Prehistoric people where like the bonobos

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(i'm not sure if i should post this, but what the f**k, your autistics, you are not supposed to be offended by facts)

(attention my theory, attention, controversy levels are huge, .... but so simple)

For the last 5 million years we had the exact same sexual behaviour as the bonobos (promiscuity, bisexuality, paedophilia, none reproductive incest). In the last 60-10.000 years, the process of development of modern civilisation replaced this sexual behaviour by religion, and today by consumerism. In modern times, we gradually go back to "normal", the bonobo "normal". We aren't even at half of this transition. What we call normal, is just induced sexual phobias(in 19 century, you couldn't even masturbate).

The whole point of all this sexual repression in religions, was to prevent people from forming alliances (the bonobo way). So that a dictatorship can control people more easily.

People, just keep your calm, and simply respond. An NT friend shunned me over this, an other didn't take me seriously. And a third at first didn't take me seriously, until he saw how little kids behaved (part of the theory, its that if you really let little kids do what ever they want, they'll start behaving like little bonobos). I'm very aware the theory is radioactive, seriously i'm worried even just writing about it. Please respond something.

On my blog, i turn around the issue and brake the ice only at the very end of the post.
http://thechurchofthequantumimmortal.bl ... er-46.html

Last edited by Quantum_Immortal on 14 Feb 2011, 8:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not clicking the link, but I find the theory interesting. Not sure if I think it's true, but it's certainly plausible.

Simplistic though the theory is about how religious views of sexuality evolved may be.

The bonobo are very intriguing, but even combining chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla and orangutan traits you can't get to human. We have shown a pile of features that match this or that trait of the great apes - not quite chimp like aggression, not quite bonobo like sexuality, for some of us like me not quite orangutan like solitary tendencies, and so forth.

But you cannot put any of the anthropoids forward as a clear ancestor, and even if you go with the idea of a common ancestor for chimp- bonobo - homo, you would have to postulate personality traits that could mutate into the character of all three.

The proposalis a bit simplistic.

^^ That, too.

Not quite.

Our ancestors were not promiscous like bonobos but more or less monogous as we are today.

The reason that civilizations have evolved sexually repressives laws, mores, and religions, is simply because of the increase in population density since the end of the stone age.

In the stone age we lived in bands of sixty people, which part of a larger tribe of 500 people that shared the same language spread over an are of perhaps one thousand square miles ( it takes about twenty square miles of land per person to support a hunter-gathering way of life).

Most of the people you had daily contact with were your own relatives or inlaws. The people you got mates from were the foriegn tribe that you also fought wars with. This maybe part of why fear and sexuality are linked. In that situation people fell naturally into monogamy.

Then farming was invented and population went up. WIth cities more people lived together and for the first time most of the people you encountered were unrelated strangers. Humans arent designed to constantly interact with adult strangers of the opposite sex.
So when civilization rose and people were forced to live in close contact with huge numbers of strangers then repressive rules had to be created to enforce what before had come naturally-which was monogamy. Thats my theory.

I don't think there is much chance that modern man is moving in this direction. Culture is moving in the opposite direction. Overpopulation, in general, means we will never be peaceloving and generally egalitarian no matter how much sex we have or do not have.

Bonobos keep the peace with sex as a survival mechanism. We use big guns for that.

Is there any anthropological data to back up that theory other than our relatedness to bonobos?

Why do I get the feeling that organizations like NAMBLA contributed to this research.

That was a rhetorical question.

Instead the human race ended up like the Chimps. Too bad.

ruveyn

Indeed.

