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

by Desmond Morris

  5. Exploratory Sex

  One of man’s greatest qualities is his inventiveness. In all probability our monkey ancestors were already endowed with a reasonably high level of curiosity; it is a characteristic of the whole primate group. However, when our early human ancestors took to hunting, they undoubtedly had to develop and strengthen this quality and magnify their basic urge to explore all the details of their environment. It is clear that exploration became an end in itself, leading man on to fresh pastures and fresh achievements, always investigating, always asking new questions, never satisfied with old answers. So powerful did this urge become that it soon began to spread into all other areas of behaviour. With the arrival of the super-tribal condition, even simple patterns like locomotion were explored for possible variations. Instead of being satisfied with walking and running, we tried out hopping, skipping, leaping, marching, dancing, hand-standing, vaulting, diving and swimming. Half the reward was in the experimentation itself, the actual discovering of a new variation. (Repeatedly indulging in it, following the discovery, was the second half of the reward, but we are not concerned with that for the moment.)

  In the sexual sphere, this trend led to a wide range of variations on the sexual theme. Sexual partners began to experiment with new forms of mutual stimulation. Ancient sexual writings record in detail the great diversity of novel sexual movements, pressures, sounds, contacts, scents and copulatory positions that were the subject of erotic experimentation.

  Although this was an inevitable development, paralleled by similar sensory explorations in other patterns, such as feeding behaviour, there were repeated attempts to suppress it in various cultures. The official reason given was often the one we have heard already; namely, that it represented an elaboration of sexual behaviour beyond what was necessary for the act of procreation. The significance of the development of exploratory sexual behaviour as an aid to the cementing of the pair-bond and the subsequent strengthening of the vital family unit was ignored. This was unfortunate, for one particularly important reason. As I have already mentioned, the intensity of love-making during the pair-forming stage wanes slightly after the pair-bond is fully formed. Theoretically, if the family unit is successful and remains unharassed by external forces, all should be well. It is an adaptive system because, if the exhausting intensiveness of the love-making of the young couple during pair-formation were prolonged indefinitely, it could well impair their efficiency in other activities. But the stresses and strains of the super-tribal condition do tend to harass the family unit. The external pressures are strong. The replacement of pair-forming intensiveness with exploratory extensiveness in later sexual activities is the ideal solution, and despite its repeated suppression it is still very much with us today.

  There is only one drawback. The excitement of exploring novel forms of sexual stimulation, when practised between the members of a mated pair, serves the family unit well. But it can take another form. The urge for novelty can be satisfied not only by exploring new patterns with a familiar partner, but also by exploring a new partner with familiar patterns, or, even more so, by exploring a new partner with new patterns.

  The development of Exploratory Sex emerges, therefore, as a double-edged sword. Because our super-tribal cultures have laid increasing stress on the benefits of exploratory behaviour— our educational system, our great learning, our arts, sciences and technologies all depend on this—the exploratory urges in all our other patterns of behaviour have been similarly strengthened. In the sexual sphere this has frequently led to difficulties. The idea of a mated female attending practical classes in copulatory technique, or a mated male limbering up in a sexual gymnasium, is deeply offensive to their long-term sexual partners, since it interferes with the inherent exclusivity of the pair-bonding mechanism. Sexual experiments away from the mate therefore have to be made privately and in secret, and the new hazard of pair-bond betrayal enters the scene. The ancient and fundamental social nucleus of our species— the family unit—has suffered as a result, but somehow it has managed to survive.

  These difficulties would not arise if we were a different kind of species, if we laid eggs in the sand like a turtle and left them to hatch out by themselves. But for us, with our heavy parental duties, sexual experiments outside the pairbond have two dangers. They not only provoke powerful sexual jealousies, but they also encourage the accidental formation of new pair-bonds, to the long-lasting detriment of the offspring of the family units involved. Complex sexual combinations and communes may have worked from time to time, but unqualified successes seem to have been isolated rarities, limited to exceptional and unusual personalities. Only the most ruthless intellectual control by all parties concerned will permit sexual experiments of this kind to operate smoothly.

  Even the rather widespread harem system, when viewed against the broader background of super-tribal success, has not fared well, and some scholars have pointed an accusing finger at it as an important factor in the social decline of the cultures concerned.

  As with the other nine categories of sexual behaviour, the exploratory function is basic enough to be observable in other animal species. Since it requires a high level of inventiveness, it is not surprising that it is limited largely to the higher primates. The great apes, in particular, show a considerable range of sexual experiments when living under conditions of captivity, including a number of copulatory postures not seen in their wild counterparts.

  6. Self-rewarding Sex

  It is impossible to draw up a complete list of the functions of sex without including a category based on the idea that there is such a thing as ‘sex for sex’s sake’; sexual behaviour, the performance of which brings its own reward, regardless of any other considerations. This function is closely related to the last one, but they are nevertheless distinct.

