inate not universal and not historically speaking ( or arguably currently) the main method.

 

[Deleted member 276317]

Jousle[/url]":31pc7gx5]

Cupid Stunt[/url]":31pc7gx5]Whats with all these science stories, i thought this was a politics website?

/gd&r

Well, it is about the penis, a very popular topic among liberals.

You know you have a problem, right?
-----------


On topic: I'm eager for the companion article that explains why it's alleged to take some twenty minutes of thrusting to bring a woman to orgasm (I may be mistaken but that's what I recall from Mary Roach's Bonk).

 

[ej24]

I'd posit that bipedalism played a role too. A loose bone floating around, separate from the skeleton, while running around upright may have been dangerous to the reproductive organs of early bipedal apes.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

I'd posit that bipedalism played a role too. A loose bone floating around, separate from the skeleton, while running around upright may have been dangerous to the reproductive organs of early bipedal apes.

Yes, very inconvenient when walking erect.

 

[BloodNinja]

Renzatic[/url]":td2332i5]Of all the animals in the primate order, bonobos are the biggest sluts.

After your mom.

 

[BloodNinja]

Studbolt[/url]":1c6gfbkb]Nice article, Beth. Stand proud.

Nice article, but the conclusions seem a little far-fetched to me. A bit of a cock-and-bull story, if you will.

 

[isparavanje]

Madestjohn[/url]":3qr5rrr1]

isparavanje[/url]":3qr5rrr1]

Madestjohn[/url]":3qr5rrr1]

isparavanje[/url]":3qr5rrr1]

Madestjohn[/url]":3qr5rrr1]

keltor[/url]":3qr5rrr1]
Let's agree never to use check and bias again in a sentence.

More than likely the bone is tied into some other bone that was advantageous.

Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

And now, if you could answer my question, that'd be nice. Why do you assume it's a western bias instead of just a modern bias? Or is that your bias?

Because while monogamy has wide eurasian roots being adopted traditionally from japan to ireland the promotion and inforcement of monogamy as the accepted social form has been strongly associated with western goverance.
Oringially this could be seen as a social method of fiancial control with Augustus Caesar promoting marriage in hopes of rival aristocratic fortunes being split among many hiers ( they just ended up having many non inheriting bastards) and later the church using both marriage norms and inforced celibacy of preist to increase its take, but later this became a form of social control and huge part of colonial expansion and imposed on subjugated cultures world wide.

Read any of the great western cultural reform movemets of the 19 and twentieth century and see how important they saw the imposition of the monogamy norm on the disreputable (as they saw it) cultures they were reforming be it in the amazon delta or slums of London.

The promotion of monogamy as a universal salve for social ills has been a core belief of western social policy for much of the modern age and while it may be nearly worldwide now it would foolish not to recognize its place of origin and colonial means of spread.

English is a language spoken accross much of the entire modern world ... english is a western language.

The fact that monogamy is common in Western cultures does not change the fact that, in China for example, monogamy was also pretty much the rule except for emperors and aristocrats. Monogamy is common in multiple (relatively) modern cultures, even before the 19th century.

 

[Veritas super omens]

An excellent book on the cultural aspect of monogamy is Ryan and Jetha's "Sex at Dawn:the prehistoric origins of modernsexuality"

 

[MCYL]

F**k'em,
We don't have claws or sharp teeth, so we made swords and guns.
We run slow, so we subjugate horses, made trucks and everything else.
We don't have a bone in our boner, and so we made viagra.

 

[DStaal]

ej24[/url]":39fxmiyw]I'd posit that bipedalism played a role too. A loose bone floating around, separate from the skeleton, while running around upright may have been dangerous to the reproductive organs of early bipedal apes.

That would be an interesting study, to see if that's a pattern. There aren't that many non-marsupial bipedal mammals to compare, but there are a few.

 

[MCYL]

Maybe the darwinist are wrong after all, man WAS made by God. And god foresaw the tight jeans and speedos of the 1980's. No way we could have worn them with solid dicks.


btw, it's a joke. I'm not a science denier, didn't vote red.

 

[jdale]

Madestjohn[/url]":26oxshf6]

jdale[/url]":26oxshf6]

Madestjohn[/url]":26oxshf6]

isparavanje[/url]":26oxshf6]

Madestjohn[/url]":26oxshf6]
Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

Although as you put it, monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate, very few monogamous species are actually strict about it. Cheating is surprisingly common once you start looking more closely (especially at the genetics). My point in saying this is just that while labeling a species (like humans) as monogamous means that it is the main mating pattern but doesn't mean it happens without exception. In biology, very little happens without exceptions....

Well. You wouldn't ( or maybe shouldn't) label humans as a biologically monogamous species.
And my point was that monogamy in humans is an imposed social construct .. not inate not universal and not historically speaking ( or arguably currently) the main method.

