The Human Zoo: A Zoologist's Study of the Urban Animal

by Desmond Morris

  CHAPTER THREE: Sex and Super-sex

  When you put a piece of food into your mouth it does not necessarily mean that you are hungry. When you take a drink it does not inevitably indicate that you are thirsty. In the human zoo, eating and drinking have come to serve many functions. You may be nibbling peanuts to kill time, or you may be sucking sweets to soothe your nerves. Like a wine-taster, you may merely savour the flavour and then spit the liquid out, or you may down ten pints of beer to win a wager. Under certain circumstances, you may be prepared to swallow a sheep’s eyeball in order to maintain your social status.

  In none of these cases is the nourishment of the body the true value of the activity. This multi-functional utilization of basic behaviour patterns is not unknown in the world of animals, but, in the human zoo, man’s ingenious opportunism extends and intensifies the process. In theory, this should fall on the credit side of our super-tribal existence. There can, however, be drawbacks if we handle the process clumsily. If we eat too much to soothe our nerves, we become over-weight and unhealthy; if we drink too much of certain liquids we damage our livers or develop addictions; if we experiment too wildly with new tastes we get indigestion. These difficulties arise because we fail to separate non-nutritional feeding and drinking from their primary nutritional roles. We baulk at the ancient Roman habit of tickling the throat with a feather to make the stomach disgorge unwanted food, and the avoidance of swallowing practised by the wine-taster is no more than an isolated exception to the general rule. Nevertheless, with appropriate caution, we can indulge in multi-functional feeding and drinking to a considerable extent without coming to any serious harm.

  Where sexual behaviour is concerned the situation is similar, but it is much more complicated and deserves our special attention. Here there has been an even greater failure to separate non-reproductive sexual activities from their primary reproductive functions. This has not, however, prevented the human zoo from converting sex into multi-functional super-sex, despite the fact that the results are sometimes disastrous for the human animals concerned. Man’s opportunism knows no bounds and it is inconceivable that an activity so basic and so deeply rewarding should have escaped diversification. In fact, of all our activities, it has, regardless of the dangers, become functionally the most elaborate, with no fewer than ten major categories.

  In order to clarify the picture, it will help if we examine the different functions of sexual behaviour one by one. It is important to realize at the outset that, although these functions are separate and distinct, and sometimes clash with one another, they are not all mutually exclusive. Any particular act of courtship or copulation may serve several functions simultaneously.

  The ten functional categories are these:

  1. Procreation Sex

  There can be no argument that this is the most basic function of sexual behaviour. It has sometimes been mistakenly argued that it is the only natural and therefore proper role. Paradoxically, some of the religious groups that claim this do not practise what they preach, monks, nuns and many priests denying themselves the very activity which they hold to be so uniquely natural.

  An important point to be added here is that when a population becomes seriously overcrowded, the value of the procreative function of sex becomes greatly reduced. Eventually it becomes a nuisance. Instead of being a fundamental mechanism of survival, it changes into a potential mechanism of destruction. This happens occasionally with such species as lemmings and voles which, when conditions are exceptionally lush, breed themselves up to such a density that their populations explode in chaos, with an enormous loss in lives. It is also happening to the human species at this very moment and the human animal may soon have to face the imposition of obtaining a breeding licence before being permitted to indulge in procreation.

  This is not a matter that can be treated lightly and in recent years it has led to a great deal of agitated debate. It is worth looking at both sides of the argument, an exercise that has become increasingly rare as the protagonists have pushed one another into more and more extreme positions.

  The basic question is: dare we tamper with the pro-creative process? Or, as the other side would put it: dare we not tamper with it? The arguments usually rage at a philosophical, ethical, or religious level, but how do they appear when we view them biologically?

  If a human group opposes efficient techniques for limiting procreativity, it gains two advantages. Firstly, it will breed more rapidly than the groups that do employ modern contraceptive devices. By gaining in numbers, it can hope eventually to swamp the others out of existence— a fact that cannot fail to appeal to its leaders, whether military or religious. Secondly, it will ensure that its basic social units— the family groups— are strong. A mated pair is not only a sexual unit, it is also a parental unit and the more parentally occupied it is, the more stable it becomes.

  These are strong arguments, but so also are the opposing ones. Proponents of efficient contraception can point out that it is no longer a question of one group gaining on another. Over-population has become a world-wide problem and must be viewed as such. In this respect we are one vast, global lemming colony, and if the explosion comes it will affect us all. Indeed, it is already doing so.

  As regards the family unit, it can be argued that contraception is not creating an unnatural situation, but merely recreating a natural one. Before medical care, hygiene, and other security devices of modern living existed, the family unit may have produced large numbers of offspring, but it also lost a high proportion of them. All that contraception does, when applied in moderation, is to advance these losses to a point in time before the human egg has been fertilized.

