Can you be monogamous if you're human?

Emily Nagoski accepts that as a valid question. She compares it to another question: Can you be an astronaut if you aren't good at math? As far as I'm concerned, it's difficult for me to see the parallelism in such questions.

To be or not to be good at math, golf, tennis, etc., is a matter of practice. All those sports are designed to be played by regular humans with arms, legs, a working brain and a lot of training. As far as I know, nobody is born trained to play golf or tennis; however, some people will do better at math and golf and tennis with less practice than others with more practice.

How do those activities compare to monogamy? According to Ph.D. Emily Nagoski, monogamy for humans is just one more activity to be trained for. Is she recognizing the fact that we aren't born with a natural tendency to be monogamous? Maybe she is!

Please, read what she has to say and then come back here and comment at the end of this entry.

The debate Ph.D. Emily Nagoski is suggesting is against the conclusions presented in the book Sex At Dawn by Ph.D. Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethà, MD. The book gathers evidence that supports a serious revision of the biological trends of our species, the humans, concerning sexual behavior. Some authors have classified us as naturally monogamous; apparently, Nagoski sees monogamy as a “no problem” condition, something that can be learned and practiced—with no consequences.

However, the book Nagoski seems to dislike, suggests otherwise. It sustains that monogamy is a specific way of organizing reproduction, imposing upon the individuals of the species, a burden of forced behaviors that result in a constant condition of sexual deprivation or, better, of sexual uncertainty. This condition generates a state of unbalance that manifests itself in sexual deviations like pornography, prostitution, rape, pederasty and the constant violations of the exclusivity of sexual partners expected by the monogamy model.

Sex At Dawn presents interesting arguments that indicate the natural sexuality of the human species to be deeply in disagreement with what the models monogamy and polygamy have demanded from the human individuals of both genders. Both models were the result of a new form of adaptation demanded by socio-cultural conditions elaborated by humans in their pursuit of mastering the environment for an efficient survival.

The main technology—the one that caused the need to elaborate new ways of organizing sexuality and reproduction—applied to exploit the environment more efficiently is agriculture. However, such cultural innovation needed paternity certainty. In the original habitat, humans simply took whatever they needed as food—most probably they didn't even eat dead animals. Such habitat of abundance, was gone, terminated, by a planetary event. A lot of species simply didn't make it: they are now extinct. Humans applied the power of their brains to find solutions.

The result has been so successful—in terms of numbers—that today we are 7.2 billion human individuals walking on Planet Earth.

But the success came with a price: paternity certainty required polygamy or monogamy. And paternity certainty was necessary because only identified offspring came to have the right to that which was produced in land owned by the father, with the personal energy of the couple—or the “hired” labor.

So, becoming happily monogamous is not a matter of practice. No matter how much practice is invested, the individual remains biologically non monogamous. It will always be a compromise imposed by the needs of culture.

However, today we are a more mature species. We are more conscious of things like biology versus culture. We know today that ultimately we own any cultural elaboration that we may find ourselves imposing upon our lives. And just as we designed it a few thousand years ago, we are entitled to revise it and modify it according to the better understanding we are capable of having based on our latest scientific process of knowledge.

If we're honest and accept the imperfections we all feel—at more or less intense levels—from living in the conditions imposed by the culture to be overcome, then we shall be able to allow ourselves the freedom to find ways of enjoying our lives, our sexuality and our interaction with other humans.

“The Dirty Normal”, scientific thought processes and debate

Some blogs exist only to attract people in agreement with the blogger. The authors leave no room for debate: they don't want to see any comments that too strongly argue against their primary point of view.

One such blog is The Dirty Normal by Emily Nagoski.

I am sensitive to rejection, especially when I'm careful in stating my points of views—perhaps in a not so subtle way—with some hard comments towards the person exposing the ideas I feel I need to combat.

Now, is such attitude a valid one? In the case of Emily Nagoski, the Ph.D., my intention was to call the attention of her readers to the fact that she might have a personal problem with what has been very carefully exposed in the book Sex At Dawn, which she has fervently disqualified from any possible value in the goal of understanding ourselves as a species.

