Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Matthew Yglesias says of a study that tries to claim that macaque monkeys conduct prostitution transactions. In the sense that sex is more than twice as frequent (3.5 times vs 1.5 times) when males that “pay” sex by first grooming females than when they don’t.

If you think about human society, “paying for sex” denotes a pretty specific kind of social practice—prostitution—and isn’t a catchall phrase to cover every mutually beneficial relationship that involves sex. You could probably do a study of married human couples that would show that sex is more likely after a husband is nice to his wife than after he’s been a jerk; I don’t think you’d call that a study about “paying for sex” among married couples.

He said it here.

That sounds about right. It happens to be the case that a lot of people imagine that “proper” men “pay” for sex through marriage. Which makes sense in those relationships where women have no interest in sex, whatsoever. Or who, because of artificial limits on social and economic opportunities imposed by the dictates of gendered culture they have no, zero, none interest in sex with the men they’re obliged to marry.

Oddly the article, and the study it describes, claims no parallels should be drawn between human and macaque behavior. Which is laudable I’m sure. Or would be if, rather than conclusions drawn the researchers and reporters hadn’t instead drawn premises.

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P.S. if I’m not mistaken I’m more likely to want sex 3.5 times an hour instead of 1.5 if, instead of just bending over the first “female” I’m on intimate terms with and “copulating” with her I instead spend time “grooming” her by putting my arms around her, stroking her cheek, murmuring things out loud that remind me why I appreciate her, burying my face in her hair, kissing, nuzzling, or biting her neck and shoulders, and otherwise engaging in the kind of “payment” we more often think of as, oh, I don’t know, foreplay!

Because, you know, foreplay increases men’s interest in and desire for more frequent sex. Something the subset of anthropologists and science reporters most drawn to moronic anthropomorphization of macaque (not to mention macaque-ization of humans) might discover if they ever bothered to try it.

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Seriously! The idea that only women “need” or otherwise benefit from foreplay is just… um… yeah, just try it some time. I mean, not to drag in the food issue or anything but don’t studies also show that people who eat food cold, out of the can, over the sink to “save time” also tend to eat less overall than people who take the time to actually enjoy their food as a cultural activity and not just a biological necessity? Well, same for sex, m’kay?