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November 2007
Dominance, Submission, and Monogamy
The Evolutionary Psychology of Reproductive Strategies
Self-rated monogamy on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the most polygamous rating and 10 being the highest rating of monogamy
(Red=Female, Blue=Male)The size of the human genome consists of roughly 3.1 billion base pairs, while the lowly amoeba contains 670 billion. Why would a complex species like humans contain less DNA than a single-celled organism that reproduces asexually?
Vertebrate DNA is a bit "smarter" than invertebrate, as it is interlaced with more "switches" that selectively turn genes on and off, thereby timing the development and functioning of the vertebrate body--reducing the problems of a wide variety of molecules synthesized at the same time and interfering with each other.
The human genome contains around 25,000 genes compared to the roughly 12,000 genes of the average amoeba, which means that the amoebic genome contains much more "junk", that is, DNA with no function. The prolific reproductive rates of the amoeba have allowed the species to survive the deterioration of its genome, allowing for less diligence in the accurate replication of its DNA. It seems that the unstable replication of DNA can allow a highly reproductive species to survive when environments change quickly.
But humans are not as privileged as amoebas, since they reproduce at a much slower rate. Any significant problems with DNA replication are more likely to wipe us out. The greater efficiency of vertebrate DNA is also correlated with a strong bias towards sexual reproduction. Only more primitive vertebrates can reproduce asexually, and mammalian reproduction is exclusively sexual.
So why this curious relationship with organism complexity and sexual reproduction? This comes courtesy of meiosis, which subjects the genome to a sort of "managed" chaos, creating genetic variation without the mutation required by asexual reproduction.
This allows a species to adapt rapidly to environmental stresses without the need for mutation. This also allows the species to support a more complicated and lengthy process of reproduction, embryogenesis, and ultimately organism complexity.
Reproductive Strategies, Politics, and Religion
While sexual reproduction has been a shortcut for the genetic variation produced by mutation, it has unleashed a Pandora's Box of reproductive strategies, that is, behaviors which facilitate the survival of one's genes into future generations.
Reproductive strategies involve, among other factors, the timing, quantity, quality, and genetic variability of offspring. After birth, parental investment strategies take over, providing an endless continuum of reproductive approaches. Reproductive strategies are not usually planned, rather, arise from behaviors selected by evolution for the simple fact that they have provided a reproductive advantage in the past.
The political and religious significance of reproductive strategies is enormous, and is the common agent that links politics, religiosity, and natural selection. As we have discussed previously, Conservatives and Liberals anchor opposite ends of the reproductive strategy spectrum, (see The Population Biology of Conservatives and Liberals).
Monogamy
Life-long monogamy as a reproductive strategy is unpopular in the animal kingdom, and frequently arises under special circumstances, such as environments that are resource-constrained, and favor a head-start on reproduction and coordinated behavior among parents. This situation caters to life-long monogamous pairs, which are better organized for copulation, resource acquisition, and defense.
Among humans, 80% of all societies allow some form of polygamy. However, within these polygamous societies, 80% of the marriages are still monogamous. Monogamy is the predominate reproductive strategy of the human species.
However, the human grip on monogamy is tenuous, as the evolutionary appeal of genetic variation is indeed a corrosive influence, as seen in the graph at the top. Among the 1,817 respondents to our Sex Survey, about 50% of all females rate themselves as a "10" when it comes to monogamy, while about 40% of all males make that claim, although we must note that our survey has a disproportionate number of Liberals.
But what does monogamy mean? Note that most of those rating themselves a "10" had more than one sex partner in their lives, so monogamy is in fact serial, and simply means the commitment of resources, both reproductive and economic, to one partner at a time.
Serial monogamy is an evolutionary compromise between the parental investment necessary to raise slow-developing offspring and the evolutionary benefits of combining one's genes with more than one partner. Among humans, having sex with only one partner over one's entire lifetime is not very common.
Only 6% of all females aged 30 and over indicated they had only one sex partner in their entire life, while for males, this percentage was 7%. Our Liberal-laden survey underestimates the true population numbers, as those claiming life-long monogamy are shifted towards religiosity and political conservatism.
Life-long monogamy reduces the genetic variation of one's offspring, something that sexual reproduction tries hard to create. If genetic variation in offspring provides some sort of evolutionary advantage, then why does life-long monogamy exist?
We have so few respondents over 30 years old and having had only one sex-partner (males=58, females=16), that our data is far from conclusive. However, there are some notable trends that warrant some discussion, since they highlight some of the evolutionary advantages of both monogamy and polygamy.