In a few words, Sex At Dawn states that there must be something wrong in the way us, humans, have been trying to organize our lives surrounding our sexual needs, since all serious statistics show openly that marriages aren't working, neither males nor females can be naturally monogamous—that is, neither gender of the species naturally chooses one sexual partner and is perfectly happy, forever, to stick to it.

The sexual attraction for other individuals besides the “legal partner”—the socially accepted one—is constant and comes from both genders. We seem to be willing to forget that the socio-cultural organization by which we live today, is a response of our brains—a human elaboration—to try to be able to keep track of “who is the father of the children”. Now, was such a need something valuable for survival in an environment previous to the creation of agriculture?

The answer is a very simple no. On the contrary, it must have been much more a survival advantage to consider all males in a human group as contributing fathers to the lives of all children. Such an attitude is observable in groups of bonobos—the smaller chimpanzees—but mainly, with tribes organized differently—from the agricultural model—such as the Zoe from the Amazon.

Persons that become so delicate and sensitive about their conservative opinions—such as Dr. Emily Nagoski—raise suspicious about possibly underlying agendas in their general attitudes.

The way we eat when we sit at tables, the way we dispose of surplus material from our bowels, the way we cover our genitals and the way women can't even breastfeed their babies in public places, are all attitudes learned through social programming exerted upon us during our lives, since the day we first appeared in this world. Nothing in the mentioned behaviours is natural in any way; it is all the result of what our culture needs from us, the individuals.

Well, then, that's exactly what happens with our sexual behaviour. Just as we feel like visiting a toilet—but we withhold our urge until the time is right—we also feel some mild arousal when we see individuals that we feel attracted to; we control such arousal according to the cultural needs, just exactly the way we control our bowels until the time is right—which is slightly different for everybody: while some are quite comfortable visiting any toilets, some can only feel at ease at home.

Some people—Emily Nagoski is one of them—want to see our genes pre-programmed to behave in this or that way; they simply ignore the highly important and deterministic socio-cultural programming of our minds/brains throughout our regular lives, starting the day we're born.

Dr. Emily Nagoski denies and neglects culture as a reality

Somethings need to be dealt with at once, with the proper tranquility and peace of mind needed, without any kind of hurry to prove one's point. But things need to be laid out in a functional perspective, one that will really help us understand how our species was evolved to work as opposed to how our species, by its own elaborations, has needed to adapt itself to function within cultural frames —not necessarily in connection with biological sources.

Emily Nagoski, the Ph.D. suggests this to us: “if nothing else, let’s get at least this one detail right”, and proceeds to argue in such a way that one can only infer that she hates reality and needs to find a scientific way to prove that it's the way it is.

About a dozen people have sent me this gushing Salon review of Daniel Bregner’s book.

In the interview, Bregner makes two of the (dozen or so) mistakes I’ve devoted this blog to correcting.

Is there room for debate? She has dogmatically called whatever Bregner says, two of the dozen or so mistakes that she has devoted her Blog to correct! Yes, other people are making mistakes and, no matter how many those persons are or where their conclusions come from, for Emily Nagoski, those are nothing but mistakes.

(1) Sex is not a drive. I’ll write about that another time (you can read about that here if you aren’t familiar with this tidbit and want to know more.)

OK, fine. Dr. Nagoski wants to apply a different vocabulary, with different semantic connotations, to terms that were supposed to have been sufficiently explained and studied in volumes of studies. So, what's the problem here? No big deal: sex is not a drive, and she will write about that in the future.

And (2) Genital response is not desire. Meredith Chivers would NOT say anything like, “the physical responses, registered in the plethysmography, really might well be a measure of being turned on, being in a state of desire.”

Genital response, is not desire? An erection in a man might be the result of desire—the guy is ready for copulation—but not so in women: a wet vagina does not necessarily mean naturally—that's what Dr. Nagoski implies—that the owner is ready to copulate.

But, wait a minute. Is she talking about biology or about the cultural adaptation of homo sapiens sapiens female to the elaborations of a culture? This is the most confusing part for most people who tend to deny the enormous importance of culture—brain programming through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, etc.—that appears disguised to even the most outstanding scientists when they deny themselves the vision of what gets into you through culture as opposed to what is within you as part of your biological equipment.

