Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality Quotes

“Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality

“In particular, while natural selection favors both males and females that leave many offspring, the best strategy for doing so may be different for fathers and mothers. That generates a built-in conflict between the parents, a conclusion that all too many humans don’t need scientists to reveal to them. We make jokes about the battle of the sexes, but the battle is neither a joke nor an aberrant accident of how individual father or mothers behave on particular occasions. It is indeed perfectly true that behavior that is in a male’s genetic interests may not necessarily be in the interests of his female co-parent, and vice versa. That cruel fact is one of the fundamental causes of human misery.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality

“The daddy-at-home theory posits that concealed ovulation evolved to promote monogamy, to force the man to stay home, and thus to bolster his certainty about his paternity of his wife's children. The many-fathers theory instead posits that concealed ovulation evolved to give the women access to many sex partners and thus to leave many men uncertain as to whether they sired her children.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality

“Recreational sex is thus supposed to function as the glue holding a human couple together while they cooperate in rearing their helpless baby.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality

“Sex in social mammals is generally carried out in public, before the gazes of other members of the troop.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality

“That’s why the question what men are good for continues to be debated within our societies, as well as between anthropologists”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality

“big-bang reproduction, or semelparity: a single reproductive effort, followed by preprogrammed death.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality

“Sex is flagrantly separated from reproduction in a few species, including bonobos and dolphins.”
― Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality