I have learned, after 10 years together, to tell me husband exactly what I want to receive for birthdays and other gift-giving occasions. (This used to seem intolerably unromantic, but now it simply feels empowering.) So it was with great relish on Christmas Eve that I unwrapped a book I've been waiting patiently (for months!) to receive-- Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.
Between cleaning up after the Christmas Eve dinner I'd made of Gigot d'Agneau with roasted potatoes and garlic, braised fennel with gruyère and roasted tomatoes, hosting Christmas Brunch and fielding 'sharing' conflicts between my two daughters surrounding the new toys received, I've only finished the Intro and Chapter 1, but so far, the book has been jam-packed with good things. Like this, from page 14: "With agriculture, virtually everything changed: the nature of status and power, social and family structures, how humans interacted with the natural world, the gods they worshipped, the likelihood and nature of warfare between groups, quality of life, longevity and certainly, the rules governing sexuality."
The authors, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, also included this great graphic on page 13, which delineates the changes agriculture wrought on our species:
War, violence, possessiveness, jealously, male aggression and dominance...these are not the cornerstones of human nature, as so many seem to casually, tragically, believe. These are our species' compensatory responses a the sudden lack of abundance post-agriculture. And exploring the culture we, as gatherer-hunters, shared for 190,000 years, and how that culture offered us that original sense of abundance is exactly what this blog is about.
Post Script: I'm sure I'll write more about Sex At Dawn as I continue to read it, but in the meantime, find it here at Amazon.
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