Thursday 2 September 2010

Chapter Nine - Sexual Evolution. (Or, how did men and women get to be sexually incompatible?)

Back in the 19th century and early 20th century it was commonly believed that respectable women didn't enjoy sex. Then with the rise of women's Liberation in the 1960s women came out and claimed that they were capable for enjoying sex as much as men. Since then women's sexuality has been openly discussed to the degree that men are becoming aware that women probably can enjoy sex, as much, if not more than what men can.

The 19th century belief was that women do not enjoy sex, fitted in nicely with the belief that men had always been the dominant sex. This is because in evolutionary terms if this is true, then there was no need for women to enjoy sex because it was assumed that men initiated all sexual encounters. Men being the dominant sex were at liberty to have sex with women or their wives whenever they felt like it. (Women up until very recently were not legally able to refuse their husband sex). This means in evolutionary terms there was no need for women to enjoy sex, as she didn't have a say in the matter. So even if women had no sexual desire, women can still have children, because she plays the passive role.

The acceptance today that women do enjoy sex, shows that in the past women must of had a choice about whether they wanted to have sex or not. Because having sexual desires means that women have a drive to initiate sex. Certainly today with far fewer patriarchal restrictions on women they are showing they are capable of being assertive and even dominant in wanting sex. These desires don't come out of nowhere and suggests that they come from behaviour that was once commonplace. Before women were controlled by patriarchal laws, customs and taboos.

This then presents a very different picture of our Stone Age past than what palaeontologists have led us to believe. We now can go back four million years, to the first humans, compared with the four or five thousand years of recorded history. This means that 99.9% of human existence is unknown. So we can see that what happened in the Stone Age is far more important in making us what we are, than recorded history.

It always has been assumed that men have been the dominant sex, so all images we have of the Stone-Age is of man being the dominant and brutal hunter while women have been the submissive and brutalised slave. Millions of years of brutal men and brutalised women would make it unlikely for women to enjoy sex because it would have no evolutionary advantage, if men were at liberty to rape women. So the fact that women have a clitoris and sexual desires and can have an orgasm suggests that in the Stone Age women were not as submissive as portrayed, because in evolutionary terms something that is not used ends up disappearing. So it means that women's sexual desires and pleasure must of been an important aspect of the mating between women and men during the Stone Age. Which suggests that the development of women's sexual desires means that in the past women were capable of initiating sex as much as men are.

This could suggest the relationships between women and men were equal during the Stone Age. Because if both sexes had an equal desire for sex then it suggests that sex only came about when both partners wanted it. Unfortunately it is not that simple, as women's sexuality is more complicated than this. What has become very clear in recent years is that not all women can enjoy sex through penetration. This is because the clitoris is located near the outside of the vagina and with many women the clitoris is not stimulated by a male penis inside them. To make matters even more complex, it seems that the timing of sex seems to be different for most men and women as well. Most young men it seems can become aroused and ejaculate far quicker than most women. This has caused real problems in the sexual relationships in recent times.

Back in the 19th century sex was easy for men. No wife was able to legally refuse sex from her husband. So he could have sex whenever and however he wanted to. As it was believe that women didn't enjoy sex he didn't have to worry about her feelings, as foreplay then was unknown, as was the female orgasm. He was a liberty to put his penis in his wife and not worry if she was aroused and lubricated. As it was his wife's duty to lie back and endure any pain she might have from having his penis in her dry vagina. Anyway it usually didn't last too long, as most men can come within a few minutes.

In the 20th century sex has become far more difficult for men. Women demanded that men give them foreplay so their arousal will lubricate their vagina. So the man in a aroused state had to wait, until she was ready, then when he was inside her he then was told to delay his ejection until she reached orgasm before he was allowed to come. Unfortunately many men have been unable to manage all this and as we can see with the popularity of the drug Viagra, impotency has become commonplace among men in modern times. This is because in foreplay, some men loose their erections while their wives or girlfriends are slowly aroused. If a man gets past this hurdle he then has to control when he ejects. Not all men are able to do this, if he ejects too early he is accused of being a selfish and if he has to hang on for too long he again can lose his erection. While other men they find they can keep on pumping away as long as they like they will never bring their partner to orgasm, because her clitoris is not stimulated by the movement of this penis. All this has undermined the confidence of many men sexually whom today are considered to be failures if they cannot give their wives an orgasm with their penises. Resulting in many men buckling under the pressure, and becoming impotent.

