Just so you know, I don't kiss on the mouth.
I've been trying to stay away from these random studies that the media loves to use as a means of promoting bullshit sexist theories, but this is too ridiculous to not point out:
Selling sex is said to be humankind's oldest profession but it may have deep evolutionary roots, according to a study into our primate cousins which found that male macaques pay for intercourse by using grooming as a currency.
According to the research, female macaques are more likely to want to have sex immediately after getting groomed. This, according to the researchers, is a method of payment, although the females don't necessarily even have sex with the macaque who grooms them. So are those just "freebies"? What about the possibility that the females might actually get aroused by being groomed? (I sure as hell do.) The article continues:
The work supports the theory that biological market forces can explain social behaviour, the British weekly says.'There is a very well-known mix of economic and mating markets in the human species itself,' said Ronald Noe of France's University of Strasbourg.
'There are many examples of rich old men getting young attractive ladies.'
You would think this could be in The Onion. For real.
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My first thought is that the grooming sounds more like foreplay then payment.
yeah, that behavior is more akin to humans feeling more like participating in sexual activity, when their partner is attentive to their needs.
or, if one is a misogynist, that could be perceived as prostitution. you know, because some perceive "dating" behavior as prostitution.
oh, and I'll go on record here to point out that I've spent over 16 years studying human behavior. not going to listen to wack-job "evo-psychologists". not today.
That's insane. Really insane.
Everything I've read about primates considers grooming to be an expression of affection and social bonding. For instance, chimps whose regular grooming partners die suffer high rates of stress, and that stress can be alleviated by finding another grooming partner. It's parallel to the way humans mourn a beloved partner.
So what this article is really saying is that female primates are more likely to desire sex after a session of mutual affection and social bonding. I'm not shocked by that.
As usual, the articles do not provide access to the actual paper.
It seems to me that the observation -- female monkeys have more sex when groomed, and more often with their grooming partner -- is unremarkable. The interpretation -- that this is an exchange of services which functions as a market -- imports a ton of biases. The devil is in the details, the details are in the paper, and we don't have the paper.
Access to the paper, anyone?
This is gobbledy-gook.
This study really does seem to be assuming that sex is always a commodity, that it is provided by females to males, and that any kind of behavior that precedes sex should be seen as a form of payment for the subsequent act. Rather than as, say, foreplay. And God forbid grooming just be seen as grooming.
This is ridiculous. By those lights, the kisses I receive from my husband are payment too. Because there's no way women have sex just because they enjoy it, is there?
Ugh.
Touch and affection can lead to sex? Really? Someone alert the tabloids.
You know, if someone wanted to find examples of "prostitution" in nature, it's out there to find. For example, I understand that there's a species of penguin where an unpartnered female will mate with a male in exchange for being allowed to take stones from his nest to add to her own (something he would usually fight strenuously).
But this?
"Huh. Females of a species closely related to us are more interested in mating after being groomed." "Guess it's not just humans that like foreplay, huh?" "What? No, no! This is clearly an example of animal-kingdom prostitution!"
Somebody's apparently never heard of Occam's Razor.
I agree, this seems more like foreplay than payment.
However, there is evidence that prostitution exists among chimpanzees. Because chimpanzees have a society. And that society has elements that could be called patriarchal. Actually, they are far more patriarchal than some modern human cultures, and sex is treated as a bargaining tool.
Thus, if one takes from this that since non-human primates practice prositution, it's somehow "okay" or "programmed" that humans do the same, that's about like us saying "Well, you know, some human cultures practice ritual cannibalism. Thus, someone who likes cannibalism is just responding to evolutionary programming."
Think of macaque society like another human society at a much more primitive stage of development. Not everything they do is instinct; some of it is learned. So even though this is not a logical conclusion based on the data for this study, if it WAS, it still wouldn't mean anything besides the fact that macaque society uses sex as a commodity just like some human societies.
this is so absurd that it is almost laughable. almost. "science" enjoys such an elevated status in our society that its especially detrimental when such studies are used to essentialize patriarchy, capitalism and (dear god) prostitution. i cannot believe that this research was actually published somewhere. argh.
Agreed. I debunked this on another blog.
There’s no concept of money here. Just anthropomorphic projection from pointy head academics more engaged in wishful evolutionary conclusions than actual science.