  The relationship between Exploratory Sex and Self-rewarding Sex is rather like the relationship between exploring and playing a game, or between random play and structured play in children. When children burst out into a new play environment, they usually start off with a great deal of erratic rushing about and investigating. As time goes by, this almost random behaviour settles down into a patterned sequence. A play-structure emerges and a ‘game’ is born. A particular environment may lend itself to a climbing game, or a hiding game, or a hunting game, and once such a game has been developed it may be repeated eagerly on later occasions without undue variation. If it proves to be a rewarding pattern it will be returned to over and over again, even though it is no longer a novelty. The initial, erratic behaviour was exciting because it was Exploratory Play; the later, repeated pattern is exciting as Self-rewarding Play.

  The parallel with Exploratory Sex and Self-rewarding Sex is obvious enough. Many highly satisfying copulatory incidents occur between the members of a mated pair that are deliberately not aimed at procreation, that are far in excess of the demands of pair-maintenance, and that do not involve the introduction of novel experiments. They therefore fall into the present functional category. They represent Self-rewarding Sex, or, if you prefer, pure eroticism. They are to the copulator what gastronomy is to the feeder, or what aesthetics is to the artist. It is inconsistent to sing the praises of exquisite gastronomic experiences, or of sublime aesthetic experiences, while at the same time condemning beautiful erotic experiences. Yet this has often been done. It is true that undue excess can sometimes create problems, but then so can undue excesses with gastronomy or aesthetics. Extreme cases of sexual athleticism can prove so exhausting that there is little energy left for anything else, and the pattern of living becomes unbalanced, just as extreme indulgence in feeding can cause serious obesity and loss of physical health, and extreme obsession with aesthetic problems can lead to a damaging disregard for other aspects of social life. The same basic rules apply in each case.

  Preoccupation with action for actions sake implies the existence of some degree of spare time and spare energy. This in turn implies that the basic survival needs are being
taken care of. In humans this means an urban society. In animals it means life in a zoo, with food supplied and enemies eliminated, and it is there, not surprisingly, that we find the examples of animal hyper-sexuality.

  7. Occupational Sex

  This is sex operating as occupational therapy, or, if you prefer, as an anti-boredom device. It is closely related to the last category, but again can be clearly distinguished from it. There is a difference between having spare time and being bored. Self-rewarding Sex can occur as just one of many ways of constructively utilizing the spare time available, with not the slightest sign of any boredom syndrome on the horizon. The function is the positive pursuit of sensory rewards. Occupational Sex, by contrast, functions as a therapeutic remedy for the negative condition produced by a sterile and monotonous environment. Mild boredom produces listlessness and a lack of direction or motivation. Intense boredom, in a really bleak, empty environment, has a different impact. It creates anxiety and agitation, irritability and eventually anger.

  Experiments with students who were placed alone in featureless cubicles, wearing opaque goggles and heavy gloves that made small hand actions impossible, produced startling results. As the hours went by, they became increasingly unable to relax. They went to extreme lengths to invent any kind of trivial action they could perform in the limited circumstances. They began to whistle, talk to themselves, tap out rhythms, anything at all to break the monotony, no matter how absurd the activity. After several days they suffered from signs of severe stress and found the conditions so unbearable that they could not continue.

  Intense boredom is not, therefore, a matter of lying around doing nothing, it is precisely the opposite. A point is reached where any activity will do, just so long as some kind of behaviour output can be achieved. The situation is too threatening to enjoy the sensitive pleasures typical of self-rewarding activities; it is more a question of stopping the pain of gross inactivity. Being under-active is damaging to the nervous system and the brain does its utmost to protect itself.

  Under normal conditions of boredom— that is to say an empty environment, but not as deliberately empty as the one in the student experiments—the object most readily available for breaking the monotony is the subject’s own body. If there is nothing else, there is always that. Nails can be bitten, noses can be picked, hair can be scratched; and the body can always be provoked to produce a sexual response. Since the goal is to produce the maximum amount of stimulation, sexual activities in this situation often become brutal and painful and sometimes even lead to severe mutilation, or physical injury of the genitals. The pain they cause is, in a sense, a bizarre part of the therapy, rather than an accidental outcome of it. Savage and prolonged masturbation is typical of this phenomenon, perhaps involving tearing of the skin, or the insertion of sharp objects into the genital tracts.

  Extreme forms of Occupational Sex can be observed in human prisoners who have been forcibly cut off from their normal, stimulating environments. This is not a matter of Physiological Sex— a much smaller amount of indulgence would satisfy the specific physiological demands.

  The phenomenon can also be seen in the case of pathological introverts. Here it may occur in environments that appear, superficially, to be adequately stimulating. A closer examination soon reveals, however, that although the individuals concerned seem to be surrounded by exciting stimuli, they are cut off from them by their abnormal psychological condition. They are psychologically starving in the midst of plenty. If for some reason they have become intensely antisocial and mentally isolated, unable to make contact with the ordinary world around them, they may be suffering from under-stimulation just as intense as that experienced by the physical prisoners in their cells. For the extreme isolates, whether physical or mental, the painful excesses of Occupational Sex become a lesser evil than total, moribund inactivity.