The Evolutionary Psychology of Life-long Monogamy
Let's take a look at some of the data from a sub-sample of respondents from our Sex Survey. This sub-sample includes only those respondents 30 years and older. The selection of 30 and older is arbitrary, and simply reflects our inability to collect a sufficient sample of those aged 60 and over, which would be more reliable in determining whether one was really monogamous over one's lifetime.
But for those 30 and over, indicating only one sex partner their entire lives, we still see some distinguishing characteristics when compared to the more promiscuous, as seen in the table below.
Puberty, first sexual contact, attractiveness, and shyness by gender and number of sex partners (Ages 30 and over)
As seen in the above table, those with one sex partner reached puberty later than those with more. They also had their first sexual contact (either fondling, oral sex, or intercourse) at a much later age. In fact, age at first sexual contact was inversely correlated with number of sex partners. So was the self-rating of one's own attractiveness. This rating was based on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the highest rating.
The life-long monogamous also reported higher ratings of shyness. This was also based on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the highest level of shyness. Now let's take a look at some other variables in the table below.
No. of children, children wanted, dominance, confidence, and average minutes to orgasm by gender and number of sex partners
(Ages 30 and over)In the above table, both the life-long monogamous males and females (having only one sex partner) had the greatest desire for children, while the the life-long monogamous males had the most children. In contrast, the females with 51 or more partners wanted the fewest children, but had the most.
Also note that the life-long monogamous females had the lowest propensity to dominate their relationships, while the life-long monogamous males were second only to the males with 51 or more partners.
Also of note is attraction to "confident" partners, something that the life-long monogamous are not as concerned about. The more sex partners one has, the more they are looking for "confidence" in their partners. This is especially true for females.
And finally, the relationship between life-long monogamy and the ability to orgasm during copulation deserves some discussion. It seems that life-long monogamous females are the least likely to orgasm during copulation, while the females with 51 or more partners take the shortest time.
Oddly enough, this is reversed among males, where the life-long monogamous males are the quickest to orgasm, while males with 51 or more partners take the longest.
Discussion
What are we to make of all this data? The fact that shyness is correlated with life-long monogamy certainly hints at a sort of profiling of diverse psychological traits. That is, diverse psychological traits seem to be more likely to occur together due to the fact that they combine to produce a positive impact on reproduction.
This is seen with shyness and the strong desire for children. These two traits combine to produce a stable monogamous pair that better supports the parental investment required by a large family, and further, eliminates the problems that shyness creates in finding new sex partners.
This is also seen in those having a large number of sex partners, but having a lower desire for children. This combination of desire for a large number of sex partners seems to produce children without the commensurate desire for them. Those with lots of sex partners (51 or more) are the most effective at realizing their desire for children, that is, their ratio of number of actual children divided by the number of children wanted was the highest of any cohort.
Also, our data implies that greater male dominance produces more offspring, something observed in other species. The curious sexual roleplay of dominance-submission seems to be an echo of the evolutionary game of reproductive advantage. Further, it seems that higher male dominance and greater female submissiveness increases relationship duration, which supports the parental investment required for a large number of children with the same partner.
The curious ability of life-long monogamous males to orgasm quickly certainly implicates something in their sexual arousal systems that is rather unique among males. We can only speculate that the dopamine system, which facilitates monogamous bonding, also seems to be assisting in the sexual performance of males. It is certainly interesting that the quicker that males orgasm with the same female, the more likely they will be monogamous.
The life-long monogamous seem to be adapting olfactory and somatosensory cues more than those with many sex partners, which are more likely to be aroused by auditory and visual cues. Also interesting was that the life-long monogamous were both more educated and more introverted.
This is an indicator that their inhibition of polygamous tendencies is facilitated by the prefrontal cortex, and the left prefrontal cortex in particular. This certainly ties in well with their higher levels of religiosity and political conservatism.
Also interesting was that the life-long monogamous females reported a very high utilization rate of estrogen (50%), although their sample size (n=16) is too small to make too much of this.
But human reproductive strategies will be hard to account for by any simple theory, and seem to be combining diverse sets of traits that interact to produce a reproductive profile, or phenotype. The diversity of reproductive phenotypes is enormous, is heavily modulated by social cues, and further, indicates that reproductive effectiveness is heavily dependent on genes located on the autosomes, that is, the non-sex chromosomes.
