P A R T V
Men Are from Africa, Women Are from Africa
The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women, the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex!
DR. STEPHEN T. COLBERT, D.F.A.
Permeating the standard narrative of human sexual evolution is the depressing claim that men and women always have been and always will be locked in erotic conflict. The War Between the Sexes is said to be built into our evolved sexuality: men want lots of no-strings lovers, while women want just a few partners, with as many strings as possible. If a man agrees to be roped into a relationship, the narrative tells us, he’ll be hellbent on making sure his mate isn’t risking his genetic investment by accepting deposits from other men, as it were.
Extreme as it sounds, this is no overstatement. In his classic 1972 paper on “parental investment,” biologist Robert Trivers remarked, “One can, in effect, treat the sexes as if they were different species, the opposite sex being a resource relevant to producing maximum surviving offspring.” In other words, men and women have such conflicting agendas when it comes to reproduction that we are essentially predators of one another’s interests. In The Moral Animal, Robert Wright laments, “A basic underlying dynamic between men and women is mutual exploitation. They seem, at times, designed to make each other miserable.”1
Don’t believe it. We aren’t designed to make each other miserable. This view holds evolution responsible for the mismatch between our evolved predispositions and the post-agricultural socioeconomic world we find ourselves in. The assertion that human beings are naturally monogamous is not just a lie; it’s a lie most Western societies insist we keep telling each other.
There’s no denying that men and women are different, but we’re hardly different species or from different planets or designed to torment one another. In fact, the interlocking nature of our differences testifies to our profound mutuality. Let’s look at some of the ways in which male and female erotic interests, perspectives, and capacities converge, intersect, and overlap, showing how each of us is a fragment of a greater unity.