You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (26 page)

4.
        Suzanne Fields, “Janet and a Shameless Culture,”
Washington Times
, 5 Feb. 2004.

5.
        At this time radio was established and television was emerging. Because of the limited number of broadcast channels and the national distribution of programming, the government could censor the information people received like never before. Before this, people received their information from localized and splintered sources, such as books, newspapers, and personal conversations, which were impossible to censor completely.

6.
        Monogamy used to be reported for ten to fifteen percent of all primate species, and roughly three percent of all mammals. However, DNA tests are revealing that in these supposedly monogamous species “cheating” is rampant. David Barash and Judith Lipton,
Myth of Monogamy
(2001), pp. 10, 146.

7.
        Clellan Ford and Frank Beach,
Patterns of Sexual Behavior
(1951), pp. 107–108, 113.

8.
        Helen Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
(1992), p. 131.

9.
        Estrus is the recurrent state in female mammals in which they are capable of conceiving and most willing to mate.

10.
      Bonobo information primarily from Frans de Waal, “Bonobo Sex and Society,”
Scientific American
, Mar. 1995, pp. 82–88.

11.
      This tit for tat by the bonobos, chimpanzees, and other primates suggests prostitution is natural to our species.

12.
      Bonobos have a sexual sign language of at least twenty-five signs. Two are “spread your legs,” and “adjust your genitals.” Bruce Bagemihl,
Biological Exuberance
(1999), pp. 66–67.

13.
      The following description of early evolution is from the theorizing of Helen Fisher. Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, pp. 144–149.

14.
      Ibid., pp. 152–154.

15.
      In 2010 Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá argued in
Sex at Dawn
that early humans engaged in group marriage and that multi-partner bonds are our natural state (pp. 44–45). A few of the reasons why I disagree nclude the phenomenon of sexual jealousy; the fact that most current hunter-gatherer cultures are monogamous albeit with plenty of adultery (Barash,
Myth of Monogamy
, p. 136); and group marriages’/polyamory’s failure to gain popularity, for example, the failure of the group marriage movement following the
publication of Robert Rimmer’s
The Harrad Experiment
in 1966. For a scholarly critique of
Sex at Dawn
see Ryan Ellsworth’s 2011 article in
Evolutionary Psychology
, “The Human That Never Evolved.”

16.
      Four years is the usual birth spacing in primitive societies. Ovulation is suppressed longer from continual nursing, more exercise, and poorer diet. Four years is also the modern worldwide divorce peak, suggesting a “four year itch” that could be biologically based. Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, 152–154.

17.
      Barash,
Myth of Monogamy
, p. 136.

18.
      Ibid.

19.
      “Cheating” is a debatable label because early humans behaved instinctually. Cheating occurred because they were driven by desire, and any repercussions were based on the emotion of anger. Explicit commitment was beyond their complexity.

20.
      In some indigenous societies, men time their wives’ absences when the wives go into the bushes to defecate or urinate.

21.
      Barash,
Myth of Monogamy
, pp. 67–70.

22.
      A similar term, “trading up,” is applied to modern men who drop their partner to get “better” ones when they become rich.

23.
      Information on Venus figurines is taken from Timothy Taylor,
Prehistory of Sex
(1996), pp. 115–123.

24.
      Scientists base this on the Makapansgat pebble, a pebble that remarkably resembles a human face, and that was apparently brought back to a cave by an early human. Ibid., p. 99.

25.
      Karel Absolon, quoted in Taylor,
Prehistory of Sex
, p. 120.

26.
      Males’ better spatial ability arguably stems from hunting large game, while women’s better night vision and hearing arguably stems from finding small game in dark thickets and water.

27.
      Information on Neolithic transformation is primarily drawn from Reay Tannahill’s chapter, “Man Into Master” in
Sex in History
(1980), pp. 38–55.

28.
      Western Jews practiced polygyny until 1000 B.C. Some Eastern Jews practiced polygyny into the twentieth century. Richard Posner,
Sex and Reason
(1992), p. 49.

29.
      As late as the nineteenth century there was an Australian tribe that ate every tenth baby born to keep the population down to what the territory could support. Tannahill,
Sex in History
, p. 31.

30.
      Ibid., p. 70.

31.
      Genesis 1:28 (King James Version).

32.
      Zoophilia, or bestiality, was relatively common in the pastoral societies of that era. Tannahill,
Sex in History
, p. 71.

33.
      Early civilizations practiced contraception. The early Egyptians used crocodile dung and acacia tips (which produce lactic acid, the active ingredient in modern spermicides) as forerunners of the diaphragm. It is also likely coitus interruptus (the withdrawal method) has been used since semen was connected with pregnancy. High-class Greek prostitutes used anal intercourse.

34.
      John Clarke,
Roman Sex: 100 B.C.–AD 250
(2003), p. 97.

35.
      The ideal penis for the ancient Greeks and Romans was small. Large ones were portrayed for comic effect. In a 423 B.C. play a warning is given, “If you do these things I tell you . . . you will always have a shining breast, a bright skin, big shoulders, a minute tongue, a big rump and a small prick. But if you follow the practices of the youth of today, for a start you’ll have a pale skin, small shoulders, a skinny chest, a big tongue, a small rump, a big ham and a long . . . winded decree.” Aristophanes,
Clouds
, trans. by Alan Sommerstein (1982), pp. 107–108.

36.
      Thomas Wright,
Worship of the Generative Powers
(1865), pp. 77–82, 91–94.

37.
      Like their Greek predecessors, Roman men enjoyed boys sexually. However, the emotional and mentoring aspect of these relationships exalted by the Greeks was reduced to seduction and outright purchase—beautiful boys could cost as much a farm. Morton Hunt,
Natural History of Love
(1959), p. 66.