The only thing proved conclusively is a simple quid pro quo via fore play. Something more human males should pay attention to. But even then the male monkey sometimes gets cucked for his 'money'.
What's concluded then? Primate lawyers?
Krykee.
Time for a remedial class in zoology for these 'scientists'.
Wow, can we hold the anthropomorphization here?!
What the article badly reported on was research into other reasons, besides procreation, that other animals might have sex. The idea being that sex is a complex behavior, and in nature, most complex behaviors serve more than one purpose. In this case, it seems to be bonding in macaques. Nowhere in the does it attribute sexist and untoward statements to the actual research or the scientists conducting it.
"Prostitution" is a human construct for human societies. It requires money. Otherwise, it's just individuals having sex - or, if you prefer, a little quim-pro-quo.
Goes to show the extreme lengths people (ahem, men--only men are quoted here) to justify patriarchal oppression and behavior.
Just because monkeys do it, or sea horses do it, doesn't mean it's "natural" for humans to do it. Grr....
"My first thought is that the grooming sounds more like foreplay then payment."
Same here. I wouldn't call it "prostitution." For interesting sexual behavior, we need turn no further than our very close relatives, the pygmy bonobo (not the "regular" bonobo, formerly called the pygmy chimpanzee). Sex is used quite freely, in all its permutations (swapping, group, homo, pedo . . . ), as a means of communication and bond building within the troop. Males are not territorial with the females (as are many other apes such as the chimpanzee where the breeding alpha may kill any babies suspected not to be its own) at all.
So most animals including primates, are not monogamous. To an extent, it holds true for humans as well, particularly before marriage, despite our intelligence or moral values. I do not consider it a big deal, as we can consciously make our own decisions.
To Vanessa and those who are frightened or offended by the idea that male monkeys may purchase sex from female monkeys - please step back and try not to think about this as reflecting upon you personally (I am assuming this is the cause of the excitement in the comments)
It is perfectly possible for women to have varying and diverse interests - women who sell sex for a living are not automatically victims and I encourage you to question whether it is something that you should become afraid or angry about.
I do not know whether the article in question is good or bad science, but I am unhappy to see that it is met in this forum by a strong bias based on personal value judgements.
In our diverse modern society I feel you must accept that women are free to sell their bodies, and men are free to buy them (and vice versa).
Right. Hear that, it's SCIENCE! So if you disagree with the conclusion, it must be because your female brain gets frightened, offended or confused by the SCIENCE! of it all.
That and you hate sex.
relaxed londoner, The post did not address the presence or validity of prostitution in human societies. As I saw it, Vanessa responded to the untenable and misogynist conclusions drawn by the researchers and/or journalists who reported on the research.
The assumption that this species' sexual behaviors have anything to do with human sexuality is bizarre.
In order to contextualize the grooming behavior I would want to know what other activities mates engaged in together, whether the animals showed signs of arousal during grooming, and the other contexts in which grooming behavior is performed, for a start. I have no idea how thorough the original investigation was, but the write-up Vanessa links to is sensationalist bs.
Jeff, your male brain seems overwhelmed and over excited by my comment ;)
My key point is this:
the publication reports that there seems to be a market economy around sex in a monkey population based on supply and demand
this forum has reacted to that in a way that I find disheartening - the criticisms in the above comments all disparage the post in emotional terms
the leap from monkey to human society seems speculative, but for those who doubt the asymmetry in the demand for purchased sex, I again encourage you to search the internet for services offering foreign brides, or female escorts. After that try the same thing for male foreign grooms, or male escorts.
londoner - you seem to be having trouble following, so let me break it down for you:
1. this posting was not about humans paying for sex, a disparity between men and women who pay for sex, or whether paying for sex (or providing sex for money) is good or bad. no one here thus far has argued one way or the other on that topic.
2. this posting WAS about the dubious looking science in this study about monkeys, at least as it was reported in the article. since of course the study is not linked, we can't examine the science to know if it is bs or not. it wouldn't be the first time science has tried to justify gender roles. even without the study, the article seems sensationalist itself. we can critique that.
Well I don't about you guys but I pretty much always feel obligated to have sex with my hair dresser after a good haircut :)
When I was in high school the boy that sat behind me in english was always trying to brush my hair - he had a weird fetish for long hair. This explains so much! I never understood he was just paying me for sex - and he really was a primate!
