{"id":47419,"date":"2013-07-03T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/how-we-mate-and-why-we-cheat-on-each-other\/47419\/"},"modified":"2013-07-03T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T07:30:00","slug":"how-we-mate-and-why-we-cheat-on-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/how-we-mate-and-why-we-cheat-on-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Mate and Why We Cheat on Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: HarperCollins<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

June 27, 2013<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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Are human beings monogamous by nature? According to the conventional wisdom, it is in the interests of a woman to keep a male as a protector\/provider, and in the interests of a man to provide only for his own children. <\/p>\n

In Sex at Dawn<\/em>: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships<\/em>, Christopher Ryan and coauthor Cacilda Jeth\u00c3\u00a1 aim to answer the question, \u201cWhat is the essence of human sexuality and how did it get to be that way?\u201d They contend that, \u201cCultural shifts that began about ten thousand years ago rendered the true story of human sexuality so subversive and threatening that for centuries it has been silenced by religious authorities, pathologized by physicians, studiously ignored by scientists, and covered up by moralizing therapists.\u201d <\/p>\n

And that true story? They liken us most to bonobos. \u201cWe didn\u2019t descend from apes. We are apes.\u201d Further, \u201cHuman beings evolved in intimate groups where almost everything was shared\u2013food, shelter, child care, even sexual pleasure.\u201d <\/p>\n

Terrence McNally: <\/strong>Could you talk about your path to the work that you do today? <\/p>\n

Christopher Ryan<\/strong>: My father taught literature in university, my grandfather taught literature in university, and my mother was an English teacher. I grew up in a house of books, and I love books. <\/p>\n

I was doing my undergraduate work at Hobart College in upstate New York, and the student body was all sort of right-wing, George Bush\u2019s niece was in my class. This was \u201980 to \u201984. The Reagan revolution was in full swing; everybody was chasing money. It was frat-boy central, but the faculty was sort of radical left-wing, Marxist, feminist. I ended up connecting much more with the faculty than with the student body. I was hanging out with the professors, winning awards, on the fast track to academia. <\/p>\n

McNally:<\/strong> Going into the family business\u2026 <\/p>\n

Ryan:\u00a0<\/strong>Exactly.<\/p>\n

I found a loophole in the student handbook that would allow me to graduate on time but skip my junior year, so I took advantage of it. My parents were paying cash for a very expensive education. I told them, \u201cLook, I can save you guys a year\u2019s tuition and I can go have an adventure. Then I\u2019ll come back and finish up.\u201d <\/p>\n

I hitchhiked from New York to Alaska, did salmon fishing and worked in a cannery gutting salmon. I was this self-proclaimed pedantic little genius with my collected poetry of DH Lawrence in my backpack. A lot of the people who picked me up along the way were unimaginably generous and kind to me. They\u2019d put me in the back seat with their little kids. They\u2019d take me home and let me sleep in their house. <\/p>\n

Why were these people so trusting and kind? I started to see that they were not at all intellectuals, but that there was a deeper kind of intelligence at work that I had not really thought about. <\/p>\n

I ended up having a midlife crisis at 20. I looked back at my friends in the university world who were really smart, super high IQ, and I realized that if these people I was meeting had appeared in our world, they wouldn\u2019t have been met with the same sort of generosity and kindness. <\/p>\n

I started thinking, \u201cWho do I want to be like? What kind of life do I want to have?\u201d <\/p>\n

That summer I said, \u201cOkay, I don\u2019t know what the hell I\u2019m doing with this life and I\u2019m too young to make a decision. So until I\u2019m 30, I\u2019m not going to make a commitment to anything or anyone.\u201d <\/p>\n

Republished with permission from: AlterNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit: HarperCollins June 27, 2013 \u00a0| Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Are human beings monogamous by nature? According to the conventional wisdom, it is in the interests of a woman to keep a male as a protector\/provider, and in the interests of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-47419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}