So to protect their partners some women have to fake orgasm. The irony is that in the 19th century a good Christian woman if she has a orgasm had to suppress this feeling and pretend she didn’t have it, because “respectable” women didn’t enjoy sex. While in the 20th century when social customs change, women who didn’t have orgasms with their husband had to “fake it” for the sake of his ego, or because she could be accused of being frigid.

What many women have discovered is that to enjoy sex it is far easier for them to masturbate themselves than to have a man's penis inside them. This is also true if a man wants to give a woman sexual pleasure, for many women he is far more likely to do a better job with his finger or tongue than with his penis. This then means for many couples if a man wants to give a woman sexual enjoyment it would be far better if he forgets about his penis and his own sexual pleasure and gives his partner oral or manual sex.

Does this mean that nature has played a cruel trick on the human race? In that women and men do not seem to be sexually compatible. Human beings seem to be set up sexually to make it difficult for men and women to mutually enjoy sex together. It is far easier for the man to enjoy sex if either he or his partner is worried about her sexual enjoyment. The same is true if a woman wants to enjoy sex it is far easier if the man gives her what she wants and not worry about his physical enjoyment.

Certainly sex between homosexual couples seems to be far easier than between heterosexual couples. This is because two men or two women together have very much the same attitude and feelings about sex as each other. While women and men seem to live on different planets not only are they physically incompatible, for reasons I have mentioned, but are incompatible emotionally as well. Men think about sex in terms of power, pleasure, a quick ejaculation and little emotional involvement, while women think about sex in terms of love, romance, unhurried sensual pleasure and personal feelings.

This then could point to men and women having homosexual relations in the Stone Age, like that of the bonobo. In that women formed a strong Lesbian sisterhood. The position of the clitoris does make it very easy for lesbian women to enjoy sex with each other. Also if Stone-Age lesbians did began to fashion dildos and use them on each other, (Dildos have been found in Stone-Age excavations,) this would mean in evolutionary terms women’s vaginas would become used to having long sex sessions as she wouldn’t be in a hurry to orgasm. The same is true for men. It is a strange fact that men’s anus can lubricate in the same way as a women’s vagina lubricates when sexually aroused. So in evolutionary terms homosexual sex play must of been very commonplace in the four million years of human history. To make these physical changes in our sexual make up.

Homosexuality was prominent in some civilisations in historical time like in Ancient Greece where it seems that as one time homosexuality was more commonplace than heterosexuality. Because of this in Sparta the women formed a strong lesbian sisterhood that allowed them far more freedoms and power than in any other part of Greece. Unfortunately this freedom and power in the end worked against them.

Although Sparta was a military State where the young boys were trained to be soldiers from a very early age. The freedom given to it’s women, was in complete contrast to its neighbour Athens. Which although was the birthplace of Democracy, the men completely subjugated their women. Although Sparta was a very successful military state and defeated Athens in 404 BC, it seems its military downfall was caused by the freedom it gave to its women. In Athens and other Ancient Greek states women didn’t have control over their own bodies. So they couldn’t refuse sex from their husbands and were forced to have large numbers of children. In Sparta on the other hand women had complete control over their own bodies and could refuse her husband or any other man sex, (it seems the Spartan women even had the freedom to openly have sex with other men). This then means they were free to decide how many children she wanted to have. As the result over many years as the population of the surrounding Greek states grew, the population and in Sparta declined. Resulting in Sparta being heavily outnumbered when other Greek states, finally ganged up on her.

In modern times we still have the same problem. Western counties where women have greater freedom, have stable populations while inhabitants in countries where women are still subjugated keeping on growing at a alarming rate. Fortunately the Western countries are very powerful both economically and militarily and so are not likely to be conquered by a much larger military force in the foreseeable future. Like what happened to the Spartans.

Though this could be the problem for female freedom in the future. In any Feminist or matriarchal country the population will be stable and even decline. While in patriarchal counties the population will keep on growing. This then makes it very difficult for patriarchal and matriarchal countries to live together, because matriarchal countries will be under increasing pressure of immigration or conquest from patriarchal countries. Because patriarchal counties will need somewhere for its surplus population to go, and they will want live in the less crowed matriarchal countries.

So in the long term the concept of female freedom is a worldwide issue. Because while there are countries where women do not have control over their own bodies, the population of these countries will continue to grow. Which means in time they will import their culture and beliefs into countries where women have greater freedom through immigration or conquest. It is true at present immigrates that go to Europe and North America tend to be converted to a more Western lifestyle after a generation or two. Yet the pressure is still there, and we have the possible danger of the whole world going back to a extreme form of patriarchy through the population explosion in patriarchal countries. In other words what happened to the Spartans could also happen to Western countries if their population rate declines too fast.

All this seems to show that the Feminist ideal of sexual equality is very difficult on both the personal and global levels. If this strange state of affairs is brought about through evolution then what is this telling us about our ancestors in the Stone-Age? If Stone-Age men and women were equal in status with each other, then the sexual timing of women and men's orgasm would be very similar. They would take about the same time to get aroused, in that it would take the same amount of time for a man to get an erection, as it does for a woman to be lubricated. While the clitoris would be in a position to be stimulated by the penis when a man penetrates a woman. The fact that these things don't often happen, suggests that equality between the sexes wasn't very common during the Stone Age.

For women's sexual organs to evolve through millions of years where many women today can only enjoy sex, with a partner stimulating their clitoris with their finger or tongue. Means that women had to be able to control men. To the degree that men were willing to give up any idea of sexual enjoyment with women and only concentrate on her enjoyment, for thousands of generations. Or women had other women as sexual partners instead of men.

What we don't know about the people of the Stone Age is whether they linked the sexual-act with childbirth. Some academics claim that human being have only discovered this in the last few thousand years in civilised times. Yet recent research has discovered that human beings in the Stone Age were as far more intelligent than was previously thought. In fact some skeletons of Stone Age people has shown they had larger brains that the average person today. The more scientists find about Stone-Age people the more sophisticated and intelligent they become, so there is the possibility that human beings worked out the connection between sex and childbirth a half-a-million or a million years ago or more. It has to be remembered that in Western countries a birth control pill was only discovered only in the 1960s. Yet the Aborigines of Australia who had a Stone-Age culture before Europeans settled there, had knowledge of herbs that would also prevent women from having children. This means we know of one Stone-Age people who were far in advance of Western knowledge about birth control until the 1960s. Thus suggests that if in the Stone Age women knew about the connection between sex and childbirth it would make sense of why women then and now have evolved to a state where they have separated sexual pleasure from conception.

If there were matriarchal societies in the Stone Age and women also had worked out how to have sex with a man without having a child. What women could do is to order their male sexual partner to stimulate their clitoris and not to penetrate them. Or alternatively they would order the man to hold back their ejection and withdraw after she has an orgasm or if he cannot hold back any longer, if this practice continued over many thousands of generations. It would increase the length of time it would take women to orgasm because having men under control it wouldn't matter how long she took. Also if women regularly practised having men stimulate their clitoris with either a finger or tongue. They again wouldn't be in a hurry to orgasm and may even try to delay it so they can enjoy the pleasure for a longer period of time.

So we can see that having matriarchal sex with women in control with over many thousands of years can physically change women. As many women will start to get all their sexual pleasure from clitoris stimulation rather than penetration. So they will evolve to a degree where it doesn't matter if their clitoris is not stimulated if there is a penis inside them. Because they only time they will want penetration is when they want children. Or if women did prefer penetrative sex then they would train men to withhold ejaculation. This has been practised by men in historic times in Chinese and Indian through the religions of Taoism and Tantra. Where men learn to have sexual intercourse without ejaculation. The reason they give is that they claim ejaculation weakens a man’s spiritual energy. Yet it also has to be admitted that it gives women a great advantage during sex. In that she can take as long as she likes in coming to orgasm. Suggesting that if was probably a woman who invented this concept. It is of interest that Tantra worships the Goddess Kali, while Taoism worships the Tao, which in the Tao-Te-Ching is called, “the mother” or “the mysterious female”. So Taoism and Tantra practices that give women all the advantages in sex also worshipped Goddesses. Strongly suggesting that both these religions originated in a ancient matriarchal society.