I don't think in the prehistoric times we were like bonobos, the bonobos split off from chimps millions of years after we did. Also each member of the hominidae family has evolved its own set of behaviours, we may all be similar but none of us are the same. Like someone above me said, if you combine all the behaviour of chimps, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans you wouldn't get us. You'd just get a mixture of those four. And if you combined us, gorillas and bonobos you wouldn't get chimps for example.
Anyway, about the sexual behaviour. The bonobos seem to use sex in a different way we do, it's more like a handshake or a kiss on the cheek for them! Maybe that explains why yesterday at the zoo I saw a juvenile bonobo of about 6 or 7 trying to hump a 7 month old.
And for humans it's not used as freely, not too far off though because sex is often used to sell things in advertising. But in general for a long time we have been serial monogamists, not strict pairing-for-life monogamists but having relationships that last a few years at a time. Of course there are exceptions, because people can sometimes be promiscuous, incestuous, pedos and all that. But I think that maybe people that are monogamists/serial monogamists do look down on the promiscuous types. I don't know why exactly but they just do.
Anyway I don't think at any time in our pre-history we had a sex life exactly like the bonobos.

I added stuff in my blog(the link).

in short:
1. Writing was invented around 7000 years ago. Civilization had alredy appeared by then. No writen record is possible. Sexuall stuff don't fossilize very well.
2. The more to the past you go in writen history, the more sexually liberated people tend to be.
3. 10.000 BC end of glaciation, quartenery extinction event(mammoths, woolly rhinos etc). Neandertals go extinct 20-30.000 years ago, Homo floresiensis go extinct 12.000 years ago. For the first time in geological history, there's only one human species around.
4. Female gorillas are genuinely faithful to the male. Our testicles are 4 times bigger then gorilla testicles, and sperm quality is higher, thus we are definitely more promiscuous then gorillas. Females hide when they are ovulating. Research on the human penice suggest, that its shape is optimized to scoop out other's male sperm, this complicates comparisons with testicle sizes.
5. Human culture: The examples of excision, foot binding, Mauritania's force fed girls with camels milk (fat women=beautiful). With these example, it shows there's ample of room for my theory.
6. Not really evidence. Freud had understood the importance of sex in humans. I come to the same conclusion independently. Freud had/has a lot of followers and was taken seriously, just to try to show that this is not just a crancky theory that goes against everything the experts believe.
7. Psychologically, a mechanism for conflict resolution is needed so that a group can live together. Sex can do just that. Like in the bonobos, sex its not just a perversion, it solves a very serious problem.






I'm not cherry picking, i only stick to the bonobos. And just by sticking to the chimps and bonobos, both of those are promiscuous. On the bonobos in particular, its the only species in the entire animal kingdom, that behaves this way. Its also the closest living thing to humans. Isn't suspicious that the bonobos that are alone in there category are so closely related to humans, an other species that is alone in his category?

From Occam razor, a theory should be simple. I believe the theory is simple, not simplistic.









Testicular size suggest we are more promiscuous then gorillas.

Penile size and shape, suggest that we are more promiscuous then testicular size seams to suggest.

Hiden oestrous in women resembles the very prolonged heat period of female bonobos. The explaination of this is, that combined with promiscuity, males simply can't guess witch children are theres. Normally animals have certain period when they are in heat, females are atractive when they are ovulating. On the other hand we do that all year long, human females are allways in heat and attractive.



We become more and more sexually liberated. In the 19th century we couldn't even masturbate. We use big guns because sex became taboo. I'm saying our behaviour is artificially distorted.



First of all, read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_ ... ent_Greece

secondly, the theory implies blanket promiscuity (bisexual, paedophilia, none reproductive incest, yea the bonobos are doing ALL that).

I don't think NAMBLA people are interested in any thing else then there thing.

If you stick to the facts. They are actually right. Unless you want to say that ancient Greeks where sick?

I'll remind you that in the 19th century you couldn't even masturbate. Until 1970s homosexuality was illegal, homosexuals where throng in jail just because they had sex with each other. If you stick to the facts, NAMBLA people are in the same category.

From the theory i predict that that too will become legal eventually. In 100 years?

The theory explains our aversion to certain kinds of sexual contacts as a phobia. In the 19th century people where afraid of masturbation. "You'll become blind" actually comes from that period, and was doctors that where saying that. If you take just nudity, that too is a phobia, our normal way of being, its being naked, but we don't. The issue with nudity just screams there’s a problem.