I think you have to separate family-building strategies from non-family-building sex. Sex prior to a marriage or other family construct has gotten increasingly common as you might expect due to birth control and increasing age of marriage/parenthood, but I don't think partnerless parenthood is a primary reproductive strategy in any human society. Outside of that, there are societies that permit polygamy or other non-paired mating groups but they are minority practices within those societies (high-status minority practices in some cases but practiced by a minority of members of the society). I don't think there's any question that monogamy is the dominant reproductive strategy among humans presently. It's not perfect monogamy, but "monogamy with some cheating" is basically what "monogamy" means as a reproductive system when you start to look closely at any species.

Historically there were more societies with significant degrees of polygamy etc than there are now, but I would question how many of them it was the dominant practice in.

So, yes, I would say that on the whole humanity is a monogamous species, by which I mean it is overall the dominant reproductive strategy, but not that it is universal.

 

[Nostromo21]

Is this a bonafide article by Ars...?

 

[Madestjohn]

jdale[/url]":3kyrvot7]

Madestjohn[/url]":3kyrvot7]

jdale[/url]":3kyrvot7]

Madestjohn[/url]":3kyrvot7]

isparavanje[/url]":3kyrvot7]

Madestjohn[/url]":3kyrvot7]
Why do you think it's a Western bias instead of just a modern society bias? Monogamy is much more common than polygamy all around the world, even in some Muslim countries. (Malaysia and Indonesia)

Polygamy has been rare for centuries too in many countries, where it was usually only royalty and aristocrats who have had multiple wives.

Monogamy and ploygamy are not eitherr choices. There are a wide range of options.
Monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate. Even if we accept serial monogamy, ie mating with only one mate at a time in sequence, then very very few species (even among birds) conform to this rule.

Even in the modern western world this is actually not common. While the social structure may support an outward expression of a particular form and recent studies has suggested that fidelity within human relationships, at least as far as offspring, is surprisingly high, we still seem to have a strong urge to either as men spread our seed as wide as possible or as women to seek out exceptional genes to add to our offspring.

But still my point is that we can take our current norms and blindly assume they apply to more than six million years of human evolution. The ancient greeks were not modern guys who had a taste for naked sports instead they had a fundlementally different view of the world, and our truely ancient human ancestors living in small interelated tribal groups were very very different but the one thing we can say about them is that like us they were not, in general, monogamous.

Although as you put it, monogamy strictly means mating with only one mate, very few monogamous species are actually strict about it. Cheating is surprisingly common once you start looking more closely (especially at the genetics). My point in saying this is just that while labeling a species (like humans) as monogamous means that it is the main mating pattern but doesn't mean it happens without exception. In biology, very little happens without exceptions....

Well. You wouldn't ( or maybe shouldn't) label humans as a biologically monogamous species.
And my point was that monogamy in humans is an imposed social construct .. not inate not universal and not historically speaking ( or arguably currently) the main method.

I think you have to separate family-building strategies from non-family-building sex. Sex prior to a marriage or other family construct has gotten increasingly common as you might expect due to birth control and increasing age of marriage/parenthood, but I don't think partnerless parenthood is a primary reproductive strategy in any human society. Outside of that, there are societies that permit polygamy or other non-paired mating groups but they are minority practices within those societies (high-status minority practices in some cases but practiced by a minority of members of the society). I don't think there's any question that monogamy is the dominant reproductive strategy among humans presently. It's not perfect monogamy, but "monogamy with some cheating" is basically what "monogamy" means as a reproductive system when you start to look closely at any species.

Historically there were more societies with significant degrees of polygamy etc than there are now, but I would question how many of them it was the dominant practice in.

So, yes, I would say that on the whole humanity is a monogamous species, by which I mean it is overall the dominant reproductive strategy, but not that it is universal.

If your talking the last few thousand years ( at most but much less likely possibly the last 18,000) you might have a point.
Might, it is arguable with plenty of counter evidence.
If your talking a consistant reproductive strategy over a time scale as might influence our physical evolution on the level of lack of a penis bone ... on the scale of millions of years what evidence we do have strongly indicates otherwise.

Very few anthropologists would suggest monogamy has been the dominate breeding strategy of the human species.

 

[Bad Monkey!]

DStaal[/url]":3t75l6z0]

ej24[/url]":3t75l6z0]I'd posit that bipedalism played a role too. A loose bone floating around, separate from the skeleton, while running around upright may have been dangerous to the reproductive organs of early bipedal apes.

That would be an interesting study, to see if that's a pattern. There aren't that many non-marsupial bipedal mammals to compare, but there are a few.