This is a big one. Chivers’s work has been misrepresented more or less universally in trade books – Sex at Dawn, for sure, and also in Brooke Magnenti’s “Sex Myth.” Indeed, the whole a-woman’s-genitals-are-more-honest-than-she-is thing is a zeitgeisty thing lately, with Alain de Botton saying that genitals are “unambiguous agents of sincerity.”

Ah, of course, “this is a big one”... The study of Meredith Chivers finds that the body reactions in women tend to show something the women themselves deny: they get biologically excited, but don't admit it to the machine by the button they press. Dr. Nagoski wants to liberate women from the burden of “lying” to the machines. Dr. Nagoski wants us to believe that women were not conscious of their arousal. But, why is she so insidious about this?

But it’s incorrect. Simply incorrect. And also wrong, in every sense.

Of course, what else? It must be wrong: women can't lie! They will always tell the truth. The process of social programming has absolutely no value for Dr. Nagoski... I suppose a course in Anthropology would have been of great help for her and persons like her.

Here’s how it actually works, according to my best understanding of the research:

And, of course, her “best understanding of the research” is the only understanding that could NOT be wrong, right?

Your sexual excitation system (SES) is constantly engaged in the scanning the environment for sexually relevant stimuli, which causes it to send “Turn on!” signals down to the peripheral nervous system (e.g., your genitals). That’s simple enough, and it tells us why a woman’s body may display physical arousal even when shown something as marginally sexual as videos of monkeys mating. “Sexually relevant,” says SES. “Go.” Genital response.

But, wow! What is this? She is totally accepting that such arousal is possible—but, of course, not acceptable... (by the Vatican?)—and introduces SES or Sexual Excitation System—one more system that needs to be defined in order to avoid any inclusion of social brain programming through culture.

And at the same time, you sexual inhibition system (SIS) is also busily engaged in noticing all the very good reasons NOT to be aroused.

Dr. Nagoski has just introduced one more system: SIS, or the Sexual Inhibition System. This system—and not cultural programming—is busily engaged in all the very good reasons—biological reasons!; this is incredible for a Ph.D. to ignore at such depth any existence of socio-cultural brain programming—NOT TO BE AROUSED. She implies that the reasons are embedded in the neurons of the brain, pre-programmed just like a bird knows how to build a nest.

“Desire” comes along when (a) SES activation crosses some threshold of awareness, which is different depending on the sensitivity of that system, and (b) all the OTHER brain systems involved agree that sex would be an interesting and non-problematic thing right now.

It's difficult for me—my BG is in Sociology—to understand how a Ph.D. could be out there, moving freely by the world, with zero knowledge of how the brain is programmed to function and respond according to the needs of culture. The lady Ph.D. is confusing everybody, by making a mess of things, simply to prove that “women don't lie; it's their biology...”

Your sexual inhibition system (SIS) needs to DE-activate, your stress response system needs to be calm, your attachment system very often needs to be engaged in its forward pull toward attachment an object, your overall wellness needs to meet some baseline criteria – how sleep deprived are you? are you starving for nutrients? dehydrated? can you really afford to shift your attention toward something as luxurious as sex right now? should you not be saving your energy for something more immediate to your own (and your existing offsprings’) survival?

Our SIS—not social values and cultural teachings—deactivates, the stress response system (SRS?) needs to be calm, and your attachment!!! system—nothing cultural, it's all biological; what's the matter with Nagoski?—needs to be engaged in its forward pull toward attachment of an object, your overall wellness needs to meet some baseline criteria: this is even MORE incredible!!! In each and every single word that refers to reactions that would be entirely different in different cultures, she wants us to believe that it is not cultural, but totally and absolutely biological, embedded within us as we are formed inside the womb.

When all of these things align, desire happens.

She is precisely talking about social conditions, which are what make up the environment to which the individual will respond but not according to biology, but according to social programming, through cultural adaptation.

Arousal comes first. Before desire. Genital response is not desire.

Genital response might not be desire, but it certainly IS arousal, and that's where sex starts. Whatever comes after the arousal IS NOT at all something embedded in the biology of humans, but learnt through social brain-mind programming

Dr. Nagoski, thanks for going back to your basic Anthropology books: Margaret Mead and others.