Actually, its rather the chimps that split from a species that resembled much more to modern bonobos. The bonobos are closer to the common ancestor, they changed the least. The bonobos are the closest thing alive to humans, its not cherry picking. Its the common chimp that diverged.

You are comparing, today’s human sexual behaviour with that of the bonobos. I'm saying that our sexual behaviour today is relatively recent, it got distorted by civilization, and we go back to "normal". We don't have prehistoric people to make comparisons. But our issues with nudity should tell you there is something up (and 19th century sexuality, and Saudi Arabia, etc...).

I know, I nearly mentioned that actually. Chimps did change the most, and bonobos resemble the prehistoric apes more. But it's confusing, because as well as bonobos seeming to have changed the least, they were only separated from chimps about just over a million years ago. And chimps and bonobos can hybridise (I've seen a picture of a bonobo/chimp hybrid, and it was ugly and weird looking.) Although when the chimps and bonobos did split maybe the chimps changed really fast and the bonobos just stayed the same.
I read it is also true that humans haven't changed much either, and bipedal walking is actually quite primitive.

I have noticed though that old carvings and paintings from ancient times are very sexual, and there are erect penises depicted everywhere. But there is still a theme of pair-bondings and serial monogamy. Cultures do evolve, so attitudes towards sex will also chop and change as time passes, at the moment attitudes are becoming more and more liberal and my parent's generation are always moaning about music videos with women dancing erotically in them like it's a new thing.

Well, we can only talk about physical changes (behaviour doesn't fossilize well). Hey, all chimps are just ugly. Hmmm, are you really a chimp in a lab?

Old carvings? You mean historic times? For prehistoric times i'm only aware of animal paintings. Historic times is a bit too recent for the theory. Besides, even in porn, you don't often see more then 2 people together.

Its actually interesting to point out. In common chimps, the females are HUGE sluts. Its something like 10 different males in 15 minutes. That's nooooot human. However, bonobos are much more relaxed, they have orgies and stuff, but not these levels of slutiness. Again, we are much closer to bonobos then chimps.

So, the pair bonding in paintings its normal. Even bonobos don't like "10 different males in 15 minutes". I think it only shows further, that the common chimp is a terrible animal model for our ancestor species. As you said, physically bonobos changed the least.

About culture and sex. Its highly unusual that a species is sexually active all year long. In our case, its because its supposed to play some other role other then reproduction. The standard explanation is for monogamy, but it doesn't make sense. Plenty of species are monogamous, but they aren't sexually active all year long. However a bonobo-like society makes more sense. And why all this sexual repression to begin with? Biologically, If we where in heat once a year, it would make more sense.

Last edited by Quantum_Immortal on 14 Feb 2011, 8:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hmmm, I might be.
Well, some are uglier than others. The more hair they have the less ugly they are I think, when their hair is a bit on sparse side they look freaky as hell.

Ha, I think I know some female HUMANS that are 10 different males in 15 minutes .
I don't think we could really use chimps OR bonobos are the animal model for our ancestors, because every species is different when it comes to behaviour and that. And our ancestors weren't bonobos or chimps as we know them today, they were different apes with their own set of behaviours, like you said behaviour doesn't fossilize. So they could have had some really weird systems.

Look, the point of an animal model is in order to make approximations.

You missed the most important point of the post. Current liberalization is not an anomaly, we going back to the normal bonobo behaviour (promiscuity, bisexuality, paedophilia, none reproductive incest). In ... 100 years, 200 years? The theory is making a prediction. Its a scientific theory. We aren't even at half of the change. Again, all this sex is not just a perversion, its for conflict resolution, exactly like the bonobos.

It would not actually have to be. For reasons of human psychology, a lot of bonobo research has been [I am speaking informally not as scientist here] a bit teenager with a cache of Playboy. A glance at the media shows we have a fascination.