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Sexual Arousal, Reproductive Output, and Aberrant Sexual Behavior
The categorization of nouns into masculine and feminine classes is popular characteristic of most languages. In German, "die Bibliothek" means "the library", as the article die denotes that Bibliothek is a feminine noun. "Der Hund" means "the dog", as the article der denotes that Hund is a masculine noun.
What function does assigning Bibliothek a feminine article have? After all, languages such as English have dropped grammatical gender to a large degree. Certain languages even create separate noun classes for animate and inanimate objects, edible plants, and large and small objects.
But gender classification is the most ubiquitous method for languages to categorize nouns, as it seems the human brain is unusually predisposed to assign a gender valence to objects that have no gender. But why?
The brain organizes the storage of nouns and verbs into different regions of the brain, and further, seems to organize them into "subclasses", that is, nouns for objects that share "common" attributes, such as living and non-living, are located differently.
But the assignment of gender to nouns seems to be an evolutionary echo of the strong influence that reproduction has had on the organization of the brain. Reproductive capacity is under extreme selective pressure, and phylogenetically ancient species have overloaded their nervous systems with reproductive tasks, such as assigning a reproductive valence to the storage and processing of a large variety of diverse information.
While grammatical gender implicates a substantial bias of the brain for organizing both reproductive and non-reproductive information in a common fashion, it also implies a substantial overlap of the arousal systems: hunger, thirst, pain, fear, and sex. Further, it points to a general arousal mechanism that works independently of these more specific arousal systems.
This general arousal system, which has been documented in mice, indicates that arousal for sex, hunger, thirst, pain, and fear share common neural substrates, and might explain the curious adoption of food, pain, and fear into certain sexual practices.
This general arousal system facilitates both the arousal triage performed by the brain when two competing desires, such as hunger and thirst, must be prioritized to direct a single behavior. It also supports a basal arousal level that defaults to hunger or sexual desire (and possibly thirst, pain, fear) in the absence of competing stimuli. It is interesting to note that religiosity seems to be integrated with the inhibition of this general arousal system.
Eliminate thirst, fear, and pain from the arousal queue, and sex or hunger (and possibly religiosity) moves to the top. Cueless sexual arousal, or arousal that arises without any external sexual stimuli, is a reproductive advantage.
But it also seems to be a source of aberrant sexual behavior. A excellent example of this phenomenon is seen during arousal states created by extreme hunger, when the number of acceptable foods one will eat increases dramatically. Sexual arousal has the same dynamic, as the number and variety of sexual practices that one will engage in increases during high levels of arousal.
This phenomenon is evident in our Sex Survey, where we asked the 1,817 respondents to rate their average level of sexual arousal, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highest. We also asked their reactions to a variety of erotic themes and stimuli, such as bondage, group sex, and anal sex.
Arousal for specific erotic themes by gender and level of sexual arousal
(1-3=never or rarely aroused, 4-5=little arousal, 6-7=sometimes aroused,
8-9=often aroused, 10=always aroused)In the above table, we grouped our arousal scores into five different "arousal" cohorts. We also asked them to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest level of erotic stimulation, their attitudes about bondage, group sex, and anal sex. We further asked if they ever had a homosexual experience, how many times they masturbated, and how many children they have.
Self-rated sexual arousal is highly correlated with arousal to diverse sexual stimuli, such as bondage, group sex, and anal sex. These three erotic themes have little in common, but the higher the level of general sexual arousal, the more likely one will be more stimulated by all of these sexual themes.
Inconsistent Heterosexuality and Reproductive Advantage
In last month's edition, we noted a curious correlation between the number of offspring one has and those having had at least one homosexual experience in their life. We refer to this as inconsistent heterosexuality, which is a more accurate way to describe human sexual behavior, as it accounts for the variance in heterosexual and homosexual behavior that can occur over the human lifespan.
As can be seen in the above table, the number of children one has correlates with one's average level of sexual arousal. Further, it correlates positively with the probability of having at least one homosexual experience. Thus the curious relationship between inconsistent heterosexuality and the number of children.
While engaging in homosexual behavior does not by itself improve reproductive rates, it seems to correlate with the general level of sexual arousal, which does. That is, strong sexual arousal states increase both the probability one will engage in homosexual behavior, along with simultaneously increasing the probability for heterosexual behavior, and ultimately reproductive yield.
Bondage: Gender-Specific Sexual Arousal?
In the table above, it is interesting to note that females reported similar erotic ratings for bondage, group sex, and anal sex. On the other hand, males reported similar ratings for group sex and anal sex, but were much less stimulated by bondage.