It is of interest that scientists have found that in Neolithic times and even back in the times of the old Stone Age people then were obsessed with creating calendars, the most famous being Stonehenge and the many stone circles found in Britain, Ireland, and France. Yet scientists have discovered markings on bone that clearly show Stone-Age people keeping track of the phases of the moon 30 thousand years ago. So why was Stone-Age people so obsessed with time and the phases of the moon? A obvious reason would be that Stone-Age women probably worked out that their menstruation period roughly fitted in with the phases of the moon. They also may have worked out from this when they were fertile and when they weren't. This would mean that they might have worked out the best time when they would allow men to ejaculate inside them to have children. This suggest that men having been trained to withhold ejection, when given the chance to ejaculate inside a woman would probably come very quickly. This is because the women would be more interested in conceiving than sexual pleasure, when she wanted to conceive. So the man would want to come quickly in case she might change her mind. This certainly would be a consideration in a society where there is no marriage, as the women may have other sex partners lined up if he didn't perform quickly enough.

In many patriarchal cultures even today the clitorises of young women are removed. Perhaps the original reason for this is the knowledge that sexually active women are dominant woman. So men attempted to make women more submissive by removing their clitorises. This suggests that when this practice was first started off in the ancient past, men were aware that very sexually active women were also dominant.

If this is true then were the patriarchal and matriarchal ages equal? With both women and men ruling at about the same length of time. It is of interest that women are far more sensual than men in sex play. For thousands of years men have dominated women and used them as sex-slaves. Yet if a man goes to a very submissive prostitute even though he can use her however he likes for his own pleasure, in the end most men seem to be more concerned in ejaculating quickly, than any sensual pleasure she can give him.

Yet it has been shown in recent times when the roles are reverse and a woman can buy sex from men they have a very different attitude. A woman can enjoy hours of sensual and sexual play and massage. While although men can enjoy sex play and being massaged they soon get tired of this. This has been discovered in massage parlours where men soon get aroused when being massaged by a young woman and he quickly wants to ejaculate. This might be because women have in the past have enjoyed men giving them sexual and sensual pleasure far more than women doing the same for men. So men are not used to receiving sensual and sexual pleasure from women and only want a quick orgasm, while women in the past through many thousands of years of matriarchal rule are used to men giving them unhurried sexual and sensual pleasure.

This then suggests that patriarchal rule by men are in evolutionary terms were fairly brief. After a patriarchal age women would know the reason why they must keep men under firm control. Because if all patriarchal ages are the same then both women and men will know how much conflict, fear, hatred and violence is caused when men rule society. So a warning would be passed down from mother to daughter never to allow men to get into a position of power again. Yet over many thousands of years this warning would become weaker and may even be forgotten, or just dismissed as an exaggerated myth. So some women will take pity on men and decide that it is unfair to treat men like slaves and give them equal rights. This then allows the competitive nature of men to be reawakened and soon men are ruling society through fear and violence. Until all people, including men, get fed up with the patriarchal world of suffering and go back to matriarchy again.

So there is probably a matriarchal/patriarchal cycle, but as women have a greater capacity to enjoy themselves sexually when they are in the dominant position then men, it suggests the patriarchal ages are far shorter than the matriarchal ages. As it seems from their behaviour women have had far more experience of dominating men sexually.

1 comment:

Paulette Nuss said...

Is it more natural and more logical for women to choose yopunger men not the other way round ? It seems logical that in cossing stronger genes this could be the case ? Is it not more logical, to ensure procreation of his genes , that a male should go for non virgins ie women who have shown that they are not barren by already having successfully given birth and raised infants successfully too? Could this explain one of the reasons why young men often find older women more exciting and attractive ? How does that translate in modern times re taboos ? WAs the age re number of years of any relevance then or were they more concerned with the condition and the attractiveness of the female. DID they have a mechanism why which to age an individual re number of years? Were they not more concerned with health as in the animal kingdom. The following link hints (at the very least) to the possible answers to these questions.http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/200903/did-stone-age-men-and-women-sleep-around-and-should-we-care