October 16, 2013
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Thanks to the surviving cave art of our Paleolithic ancestors, we know that humans have been participating in group sex for thousands and thousands of years. So why is there so little research devoted to it?
Kate Frank, a sex researcher and author of Plays Well in Groups: A Journey Through the World of Group Sex, told me that there is little data to draw any definite conclusions about the evolution of group sex. In fact, she says there are no academic texts on the subject that she would recommend. She says it may be that scholars are hesitant to take on such a taboo topic.
Frank’s book, which was partly inspired by Thy Neighbor’s Wife—a Gay Talese book published in 1980 that nearly ruined both his marriage and his career—is based on ethnographic observation, interviews with participants, memoirs, journalistic accounts, academic publications, and personal experience. It “offers a cross-cultural look at some of the manifestations and meanings of group sex: who has it, how they do it, and why.”
What Frank can conclude from her extensive research is that group sex has been around since the beginning of human existence, but it has never been completely normative. Usually, she says, it was part of some sort of ritual or celebration and always a little bit taboo. “Humans have probably always done it. Even in the most conservative societies, people transgress,” she says.
While some modern-day Americans may indulge in threesomes or orgies to experiment or invigorate their sex lives, experts believe our ancestors had different motives. According to Frank, ritual group sex marked natural cycles and transitions in certain tribal societies, such as when couples were married or crops were planted. It’s also possible that they engaged in these acts to gain attention from the gods.
The book Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, offers an additional perspective. According to Ryan and Jethá, hunter gatherers were nonmonogamous and would participate in group sex. These bands were highly egalitarian and their social organization was structured around the importance of sharing, which naturally extended to their sexual relationships. The authors point out that during 95% of our time as an anatomically modern species (homo sapiens sapiens) we’ve been living in hunter gatherer bands, and that it wasn’t until the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago that attitudes toward sex began to shift.
In the grand scheme of things, we’ve been monogamous for a relatively short amount of time. No wonder so many humans struggle with fidelity.
Not only that, out of the hundreds of primate species in the world, there is not a single species living in complex social groups that is also sexually monogamous, Ryan points out in a podcast interview. Humans, however, believe that they’re different. “There’s a lot of arrogance and shame built into human consciousness,” he said. (For the bonobo, one of our two closest human relatives, group sex is as natural as eating. In an article in Psychology Today, Ryan said that if a group of bonobos is given a large amount of food, they will all have a big orgy before politely sharing the feast.)
Joe Kort, a doctor of clinical sexology, believes people partake in orgies and threesomes to experience variety and to enjoy multiple things at the same time. “I know it’s currently common in the gay community,” he says. “It’s also common among straight people, but it’s underground because people are so erotophobic [an abnormal fear of sexual feelings and their physical expression] and when they hear that, they put you in a kink category.”
Copyright: AlterNet