This appears to be an example of gender-specific sexual arousal, that is, the erotic stimuli has a different impact on males and females. Female submissiveness is positively correlated with reproductive output, and this may explain the curious arousal impact of bondage, and why females tend to take the submissive role in the erotic roleplay theme of dominance-submission.
This same female-male asymmetry holds with rape fantasies, presenting an interesting enigma in male and female sexual arousal. The asymmetries we see between males and females to various erotic stimuli are numerous, and have evolutionary overtones. However, we will hold this discussion for later.
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The Sex Lives of the Very Religious
The Curious Combination of Sexual Inhibition and High Reproductive Rates
God, Reproductive Advantage, and Evolutionary Game TheoryThe Very Religious and secular populations always seem to be in some form of social conflict, be it political or violent. There is a very simple explanation for this, which highlights the connection between religiosity and reproductive advantage.
Secular society has a negative impact on reproductive rates, and the Very Religious, the reigning monarchs of the evolutionary game of reproductive advantage, struggle to maintain their reproductive yield when exposed to the secular. The greater the influence of secular society, the lower their reproductive rates.
Unfortunately, the technological, medical, and defensive advantages provided by secular populations force the Very Religious to maintain a tenuous foothold in that world, and seek other measures to isolate themselves, such as home or religious schools. If their numbers are large enough, they will attempt to organize that secular world religiously, as currently being experienced in a number of countries, including the United States.
This is a tall order, as the social stress associated with even a large geographically dispersed religious population organized upon a single religious doctrine is substantial, and invariably leads to social splintering, for two primary reasons.
First, large monoreligious populations, just like large secular populations, tend to reduce birth rates. This induces congregational splintering and emigration, improving the reproductive rates of the splintered factions. Second, religious groups tend to organize around lowered genetic distance more than secular populations, exacerbating the "normal" levels of social conflict between ethnic groups.
While the Very Religious generally maintain conservative viewpoints across a wide variety of issues, they are almost obsessively focused on issues with an impact on reproductive yield, such as homosexuality and abortion.
Strength of religiosity and reproductive yield are highly correlated variables, as the neural substrates of religiosity appear to be curiously enmeshed with sexual behavior (see The Darwin Code). Given the strong sexual content of the secular media, one might presume it to be a positive influence on sexual arousal, and ultimately reproductive rates. However, among the Very Religious, it is just the opposite, as isolation from this sex-charged secular world improves reproductive yield.
So how does this aversion to the sexualized secular world improve the reproductive rates of the Very Religious? This is not easily answered, as peeking into the sex lives of the Very Religious might be harder than finding Sasquatch. It seems they would rather submit to a tax audit than answer questions about their sex lives.
However, we have been able to gather a few bits and pieces from our numerous surveys, most notably from our recent Sex Survey. Even though our samples of the Very Religious are small, (males=134, females=34), and under the influence of the sexual uncertainty principle, they give us a murky window into the mysterious sexual behavior that makes them the most reproductively prolific population on earth.
Arousal, Masturbation, and Pornography
In our Sex survey, the Very Religious females reported the lowest level of sexual arousal and the lowest percentage looking at pornography, either frequently or sometimes. Among the males, the Very Religious reported the lowest rates of looking at pornography. The Very Religious males and females also reported low rates of masturbation.
Sexual arousal, masturbation, and pornography, by gender and religiosity Sexual Arousal is self-rated, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Those indicating some level of religiosity (i.e., Very, Moderately, or Little) had lower rates of masturbation than the Spiritual, Agnostic, and Atheists.
As we have noted before, the Spiritual share more cognitive attributes with the Atheists and Agnostics than they do with the Religious, which we believe to be an indicator that spirituality is predominately the construct of the right cerebral hemisphere, more specifically, the right temporoparietal cortex.
Among males, the average levels of sexual arousal are remarkably consistent regardless of religiosity. However, rates of masturbation for the religious are lower than the Spiritual, Agnostics, and Atheists. Among the males, the Very Religious males reported the lowest rate of masturbation, while the Moderately Religious females reported the lowest rates of masturbation, followed by the Very Religious females.
Monogamy, Fidelity, and Number of Sex Partners
We asked the respondents to rate their level of monogamy on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest level of monogamy. We also asked them if they ever engaged in an act of "unfaithfulness", although we did not delineate whether it was within a marital or non-marital relationship. Also listed below are the number of different sex partners.
Monogamy, fidelity, and number of sex partners by gender and religiosity The Very Religious report the highest rates of monogamy, the lowest rates of infidelity, and the lowest number of different sex partners in both genders. The Spiritual, in both genders, reported the greatest number of sex partners. Also interesting to note is that the self-rating of monogamy increases with the level of religiosity.