38.
      Suburra was Rome’s roughest slum, thick with prostitutes, actors, gladiators, gypsies, beggars, hustlers, and thieves.

39.
      Paul Veyne,
History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
(1987), pp. 34–35.

40.
      Throughout history, societies have believed sex saps men’s strength. Reasons for this pervasive belief are males’ sleepiness following orgasm, inability to ejaculate repeatedly, sexual decline with age, and the belief that semen is a vital substance. Martha Cornog,
Big Book of Masturbation
(2003), p. 33.

41.
      Veyne,
History of Private Life
, p. 24.

42.
      Hypatia was the beautiful head of the Platonist School of Alexandria when the Roman Catholic views on sex
were being cemented by St. Augustine and she taught many influential Christians. In line with Platonism, she chose to remain a virgin. When a student communicated his passionate love for her, she lifted her dress above her waist and said with contempt, “This, young man, is what you are in love with, and not anything beautiful.” Hunt,
Natural History of Love
, p. 102. She was later hacked to death with oyster shells by Christian monks because against God’s commandments she presumed, as a female, to teach men. Riane Eisler,
Chalice and the Blade
(1988), pp. 132–133.

43.
      Veyne,
History of Private Life
, pp. 36–37.

44.
      Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, pp. 106–107.

45.
      Veyne,
History of Private Life
, pp. 42–43.

46.
      Hunt,
Natural History of Love
, p. 82.

47.
      Helen Ellerbe,
Dark Side of Christian History
(1995), p. 20.

48.
      Morton Smith,
Jesus the Magician
(1978), p. 2.

49.
      Ellerbe,
Dark Side
, p. 17.

50.
      Ibid., pp. 14–29.

51.
      The assertion that the Roman Empire collapsed because of sexual immorality is false. Its sexual conduct was the same during its ascent as it was during its decline. Richard Posner,
Sex and Reason
(1992), pp. 234–235.

52.
      Ellerbe,
Dark Side of Christian History
, p. 44.

53.
      Adultery at that time was defined as sex involving a married woman and any man other than her husband. Therefore, a married man having sex with an unmarried woman was not adultery.

54.
      Jesus spoke approvingly in
Matthew
19:12 of men who made themselves eunuchs (men without testicles) for heaven. Although it is now accepted that Christ meant this allegorically, thousands mutilated themselves in the centuries following his death. Morton Hunt,
Natural History of Love
(1959), p. 103.

55.
      Vern Bullough and James Brundage,
Handbook of Medieval Sexuality
(1996), p. 33.

56.
      Judaism valued the virginity of their unmarried women, not their men. There was not even a Hebrew word for a male virgin. Michael Satlow,
Jewish Marriage in Antiquity
(2001), p. 120.

57.
      The influential early Christian Clement of Alexandria directly copied the marital principles of the Stoic Musonius without crediting his source. Paul Veyne,
History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
(1987), p. 47.

58.
      David Noss and John Noss,
History of the World’s Religions
, 9
^th
ed. (1994), p. 509.

59.
      “An unmarried man worries about how to please the Lord. But a married man has more worries. He must worry about the things of this world, because he wants to please his wife. So he is pulled in two directions. Unmarried women and [virgins] worry only about pleasing the Lord, and they keep their bodies and minds pure . . . What I am saying is for your own good—it isn’t to limit your freedom.” 1 Corinthians 7:32–35 (CEV).

60.
      “In my opinion that is what should be done, though I don’t know of anything the Lord said about this matter.” 1 Corinthians 7:6 (CEV).

61.
      “My friends, what I mean is that the Lord will soon come, and it won’t matter if you are married or not . . . This world as we know it is now passing away.” 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 (CEV).

62.
      Sexually satisfied people may be able to focus on holy matters better than the sexually frustrated. Bernard Murstein,
Love, Sex, and Marriage
(1974), pp. 105–106.

63.
      Elaine Pagels,
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent
(1988), p. 63.

64.
      Morton Hunt,
Natural History of Love
(1959), p. 116.

65.
      Largely from ibid., pp. 117–122.

66.
      Ibid., p. 119.

67.
      St. Paul’s words were, “So behave properly, as people do in the day. Don’t go to wild parties or get drunk or be vulgar or indecent. Don’t quarrel or be jealous. Let the Lord Jesus Christ be as near to you as the clothes you wear. Then you won’t try to satisfy your selfish desires.” Romans 13:13–14 (CEV).

68.
      Pagels,
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent
, p. 141.

69.
      Ibid., p. 140.

70.
      Merry Wiesner-Hanks,
Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World
(2000), p. 31.

71.
      His fabricated passage is in the Book of Tobit. This is a canonical book in Catholicism, but not in Protestantism. Uta Ranke-Heinemann,
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven
(1990), pp. 16–17.

72.
      Wiesner-Hanks,
Christianity and Sexuality
, p. 34.

73.
      James Russell,
Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity
(1994), pp. 152–153.

74.
      William Manchester,
World Lit Only by Fire
(1993), p. 12.

75.
      Reay Tannahill,
Sex in History
(1980), p. 152.

76.
      Ibid., p. 158.

77.
      Wiesner-Hanks,
Christianity and Sexuality
, p. 37.

78.
      Murstein,
Love, Sex, and Marriage
, p. 113.

79.
      
Cunt
was not obscene until the 1700s. James McDonald,
Wordsworth Dictionary of Obscenity and Taboo
(1988), p. 36.