I'm wondering if the boner bone fell victim to sexual selection of a different kind. Once Homo became erectus, walking upright, and losing their body hair, the paleo-penis would have become visible to all onlookers. Much like the fullness of the female breast became a sign of reproductive fitness, I'm thinking the penis did as well. This is somewhat born out by the fact that H. sapiens packs much more heat relative to body size than every other great ape. When nature has decided to start increasing your endowment and encouraging you to show it off to the world, having it depend on a fragile supporting bone structure that keeps you from being able to mate if it's broken would probably be counter-indicative.

 

[dracusoara]

Jousle[/url]":7b7xu61b]

Cupid Stunt[/url]":7b7xu61b]Whats with all these science stories, i thought this was a politics website?

/gd&r

Well, it is about the penis, a very popular topic among liberals.

"The gun is good! The penis vagina is evil." - modern day Republicans

 

[ej24]

Wheels Of Confusion[/url]":3itzgtqk]

I'd posit that bipedalism played a role too. A loose bone floating around, separate from the skeleton, while running around upright may have been dangerous to the reproductive organs of early bipedal apes.

Yes, very inconvenient when walking erect.

Haha... I see what you did there. Yes inconvenient in both terms of erect

 

[Starway]

Renzatic[/url]":uu6rg4r9]Of all the animals in the primate order, bonobos are the biggest sluts.

Slut is a derogatory term invented and used by humans, in which case it has no relevance to Bonobos or any other species. Someday humans will realize what we call things has almost never mattered except to other humans. Today is not that day.

The behavior the Bonobos employ during mating is, for them, a natural and normal thing to do, rather than being slutty, even if they had a word for it. That's what they do. That's their way.

While we can't exactly ask them, it seems unlikely they would regard normal behavior as some kind of immoral or slutty act, so not only is slut the wrong word, what WE think of Bonobos has no meaning at all to them.

 

[Starway]

Bad Monkey![/url]":2ke3glcm]

DStaal[/url]":2ke3glcm]

ej24[/url]":2ke3glcm]I'd posit that bipedalism played a role too. A loose bone floating around, separate from the skeleton, while running around upright may have been dangerous to the reproductive organs of early bipedal apes.

That would be an interesting study, to see if that's a pattern. There aren't that many non-marsupial bipedal mammals to compare, but there are a few.

I'm wondering if the boner bone fell victim to sexual selection of a different kind. Once Homo became erectus, walking upright, and losing their body hair, the paleo-penis would have become visible to all onlookers. Much like the fullness of the female breast became a sign of reproductive fitness,

The fixation on breast size as a symbol of sexuality varies significantly by culture and country or tribe, and by time. It's currently a Big Deal in the US and some other counties, yet not in others. And it hasn't always been a fixation even in the US.

There are many places where women are topless as a matter of routine, because that is their cultural norm and nobody has told them boobs are only supposed to be super sexy.

Maybe they are in Western minds. But not everywhere.

Hip size and geometry have usually been a much more important indicator of reproductive fitness, however, let's be honest here: men will go for nearly anything not nailed down, and even some things that are. Yes with actual nails.

 

[OneFr33man]

jbode[/url]":1h4kvr6g]

The penis bone, or baculum, has long been a knobby issue for scientists

puzzling purposes of penis bones

the presence of penis bones tightly hooked up with longer intromissions

stiff competition between males keep the bone around

the evolutionary chances of keeping penis bones went limp

Enjoyed ourselves a bit on this one, did we?

And the longer the sex, the longer the bone

I've always said this.

 

[P.Nilsson]

The theory isn’t perfect: Bonobos have maintained a baculum—a very tiny one—yet only have sex for about 15 seconds in one go. Brindle and Opie speculate that stiff competition between males keeps the bone around.

How does that work, if competition between males usually translates in longer intromissions, and those of bonobos are so short? What purpose would the bone have if not ensuring longer sex than the competition?

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

The theory isn’t perfect: Bonobos have maintained a baculum—a very tiny one—yet only have sex for about 15 seconds in one go. Brindle and Opie speculate that stiff competition between males keeps the bone around.

How does that work, if competition between males usually translates in longer intromissions, and those of bonobos are so short? What purpose would the bone have if not ensuring longer sex than the competition?

Bonobos seem to be less "competitive" about sex and more "any reason for it is a good one."

 

[P.Nilsson]

Wheels Of Confusion[/url]":3n1xtobz]

The theory isn’t perfect: Bonobos have maintained a baculum—a very tiny one—yet only have sex for about 15 seconds in one go. Brindle and Opie speculate that stiff competition between males keeps the bone around.

How does that work, if competition between males usually translates in longer intromissions, and those of bonobos are so short? What purpose would the bone have if not ensuring longer sex than the competition?

Bonobos seem to be less "competitive" about sex and more "any reason for it is a good one."

Why the "stiff competition" in the quote from the article, then? Was it only for the pun?

