Sex, Time, and Power

by Leonard Shlain

  Picture the following scene. A hunter has just seriously wounded a deer that lies on the ground immobilized and writhing in pain. The hunter must finish the deer off before butchering it. Suppose, however, he is overcome by a spasm of compassion. Suppose he decides to bring the deer back to the base camp and nurse it back to health. This St. Francis of Assisi approach would ensure that he would later come acourting empty-handed.

  The other men would look upon him as either a fool or a slacker. He would have to compete with other hunters who were not so tenderhearted. If he regularly repeated these acts of kindness toward prey, he would fail in his role as a provider and would, most likely, not get the girl, either.

  But consider his dilemma if he was a rough fellow without a shred of empathy. He dispatches the deer with a skull-crushing blow. Returning to the base, he thrusts a hunk of his bloody prize unceremoniously in the face of the woman he desires to impress. He arrogantly expects that his offering will be all that is necessary. To his consternation, she quickly disabuses him of these expectations. After she spurns his graceless overture, he is left standing flatfooted and slack-jawed as he watches her stalk off. He has discovered what all men eventually learn: Presents alone will not achieve his aim.

  Besides a gift in his hand, he must also have gentleness in his heart. Here, then, is the crux of the male dilemma. Homo sapiens has two entirely paradoxical aspects to his mating display: First kill, then court. One demands a prodigious animus; the other requires an ample anima. Keeping his natural-born killer aspect separate from that part of him that must be a gentle suitor will become one of Homo sapiens’ greatest challenges.

  Generally, a man’s masculinity, his animal magnetism, is the quality that initially attracts a woman. But machismo will mesmerize a woman for only so long (or not at all). As Gyna sapiens overrode her libidinous urges and understood the long-term implications of sexual intercourse, she began to look for qualities beyond rugged he-manism. A mutual child-rearing relationship requires that the two parents live in fairly constant proximity. A woman’s anima must connect with the feminine side of a man in order for the relationship to take root. In other species, intimate long-term relationships are not necessary for genetic continuance. Among monogamous species, only humans must mesh each sex’s identity so thoroughly with the other.

  Because of the recentness of our species’ evolution, sex remains highly influenced by instinctual drives and hormonal concentrations. Pheromones, detectable below conscious awareness, still attract the opposite sex. Gestural clues, the archaic sexual body language, still intrigue. A tongue running lightly and slowly along a glistening lower lip of a slightly open mouth can wordlessly jump-start a sexual adventure between two strangers.

  But even though pheromones and body language may bring a man and woman together in the short run, they are not enough to fuel the long haul. For a relationship to progress beyond the initial mutual sexual-attraction phase and continue over decades, the pair must be able to talk to each other.

  And so we return to that necessary adjunct of mating, speech. Conversation is the primary means of negotiating a short-term sexual relationship or cementing a long-term parenting relationship. And as in all other aspects of sexuality, a considerable difference exists between the sexes.

  For a man, killing to get meat was the first step. Talking his way through a woman’s natural resistance was the second. By developing a charming conversational style, a man could entice a woman to let down her guard. This latter skill was as tricky to learn as the first. Homo sapiens had to discover, through trial and error, what he could say to please a woman. The best way to accomplish this was for him to think like a woman. The only creature on earth that thinks like a woman is a woman. Therefore, there had to be a part of him that was a woman.

  Not only did Homo sapiens have to hide the cruelty he found indispensable for hunting, but also he had to assume the persona of a woman when courting. He had to imagine what she would like him to say. He had to imagine how she would like him to smell. He had to imagine how she would like him to dress. He had to imagine a pleasing manner he could adopt when presenting her with a gift. If he had failed to study how women respond to male overtures in general, and if he had not paid attention to how this particular woman reacted to his various past actions, he would have imagined incorrectly. A seriously flawed womanly imagination doomed his suit and negated his efforts at killing game for her. There was a high likelihood that she would reject his gift and seek another suitor. All men understood that Gyna sapiens possessed an enormous power. He proposed; she disposed.