  Zoo animals kept in sterile cages exhibit similar responses. When isolated from their mates they may exhibit Physiological Sex. Free from the pressures of finding food and avoiding enemies, and with spare time on their hands, they may indulge in Self-rewarding Sex. But driven to extremes of boredom, they may resort to Occupational Sex of a drastic kind. Some male monkeys become obsessional masturbators. Male ungulates kept with females, but with nothing else to do, may literally worry their mates to death, harrying them and chasing them beyond all natural limits. Apes have been known to behave in the same way. One male orang-utan living in an empty cage, when provided with a female, mated with her and embraced her so persistently that she temporarily lost the use of her arms and had to be removed. Monkeys or apes that have been reared away from their own kind frequently find it impossible to adjust to social life when introduced as adults to a group of their own species. Like the mentally disturbed human being who ‘lives in a world of his own’, they may huddle in a comer and continue to indulge in solitary Occupational Sex while only a few feet away from a receptive mate. This is very common in zoo chimpanzees, which are all too often reared in isolation as pets and then thrown together as adults. One pair with abnormal childhoods, that were kept as a ‘married couple’ in a cage with no other companions, repeatedly engaged in a great deal of sexual behaviour, but it was never directed at one another. Although they shared the enclosure, they were both mentally isolated. Sitting apart from each other, they would both masturbate regularly in a variety of ways. The female used small branches, or pieces of wood that she tore off the walls with her teeth and inserted into her vagina, performing these actions while the male stimulated his penis in another comer.

  8. Tranquillizing Sex

  Just as the nervous system cannot tolerate gross inactivity, so it rebels against the strains of excessive over-activity. Tranquillizing Sex is the other side of the coin from Occupational Sex. Instead of being anti-boredom, it is anti-turmoil. When faced with an overdose of strange, conflicting, unfamiliar or frightening stimuli, the individual seeks escape in the performance of friendly old familiar patterns that serve to calm his shattered nerves. When the pressures of living are heavy, the stressed victim can tranquillize himself by resorting to actions that he knows will bring him the satisfaction of a consummatory reward. In his stressed, over-active state he is unable to push anything through to a conclusion. He is tugged this way and that, never able to resolve specific problems because of constant interferences and the confusion of blocked pathways. His frustrations mount until any simple familiar act, no matter how irrelevant to the major preoccupations, will provide a welcome release, if only it can be performed without obstruction.

  Trivial actions such as smoking a cigarette, chewing gum, or taking a drink, help to pacify the anxious. Tranquillizing Sex operates in the same way. The soldier at war, waiting for battle, or the business executive in the middle of a crisis, may seek momentary peace in the arms of a responsive female. The personal, emotional involvement can be at a minimum, the actions stereotyped. In a way, the more automatic it is the better, because his brain is already overinvolved and seeks only simplicity.

  This is similar to the animal activity known as ‘displacement activity’. When two rival animals meet and come into conflict with one another, each wants to attack the other, but each is afraid to do so. Their behaviour is blocked and in their thwarted, frustrated condition they may turn aside to perform simple, irrelevant actions, such as grooming themselves, nibbling at food or fiddling with nest material. These displacement actions do not, of course, resolve the original conflict, but provide a momentary respite from the stressed condition. If a female happens to be near by she may be briefly mounted, and as in the human cases the action is usually stereotyped and simple.

  9. Commercial Sex

  Prostitution has already been mentioned, but only from the point of view of the customer. For the prostitute herself the function of copulation is different. Subsidiary factors may be operating, but primarily and overwhelmingly it is a straightforward commercial transaction. Commercial Sex of a kind also figures as an important function in many m
arriage situations, where a one-sided pair-bond exists: one partner simply provides a copulatory service for the other in exchange for money and shelter. The provider who has developed a true pair-bond has to accept a mock one in return. The woman (or man) who marries for money is, of course, functioning as a prostitute. The only difference is that whereas she, or he, receives indirect payment, the ordinary prostitute has to operate on a pay-as-you-lay basis. But whether the system is organized on long-term or short-term contracts, the function of the sexual behaviour involved is fundamentally the same.

  A milder form of sex-for-material-gain is executed by strip-teasers, dance hostesses, beauty queens, club girls, dancers, models and many actresses. For payment, they provide ritualized performances of the earlier stages of the sexual sequence, but (in their official capacities) stop short of copulation itself. Compensating for the incompleteness of their sexual patterns, they frequently exaggerate and elaborate the preliminaries that they offer. Their sexual postures and movements, their sexual personality and anatomy, all tend to become magnified in an attempt to make up for the strict limitations of the sexual services they provide.