Essays
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Sexual Behavior - Emery Thompson, Melissa
Research on human sexual behavior is a multidisciplinary pursuit that seeks to understand one of the most vital and complex aspects of our biology. Foundations for this study include the basic principles of sexual selection, including differential reproductive roles of male and female, and the processes of sexual differentiation. Study of human sexual behavior is made vastly more complex by emotional involvements and the diversity of sexual behaviors exhibited by our species. Historically, sex researchers have struggled to overcome the methodological challenges involved with objective study of behavior in our own species and with the ethical and political implications of their work. Early research focused on merely quantifying the spectrum of human sexual behaviors and on understanding the physiological and psychological processes of sexual response. Subsequent work developed the concept of gender and began to address how behavioral and corporeal manifestations of sex can diverge from one another. Modern studies incorporate a variety of advanced scientific techniques to investigate mechanistic and functional hypotheses for specific behaviors. This review highlights four prominent research topics, highlighting current understanding, cutting edge work, and key issues for future research: mate preferences, concealed ovulation, sexual coercion, and homosexuality. In each of these areas of research, there is strong evidence for biological influences on behavior. It is also clear that known biological mechanisms only partly explain actual behavioral patterns, suggesting strong mediation by cultural, environmental, and developmental processes. -
The Sexual Division of Labor - Bird, Rebecca Bliege
Many evolutionary arguments fossilize a human division of labor as one of man the hunter, and woman the gatherer, with differences in labor arising out of the effectiveness of efficiency. We suggest here that arguments based solely on the efficiency of labor specialization among heterosexual married pairs over‐generalize divisions of labor that are, in reality, much more diverse. Divisions of labor can be based on age, as well as on gender, and are not limited solely to monogamous marital pairs. Divisions of gender take the form more generally not of meat and vegetables, but of the acquisition of high and low variance foods. Some differences in labor may be the result of conflicting interests, others emerging from common goals, and still others from the power of patriarchy. Differences in labor patterns may not be designed solely, or even primarily, to provision children, but may also be shaped by the social goals of both sexes.