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SEX
IN HISTORY
LOVE
AT THE TIME OF THE GORILLAS
Love
is a wonderful thing. But sometimes it isn't easy.
A few million years ago things went more smoothly. Men knew only
the law of instinct.
During the mating season, the males and females wooed and coupled
with each other.
Women played at being chased by the men for days, who often fought
each other. The female yielded only when she was fertile. She coupled
first with the male who had been able to catch her, chasing her
non-stop and beating the other suitors. The winner mounted her for
as long as hecould. When he then collapsed, she continued the game
with the weaker suitors. The female continued to be 'available'
for the whole fertile period, which lasted a few days. In this way
nature ensured that she would become pregnant and guaranteed the
strongest male greater likelihood of having offspring. At the same
time, the period in "heat" avoided energy being wasted
in copulations in non-fertile moments.
The selection of lovers, through the competition of courtship, also
sanctioned the formation of couples. In fact, the first-chosen male
maintained a preferential relationship with that particular female
and her children.
I say her children because, to ensure that the female became pregnant,
nature had arranged it, as I said, so that after the first copulations,
she would also give herself to the other males in the pack. And
seening that all the females were in heat roughly at the same time,
this didn't displease the 'husband' who right away went to look
for pleasure elsewhere. 'Jealousy' in fact concerned only the right
to be first. For this privilege, the males fought each other. But
when they were with another female, it didn't bother them in the
least.
This form of courtship was the only one known for millions of years
and is still practised by most warm-blooded animals. When did things
change? No one can say exactly. Certainly primitive societies simplyfollowed
the instinct for sex and food without bringing about much change.
Fertility was the fulcrum of the whole rituality. The Goddess worshipped
was 'the Great Mother', to eat and to make love was the way to commune
with the 'creative force'. Enormous images of penises and vaginas
were worshipped everywhere. Even today we find evidence of these
ancient matriarchal religions in many rites. In Japan and India
gigantic depictions of penises still dominate Shintoist and Hindu
temples, whereas among Christians and Muslims these images still
survive but have been stylized in the less readable form of candles,
stems, columns and sacred stones.
What remained unchanged in these prehistoric cultures was the complete
sexual freedom, aimed at enriching the genetic heritage of the group.
For example, a stranger who came to a village was made to lie with
the women of fertile age, in order to supply the group with new
"lymph".
This custom survived for a long time. Even in the time of Herodotus,
for example, in some cities of the Middle East, the women, before
marrying, had to copulate with a stranger before marrying. Similar
customs still exist perhaps even today among the Eskimos (When contact
was first made, it seems that a few missionaries were killed because
they had refused to copulate with some of their women).
In primitive (matriarchal) societies sexual pleasure was considered
a miracle. Even in recorded history, in Egypt, the fulcrum of the
religious myth was the resurrection of Osiris by Isis, his sister
and wife, by way of an intimate kiss. In the same way as we today
worship the image of the crucified Christ, so then paintings and
bas-reliefs of Isis kneeling at Osiris' feet and intently sucking
his virile member dominated the temples. Despite the enormous sexual
freedom of these primitive societies, things were already beginning
to be more complicated than when we were great apes.
We no longer moved on all fours but on two legs and this had changed
the meeting point of the sexual organs the new inclination of the
pelvis and the pubes made it more difficult for the femel to reach
an orgasm. Moreover,
the period in 'heat' was different: instead of being fertile roughly
once a year, women becames fertile every month and this made sure
that the females was willing to make love more often, even after
the 2-3 days when she was fertile.
Only in late matriarchal age did the necessity to draw up alliances
between groups and so guarantee agreements and trade give rise to
the incest taboo. That is, it was decided that the members of a
group would not marry among themselves anymore. Mature males left
their clan and went to live with their wives' clan. Each man practically
married all the females in the group.
Only afterwards did the problem with mothers-in-law arise and the
young husbands were forbidden to have relations with thei wives'
mothers.
I believe this was done initially to impose a bit of order on society.
In fact, trying to work in the midst of a pack of sexually frenzied
people, with everybody fucking everybody else, must have been a
problem. "It damaged productivity". However, the rigidity
of these new taboos was mitigated by the annual fertility feast,
three days during which the taboos fell and everything was allowed.
Today we no longer succumb to unrestrained sex, but we still celebrate
Carnival, the day on which any joke is allowed.
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