Percent With Partners, Length of Relationship, and Dominance in Relationship
The religious were more likely to have a current partner than the Spiritual, Agnostics, or Atheists, as seen in the table below.
Percent with partners, length of relationship, and dominance in relationship Overall, the Very Religious females report the highest rate of having a current partner, the highest average length of relationship (among females), and the lowest rate of dominance in their relationships. The Moderately Religious females reported the second highest rates of having a current partner and length of relationship.
In contrast, the Atheist females reported the shortest average length of relationship, and the highest dominance level, for females, within those relationships.
On the male side, the Very Religious reported the highest overall average length of relationship and the highest rate of dominance within that relationship, followed on both counts by the Moderately Religious. The Little Religious reported the highest rate of having a current partner. Just like the females, those reporting some level of religiosity were more likely to have a current partner than the non-religious.
Note that the religious (Very, Moderately, and Little) are slightly older, on average, than our non-religious respondents (Spiritual, Agnostic, and Atheist). Note also the very large gap in dominance within a relationship reported by the Very Religious males and females.
Number of Children, Number of Children Wanted, and Heterosexuality
We asked the respondents to our Sex survey to rate their level of heterosexuality on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest level of heterosexuality. We also inquired about how many children they had, and how many children they want(ed). The results are listed in the table below.
Number of children, number of children wanted, and heterosexuality The Very Religious males and females both wanted and had the most children, and also had the highest self-rating of heterosexuality. Our surveys attract an educated community, and their reproductive rates are typically lower than the general population.
In general, the religious (Very, Moderately, and Little), in both genders, had more children and wanted more children than the non-religious (Spiritual, Agnostic, and Atheist).
Sexual Intercourse, Oral Sex, and Sense of Smell
We asked the respondents to rate how much they like to perform oral sex, on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest preference. We also asked them to rate their sense of smell, also on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating. Further, we asked how many times per week that they had sex, on average. The results are in the table below.
Sexual intercourse, oral sex, and sense of smell Rates of sexual intercourse do not show any distinct trend among the various religiosity cohorts, although there is a slight elevation for the female Agnostics and Atheists. However, rates of sexual intercourse are a negative function of length of relationship, and Agnostics and Atheists have shorter relationships, on average.
In both genders, the Very Religious report the lowest preference for oral sex, followed by the Moderately Religious. The Very Religious also report the highest sense of smell, an indicator of activity in the temporal cortex.
Discussion
The religious, and especially the Very Religious, maintain a higher reproductive bias in their sexual behavior than the non-religious. This bias obviously facilitates reproductive output, as the Very Religious are significantly elevated from the rest of the religiosity cohorts when it comes to the number of children wanted.
In general, the religious cohorts want more children than the non-religious cohorts, which highlights the fundamental link between evolution and religiosity, that is, reproductive output.
The Very Religious masturbate less, report lower average rates of sexual arousal, report higher rates of monogamy, lower rates of infidelity, lower numbers of different sex partners, higher rates of heterosexuality, lower preferences for oral sex, and a greater sense of smell.
The Very Religious appear to be steering their answers towards religiously acceptable responses, so their data has more uncertainty than the non-religious cohorts. This is also compounded by the difficulty in getting them to respond to our Sex Survey, as our sample sizes of the Very Religious are much lower than our previous non-sex related surveys.
But their responses certainly are consistent with the optimization of their reproductive output. Their tendency towards inhibition of sexual practices that have little or no reproductive value, tendency for longer relationships and higher male dominance facilitate reproductive rates and the parental investment required to support them. On average, the more that males are able to dominate their relationships, the more offspring are produced.
As we have proposed before, this odd mixture of sexual inhibition and reproductive output seems to be facilitated by the dopaminergic system, and also seems to be topographically centered on the left temporal cortex. This region of the brain facilitates the assignment of negative valences towards sexual behaviors and stimuli, supports the phenomenon of belief bias, and just happens to be the primary region implicated in the hyper-religious personality.
The population biology of the Very Religious (see The God or r, the God of K) makes them very active agents in emigration and the settling of new territories. This is usually instigated by reproductive stress caused by high-density secular populations. Given the heredity of political and religious disposition and the high reproductive rates of the Very Religious, this ongoing conflict is not likely to cease anytime soon, if at all.
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Charles Brack and Xi Zhang, November 2007
Email: Brack@neuropolitics.org
Zhang@neuropolitics.org