  Homo sapiens dreaded hearing her utter the one word that would completely deflate his ego. That word is not No! More often than not, No! encouraged a man to redouble his efforts to overcome her resistance. The word he most feared meant that the game was over and he had lost, she wanted to move on. The dreaded word was Next!

  Courting among humans became an elaborate chess game. Homo sapiens aimed to disarm Gyna sapiens’ queen and render her emotionally defenseless; Gyna sapiens sought to capture Homo sapiens’ king and claim his heart. The difference in the strategies employed by men and women is the reason the relationship game so often ends in stalemate.

  Homo sapiens learned that there came a time in his courtship when, the more feminine he became, the more likely he would gain a Gyna sapiens’ assent. He learned that bringing a woman flowers and composing poetry pleased her immensely. He discovered that his crying, a behavior that would be deeply humiliating in the company of men, paradoxically reassured her.

  Those males who had been programmed to learn the lesson well left more descendants than those who did not. Selective pressures favored men who possessed a generous anima over those who did not. Through their exercise of choice, women brought about this change. Slowly, the gene pool filled with men who had both strong animus and anima genes. Among male animals, this was an extraordinary evolutionary development.

  Within the psyche of most men, a war rages. A man’s animus strongly opposes engaging in the kind of shilly-shallying that is the modus operandi of his anima. It lusts to treat a woman as a sexual object, something to satisfy his urges so that he can move on. The impetus for sex arises deep within his reptilian brain and is activated by pelvic reflexes carried by fine filamentous nerves buried beneath the coils of his bowels. Despite the inaccessible location of his sexual circuitry, a man’s sex drive is closer to the surface than a woman’s.

  Sexual tension resembles an appetite, not unlike hunger. Before fulfillment can be achieved, both require a man to be courageous and aggressive. As a hunter, he learned to objectify prey. Many men transfer techniques they use for the hunt to the chase known as Cherchez la femme.* Young men further objectify women by subconsciously borrowing the language of the hunt to refer to the women they are “pursuing,” calling them “foxes” or “birds.”

  Unfortunately, a small percentage of males confuse the different behaviors needed to kill and court. Hunting routines become wooing techniques, transforming these men into “stalkers” who believe delusionally that the use of fear and obsessive persistence will advance their suit. A woman must call upon all her intuitive skills to identify whether a man has these tendencies. Harassment and possible death await the woman who fails to make this assessment accurately.

  Sex researchers Nancy and Randy Thornhill posed the following question to a large sampling of men: “If you could rape a woman, knowing with certainty that there would be no chance you would get caught and no one would ever find out, would you commit the act?” Unfortunately, in one of their surveys, 35 percent of the respondents answered that there was some likelihood they would commit rape.4 This hypothetical question becomes frighteningly real during the conditions of war. Susan Brownmiller documented the high incidence of rape during wartime.5 Otherwise “civilized” soldiers commit rape under the conditions that the Thornhills’ survey hypothesizes.

  Although rape is far more common in humans than it is among other animals, it re
mains a relatively infrequent male sexual strategy. The reasons are many. Among the foremost, rape is extremely dangerous for a man. Some women are as physically strong as some men, and a few women are more powerful than many men. Ranked just beneath fear of losing one’s life, repulsion of a rapist often activates in a woman a superhuman strength, enabling her to mount a fearsome resistance. Given these facts, rape is not a particularly effective sexual strategy for a male to pursue.

  The human male’s genital assemblage is extremely vulnerable to injury. The penis is not encased in a retractable protective sheath, as it is in most other male animals.* Nor do strong ligaments anchor it to the muscles of the abdominal wall, as they do in every other male mammal. Pendulously swinging when he walks or runs, the human penis is attached primarily by mere skin alone. And it differs from other mammalian members in that it is not strengthened and supported by a rigid bone (bacculum) running down its length. Instead, Homo sapiens must depend entirely on a cockamamie system of trap doors opening and closing synchronously in the blood vessels coming and going to his inflatable appendage to sequester the requisite amount of blood under sufficient pressure for him to maintain an erection.† Performance anxiety is never a concern for a mammal equipped with a stiff bone in his penis.

