Sex at Dawn
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Human sexuality, anthropology |
| Publisher | Harper |
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Publication date
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June 29, 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | HQ12 .R93 2010 |
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality is a book dealing with the evolution of monogamy in humans and human mating systems. First published in 2010, it was co-authored by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá (Portuguese pronunciation: [kɐˈsiɫðɐ ʒɨˈta]). In opposition to what the authors see as the 'standard narrative' of human sexual evolution, they contend having multiple sexual partners was common and accepted in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Mobile self-contained groups of hunter gatherers are posited as the human norm before agriculture led to high population density. According to the authors, before agriculture, sex was relatively promiscuous, and paternity was not a concern, in a similar way to the mating system of Bonobos. According to the book, sexual interactions strengthened the bond of trust in the groups; far from causing jealousy, social equilibrium and reciprocal obligation was strengthened by playful sexual interactions.
The book generated a great deal of publicity in the popular press, where it was met with generally positive reviews. A number of scholars from related academic disciplines such as anthropology, evolutionary psychology, primatology, biology, and sexology have commented on the book; most have been critical of the book's methodology and some of its conclusions, although some academics have praised the book.
The authors argue that human beings evolved in egalitarian hunter-gatherer bands in which sexual interaction was a shared resource, much like food, child care, and group defense.
They think that much of evolutionary psychology has been conducted with a bias regarding human sexuality. The authors argue that the public and many researchers are guilty of the "Flintstonization" of hunter-gatherer society; that is to say projecting modern assumptions and beliefs onto earlier societies. Thus they think that there has been a bias to assuming that our species is primarily monogamous despite what they argue to be evidence to the contrary. They argue for example, that our sexual dimorphism, testicle size, female copulatory vocalization, appetite for sexual novelty, various cultural practices, and hidden female ovulation, among other factors strongly suggest a non-monogamous, non-polygynous history. The authors argue that mate selection was not the subject of much intragroup competition among pre-agricultural humans, as sex was neither scarce nor commodified; rather sperm competition was a more important paternity factor than sexual selection. This behaviour survives among certain existent hunter-forager groups that believe in partible paternity.
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