 

[baba264]

Happysin[/url]":rfquxfwh]

Madestjohn[/url]":rfquxfwh]
Nope. Not agreed
Unthinkingly assuming monogamy is the historic universal norm is a (generally) western bias.
It is proper that it is checked.

You know, instead of assuming its a cultural bias, you could actually look at the science. Humanity was at least in-part monogamous. about 3.5 million years ago, our hominid ancestors started forming long-term bonds and practicing variants of monogamy. Importantly, variants that involve not competing for females.

Remember, biological monogamy and cultural monogamy are not the same thing. And from an evolutionary standpoint, humans are predisposed to be monogamous.

I can't say you give much in terms of actual science and sources either. A brief search (I'm no expert and your peremptory tone put me in doubt) revealed, among other things, this NYT article :
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/scien ... ution.html

And in it the following quote (bold mine) :
"In 2011, Emma Nelson of the University of Liverpool and her colleagues looked at the finger bones of ancient hominid fossils. From what they found, they concluded that hominids 4.4 million years ago mated with many females. By about 3.5 million years ago, however, the finger-length ratio indicated that hominids had shifted more toward monogamy.

Our lineage never evolved to be strictly monogamous. But even in polygamous relationships, individual men and women formed long-term bonds — a far cry from the arrangement in chimpanzees."

I believe Beth's quote about human monogamy to be misleading (if not entirely wrong) and it was right to call her out on it. We shifted toward a more monogamous lifestyle, however, monogamy really never became a thing in humans.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

Nothing you posted invalidated my statement.

 

[Morghul Kale]

Now if we can only figure out why politicians are spineless.....

 

[mordann]

For the nostalgic:

 

[Z1ggy]

Morghul Kale[/url]":11hky4sk]Now if we can only figure out why politicians are spineless.....

because most of them are dicks?

 

[rskar]

DStaal[/url]":21gjofua]A bit of penis-bone trivia: The word commonly translated as 'rib' in the garden of Eden story in Genesis was likely a slang term for a baculum.

Felt a citation would be helpful here: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dail ... rom-where/

 

[marufo]

Does that two minute average include the men taking thiotimoline who ejaculate before penetration?

 

[LostAlone]

Madestjohn[/url]":2y5o99bp]

The promotion of monogamy as a universal salve for social ills has been a core belief of western social policy for much of the modern age and while it may be nearly worldwide now it would foolish not to recognize its place of origin and colonial means of spread.

Sorry but you're talking nonsense.

Monogamy has been an advantageous strategy for much of human history and pre-history. We are NOT lions or gorillas. We are relatively small and squishy. Even medium sized animals can kill a human. Before modern medicine a dog bite would likely be lethal, so would a kick from a deer. A non-domesticated goat could probably take a human in a fight. One male human simply could not hope to provide for a large group of females and children. For the majority of human history a male that abandoned his offspring (or otherwise couldn't provide for them) was significantly reducing his ability to pass on his genes. Too many mouths to feed is NOT a good way to survive, especially when can't eat grass or leaves or whole animals. We are picky eaters and need a diverse diet to survive and that means it takes a lot of effort to feed us.

Here's something that may blow your mind; could the social construction of monogamy be the result not of some evil colonialist plot but instead be the result of monogamous families being advantageous to survival? Could it be that while polygamy has existed at various times it was a display of wealth and opulence not a natural disposition?

We can see that humans are not biologically wired to have large clutches of children. The vast majority of pregnancies result in a single child. At best our females are equipped to feed two children at once. Also of note is that when women are breast feeding they can't get pregnant again, meaning that family size is further reduced.

Additionally, we rely extremely heavily on skills and knowledge to survive in a hostile world. The father needs to teach his sons to hunt and gather or they will not survive when he gets mauled by a bear. If the father wants his line to live on he has to stay. The only way that a man could 'spread his seed' wide and far would be by leaving his offspring to be supported by other men. And even in that context, while the genes themselves are not monogamous it's still the exact same family group. We invest a lot into our offspring, we can't just abandon them. They will die if left alone, even after six or eight years.

Even the way you frame the issue displays a really heavy bias against monogamy without caring about the facts. You wanna know what's a huge problem for modern humans? Fatherlessness, particularly fatherlessness for males. Seriously. It's a huge problem. Young men without a father are at a hugely elevated risk for all the bad stuff. Any bad life choice you can name is substantially more likely among fatherless young men; poverty, drug use, risk taking, crime, violence, suicide. Do you think this is a socially constructed phenomenon?

The nasty colonialists didn't stamp out polygamy because they were just big meanies who couldn't let the black man keep his ancient culture. It's because polygamy is the social construction here. Polygamy is a purely social display of power and opulence; I'm SO powerful I can look after seventeen children without even breaking a sweat. It's not something from our pre-history, it's something from the era of organised society. It's the ultimate bling.