  The human male’s testes hang loose in an unprotected bag of exceedingly thin scrotal skin. In contrast, the genitalia of male birds and other male mammals are generally safely tucked either inside the abdomen or under and between sturdy haunches, out of harm’s way. When the hominid line adopted a bipedal stance, what had been hidden now adorned the male’s most forward-advancing part. When a man is aroused, his penis edges out his nose to become his unprotected leading edge. Although a man can inflict serious injury and even kill a rape victim, he risks serious trauma to his manhood in the process. In earlier eras, a rapist risked alerting predators to his raw power play because they would be attracted to the victim’s distress calls. Other men (the kin of the rape victim, or the majority of men who abhor rape for moral reasons) would likely rush to the aid of the victim, and the rapist risked a severe beating or even death from this quarter.

  In addition, as mentioned earlier, the resting pH level of a woman’s vaginal lining creates an environment deadly to sperm. Responding to a lover she desires, a woman secretes a lubricating fluid that has as one of its primary properties the ability to neutralize her vaginal pH level’s spermicidal effects. The more foreplay, the more lubricated a woman becomes, the stronger the likelihood that a man’s sperm will survive. A rapist’s sperm would enter a killing field. The effort a considerate lover expends arousing a woman pays off in a longer life span for his sperm. In short, the chances of a man with a well-developed anima passing along his genes exceed those of a rapist possessed only with an overbearing animus.

  We lived as hunter-gatherers in intimate groupings for 99.9 percent of our hominid history. Unlike in contemporary urban environments, where meeting potentially dangerous strangers daily is the norm, rape within extant hunter-gatherer bands is exceedingly rare.

  Electrical appliances such as radios and television sets contain a vital component called a capacitor, a flat piece of copper that stores electrical charges. Electrical energy flows down a wire leading to the capacitor as water courses down a narrow stream. The capacitor resembles a placid lake into which various streams empty. Over the course of time, the capacitor, like a lake, fills to the limit. The stored energy must be discharged; otherwise a fuse will blow. Or, as in a full lake, water will burst a dam or flood over the banks. The metaphor of a capacitor can aid in explaining why men and women stay together for so many years even after the intense phase of their joint child-rearing duties is finished. Many sociologists and theologians have weighed in on this issue, but I would like to present what I believe to be the primary reason.

  Each morning, after a good night’s sleep, men and women arise fresh and ready to face the day’s tasks and interpersonal contacts. Each small event and interaction generates a charge that incrementally accumulates on their internal capacitors. By the end of a day, their capacitors are brimming and need to be discharged. The best way to drain a human capacitor is through talking with another. In conversation, the emotional tension (analogous to an electrical charge) that has built up gradually leaks away.

  Women often have one or more women friends who serve as good listeners with whom they share the events of their daily lives. Men do not usually discuss the minor details of their day among themselves. When mates reunite after a busy day, they need each other in order to mutually discharge their respective capacitors. The ensuing small talk serves to maintain the mental health of both partners.

  Even though a woman may not find the man’s discussion of his workday inherently interesting and vice versa, they both pay attention, because each understands that this gossip and small talk about the minor maintenance details of life becomes an increasingly important element that eventually supersedes sex as an attractive force binding the couple together throughout the years.

  If sexual attraction is the major fugue of romance, small talk is the minor. Couples who are unwilling or unable to engage in seemingly inconsequential conversations will find the music slowly fading away. A healthy relationship begins by building on sexual attraction, common interests, mutual delight, warmth, and support. Chitchat plays an indispensable role in sustaining it.