  If we do not pursue a world-wide policy of contraception, then some other unavoidable population limiting factor will step in. As a species we are rapidly reaching saturation point and if we fail to reduce our fecundity by voluntary means, the existing populations will suffer for it. If prevention is better than cure, then contraception is the obvious choice. It is difficult to see how anyone could argue that preventing someone from living is worse than curing someone of being alive. The individual human being is not a simple organism, to be squandered carelessly. It is a high-quality product requiring years of growth and development, and it needs all the protection it can get. Yet the opponents of contraception persist in their views. If they win, the swarms of non-contraceived offspring they are encouraging into the world may live to see the total collapse of the whole of human society.

  2. Pair-formation Sex

  The human animal is basically and biologically a pair-forming species. As the emotional relationship develops between a pair of potential mates it is aided and abetted by the sexual activities they share. The pair-formation function of sexual behaviour is so important for our species that nowhere outside the pairing phase do sexual activities regularly reach such a high intensity.

  It is this function that causes so much trouble when it clashes with the various non-reproductive forms of sex. Even if Procreation Sex is successfully avoided and no fertilization takes place, a pair-bond may still automatically start to form where none is intended. It is because of this that casual copulations frequently create so many problems.

  If a copulator has had his or her pair-forming mechanism damaged in some way during childhood, so that he or she is incapable of ‘falling in love’, or if there is a temporary and deliberate suppression of the pair-forming urge, then a casual copulation may succeed and be enjoyed without any later repercussions. But it takes two to copulate, and the partner in such an encounter may not be so lucky. If his or her pair-forming mechanism is more active, a one-sided pair-bond may start to form as a result of the emotional intensity of the sexual actions. The inevitable outcome of this is that society becomes littered with ‘broken hearts’, ‘hang-ups’ and ‘abandoned lovers’ who subsequently find it extremely difficult to form a new pair-bond with a fresh partner.

  Only when the pair-bonding mechanism has been equally damaged
or is equally suppressed in both partners can a casual human copulation be performed without undue risk. Even then, there is always the danger that the strength of the sexual response of one partner may be such that, for him or her, it will start to repair the bonding damage or disinhibit the bonding urge.

  3. Pair-maintenance Sex

  Once a pair-bond has been successfully formed, sexual activities still function to maintain and reinforce the bond. Although these activities may become more elaborate and extensive, they usually become less /«tensive than those of the pair-forming stage, because the pair-forming function is no longer operating.

  This distinction between the pair-forming and pair-maintaining functions of sexual activity is clearly illustrated whenever the members of a long-established mated pair are separated from one another for a period of time by war, business, or some other external demand. When they are reunited there is typically a resurgence of high sexual intensity on the first nights they are together again, as they go through a minor re-bonding process.

  There is one apparent contradiction that must be disposed of here. In some cultures, where the natural biological process of ‘falling in love’ is interfered with by arranged marriages or by anti-sexual propaganda, a young couple may find themselves newly married without even the beginnings of pair-bonding, or with a strongly inhibited approach to copulatory activity. In such cases they may report that (if they are lucky) their sexual behaviour becomes more intense at a later stage. For them, the pair-maintenance phase seems, at first sight, to be more sexually intense than the pair-formation stage, apparently reversing the correlation I have described. But this is not a real contradiction, it is simply that the true pair-forming stage has been artificially delayed.

  Such couples are not always this fortunate. What frequently happens in such cases is that the family unit has to rely on external social pressures to hold it together, rather than the more basic, and more reliable, internal bonding process. If a marriage partner remains biologically ‘unbonded’ in this way, there is a considerable danger that a powerful extra-marital pair-bond will suddenly form. The true pair-forming capacity will be lying idle, so to speak, and will be all too ready to leap into action, causing havoc to the officially recognized ‘pseudo-bond’.

  There is a different kind of hazard for the young couple that does manage to base its marriage on the formation of a true pair-bond. This hazard is not caused by anti-sexual propaganda, but rather by a surfeit of pro-sexual propaganda, which can lead them to suppose that the very high intensity of the pair-formation stage should persist even after the pair has been fully formed. When it inevitably fails to do so, they imagine that something has gone wrong, whereas in reality they have merely reached the normal pair-maintenance sexual phase. The case for reproductive sex can be over-stated as well as under-stated, and either way may lead to trouble.