  Men discover that running their daily happenings past their mates provides them with access to a feminine point of view. Similarly, a woman who recounts the events of her day will often receive advice steeped in a strong male perspective. Each member of a couple gains access to the opposite side of his or her own personality, enhancing the minor side.

  A common observation is that couples involved in long relationships begin to look alike. It is no wonder, since a similar process is occurring inside their minds and psyches. Couples attuned to each other begin to speak the same sentences at the same moment. Slowly, their opinions begin to converge on both central and peripheral matters. The two partners, by blending their respective anima and animus with the antipode of the other partner, are, in essence, becoming one person. Relationships ignite in youth fueled by the passion of sexual attraction; the aura of intimacy and familiarity emanating from an older couple engaged in small talk resembles the glowing embers of an old fire that provides a steady warmth even though the flame is barely visible.

  A man is highly stimulated by his visual sense. A woman need say little to arouse him. By slowly and artfully removing her clothes, a woman can thoroughly flummox a man. If asked, a man will say that he is “attracted” to a particular woman without precisely knowing why. For many men, this attraction fixates on external appearance.* Generally, after his visual assessment has piqued his interest, a man becomes drawn in by the expression of a woman’s anima. Belatedly, and in many cases to his regret, he is made aware of the potency of her animus.

  In contrast, a woman expresses keen interest in both sides of a man’s psyche at the very outset. His animus, like a woman’s anima, is easily apparent. She can judge it by his size, strength, health, and the way he walks, dresses, or cocks his head. A man’s anima, however, requires more discernment. She, more than he, needs to become a sleuth.

  A man reveals his anima through actions and words. Gestures of generosity and attentiveness, facial expressions of concern, and demonstrations of interest in her as a person are signs that a woman can use to gauge his “soft” side. If he speaks in an engaging manner, if he asks questions about her life and listens to her answers, and if he says considerate things, she can mine his speech, both the content and inflection, for clues.

  Empathy is the ability of one animal to imagine and to experience vicariously how another feels emotionally. Intuition is the skill that allows one animal to reconstruct in his or her mind what another is thinking. Females are considerably more adept at both these arts than are men. The most effective way for a female to understand what a male is feeling or thinking is to try
to imagine herself as a man. To accomplish this best, a part of her would have to be manly. She would need to know how her mate interpreted the world over the course of his life, not just when he was courting. Gyna sapiens, too, needed a neural makeover. She required not only an animus with which to protect herself and her babies but also one that would provide a window into a man’s castle keep.

  The setting for Plato’s Symposium is a ribald drinking party of Athenian elite who are debating the meaning of love. The playwright Aristophanes tells the gathering the following parable. At the dawn of creation, there were three sexes of a single, very strange creature. These precursors of mortals each sported four arms, four legs, and two heads. Aristophanes identified three different sexes: males, females, and hermaphrodites. The males were men on either side. The females were women on either side. And the hermaphrodites were male on one side and female on the other. All three sexes moved by cartwheeling on all eight of their extremities.

  Zeus gathered the gods in council to express his concern that these unusual creatures could one day challenge their hegemony. He was loath to exterminate them with his thunderbolts, though, because then there would be no one to bring the gods offerings. He solved the problem by putting each creature into a trance and then splitting it down the middle. Upon awakening, each half only dimly remembered what it had been prior to being cleft in two. Zeus explained to the assembled gods and goddesses the cleverness of his scheme. These creatures would no longer pose a threat to the gods, because they would dissipate their considerable energy by spending the rest of their days searching for their missing halves.

  Aristophanes used his parable to explain gay, lesbian, and heterosexual love. And yet there is something about the story that Jung would have undoubtedly found intriguing. In poetic terms, it explains the dilemma at the heart of each person’s anima and animus. Men and women seek each other out to complement that part of their dual natures that needs shoring. A man with a strong masculine side and a weak feminine one often marries a woman who has a strong feminine side and a weak masculine one. There are numerous other combinations that can be annealed to make a whole Aristophanean being.