  These first three categories—Procreation, Pair-formation and Pair-maintenance Sex—together make up the primary reproductive functions of human sexual behaviour. Before moving on to examine the non-reproductive patterns, there is one final, general comment that is relevant here. Individuals whose pair-bonding mechanism has run into some sort of trouble have occasionally found it convenient to argue that there is no such thing as a biological pairing urge in the human species. ‘Romantic love’, as they prefer to call it, is looked upon as a recent and highly artificial invention of modern living. Man, they argue, is basically promiscuous, like so many of his monkey relatives. The facts, however, are against this. It is true that, in many cultures, economic considerations have led to a gross distortion of the pair-forming pattern, but even where this pattern’s interference with officially planned ‘pseudo-bonds’ has been most rigorously suppressed, with savage penalties and punishments, it has always shown signs of re-asserting itself. From ancient times, young lovers who have known that the law may demand no less than their lives if they are caught, have nevertheless found themselves driven to take the risk. Such is the power of this fundamental biological mechanism.

  4. Physiological Sex

  In the healthy adult human male and female there is a basic physiological requirement for repeated sexual consummation. Without such consummation, a physiological tension builds up and eventually the body demands relief. Any sexual act that involves an orgasm provides the orgasmic individual with this relief. Even if a copulation fails to fulfil any of the other nine functions of sexual behaviour, it can at least satisfy this basic physiological need. For an unmated and otherwise sexually unsuccessful male, a visit to a prostitute can serve this function. A more widespread solution, and one that is indulged in by both sexes, is masturbation.

  A recent American study revealed that as many as 58 per cent of females and 92 per cent of males in that culture masturbate to orgasm at some time in their lives. Because this sexual act does not involve a partner and cannot therefore lead to fertilization, puritanical attempts have been made to suppress it at various times in the past, and all kinds of strange superstitions have grown up around it. The list of disasters that were supposed to threaten the masturbator included: desiccation, sterility, emaciation, frigidity, paroxysm, pallid complexion, hysteria, dizziness, jaundice, deformed figure, insanity, insomnia, exhaustion, pimples, pain, death, cancer, stomach ulcers, genital cancer, digestive upsets, headaches, appendicitis, weak hearts, kidney troubles, lack of hormones and blindness. This incredible collection of catastrophes would be amusing were it not for the untold miseries and fears the dire warnings must have caused, year after year and century after century. Happily these totally false superstitions are at last beginning to lose ground and a great deal of unnecessary anxiety is fading with them.

  If no active sexual outlet is obtained, the body may take charge of the situation itself. Both male and female celibates are likely to undergo spontaneous orgasms while sleeping. Both sexes experience erotic dreams which may be accompanied by full orgasmic muscle responses and genital secretions in the female, and by ‘nocturnal emissions’ in the male.

  Spontaneous orgasms appear to occur in even the most strictly abstemious and devoutly religious individuals, when they are described in rather different terms and referred to as religious frenzies, ecstasies, or trances. St Theresa, for instance, described how a vision of an angel came to her: ‘In his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out I thought he was drawing diem out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love of God. The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several sharp moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it.’

  Unfortunately we know far too little about the spontaneous sexual outlets of extreme celibates to be able to make any firm statements concerning how widespread or how frequent these orgasms are. We do, however, know that individuals who have carried on an active sex life and are then confined in prison frequently show a marked increase in orgasmic dreaming. In one study, involving 208 female prisoners, this was found to be true for over 60 per cent of the group.

  It would be wrong to give the impression, however, that orgasmic dreaming acts solely as a compensating device helping to keep up the sexual output when other more active outlets are missing. There is more to it than that, as there is, of course, with prostitution and masturbation, which serve other sexual functions as well. Some individuals, for example, show an increase in the frequency of orgasmic dreaming during periods when they are experiencing an unusually high frequency of active copulation, on the hyper-sensitizing principle of ‘the more you get, the more you want’. However, this does not invalidate the evidence that spontaneous orgasm can and does occur as a response to sexual deprivation. It merely means that the phenomenon is more complex. But here we are only concerned with the simple, ‘relief from physiological tension’ function of sexual behaviour, and it is clear that this must be include
d as one of the ten basic functional categories of human sexual behaviour.

  Physiological Sex can also be observed in other animal species and it is worth taking a look at a few examples. As one might expect, they are most readily encountered in the animal zoo, rather than in the wild state. Many zoo animals have been seen to masturbate when kept in isolation. This is most commonly observed in captive monkeys and apes. In males, the penis is stimulated sometimes by the hand or foot, sometimes by the mouth, and sometimes by the tip of the prehensile tail. Male elephants stimulate their penises with their trunks and female elephants kept in a group without a male stimulate one another’s genitals with their trunks. Even a male lion, kept in isolation in a zoo cage, has been seen to heave itself up into an inverted position against a wall and masturbate with its paws. Male porcupines have been observed to walk around on three legs, holding one forepaw on their genitals. One male dolphin developed the pattern of holding its erect penis in the powerful jet of the water intake of its pool. Sex-dreaming also seems to occur in animals and in domestic cats the erection of the penis while asleep has been observed to lead to full ejaculation.