@rileystclair, thanks for the breakdown.
Here are the links you ask for:
(1) http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg19726374.100-macaque-monkeys-pay-for-sex.html
(2) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W9W-4R2HKSW-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=5737f8f8f412bcd0d8c43ef98c777175
I do not understand what the critique is? I feel its disingenuous to say you are critiquing the sensationalism, as this is a site about feminism.
As I see it, the article only makes a (non-normative) observation about generalized behaviour based on sex?
I have a real problem with news stories that expressly or impliedly suggest that the behavior of animals can tell us about the behavior of humans. The behavior of a male dog tells nothing about my behavior (some men, yes), and it is insulting to suggest that we can learn anything about women from studying monkeys -- just because they are both female.
> I have a real problem with news stories that expressly or impliedly suggest that the behavior of animals can tell us about the behavior of humans
you must also take issue with the entire scientific field? http://www.hbes.com/intro_to_field.htm
> and it is insulting to suggest that we can learn anything about women from studying monkeys -- just because they are both female
scientists are not seeking to insult people when they compare them to monkeys (this obviously differs from how culture uses these comparisons for insults), they are seeking to understand behaviors, sometimes partitioned by sex, on the basis of our biological ancestors
I think you can critique individual instances of these claims, but I'm not sure its tenable to attack the entire field
londoner - those links aren't to the actual STUDY. we want to see the data that was examined and controlled for--as was pointed out earlier by jessica and others--why did the scientists rule out the grooming as foreplay or other social bonding? why did they jump to the conclusion that the grooming was "in exchange" for sex? those links don't adequately explain the logical leap here. maybe it's valid and maybe it isn't, but i can't tell.
as for critiquing the sensationalism--how is that not valid in a society that loves to pander to gender stereotypes? it's worthwhile to point out when both science and journalism attempt to justify gender roles because they are "nature", which of course implies that they are fundamentally inescapable and instead of trying for change and equality, we should just accept "the natural order". why even bother referencing humans at the end, if the author wasn't really thinking that the study could be extrapolated to humans (which is obviously a whole other issue)?
Ok yeah, rileystclair i agree. I want to see the DATA not a REPORT on the data. And I think it's fuckin hilarious that they would rule out forplay and leap right to prostitution.
And londoner, seriously, nobody was talking about justifying (or not) prostitution for humans. Thats a different story for a different thread. And so sorry if you think this site is biased (as per your other comment) but we happen to think our society is biased.
The second link provided was to the abstract, which is all that is available without subscribing to the journal.
While the abstract uses words like "sex market," "exchange" and "payment," it does not, I believe, go so far to imply "prostitution" per se. I think that was a journalistic misinterpretation of these words in their context. From the abstract, I believe the author was using these words to express sexual activity in a non-anthropomorphic manner by using these terms. For instance, suppose an alien researcher was watching human mating behavior. The researcher sees a male give a female a cunnilingus, then sees the female reciprocate. The researcher might conclude that there was an exchange of one sex act for another.
HOWEVER, this study is still biased because it terms sex as a trade-off for the female; in this study the female rewards the grooming behavior by "giving" sex; the author fails to view sex as something the female might want, too. It takes two to tango, as it were, and sex has roughly equal "rewards" for both partners, whereas grooming rewards one partner more than the other. It is not an equal exchange and sex must not be seen as having more rewards for one biological sex over the other; that is a bias introduced into animal research from human assumptions about human behavior.
> sex must not be seen as having more rewards for one biological sex over the other
is there not an asymmetry in how much biological resource each sex devotes to the results of a successful conception?
remember individual equality (gender egalitarianism) does not imply that there are not physical and mental differences between the sexes (averaged over a population)
Do you think macaques realize that sex=pregnancy? Please. The biological urge to have sex is extremely strong, and that's why it feels good. I'm pretty sure when macaques have sex they're thinking about how good it feels and not weighing the risk v benefit of a possible pregnancy.
> Do you think macaques realize that sex=pregnancy?
I did not mean to suggest the individual would rationalize about this, but that their instinctive behavior would reflect a strategy honed by evolution?
Maybe I'm not up to date, but I believe the thinking crudely put would have
female -> wants one quality mate
male -> wants many mates
Yeah the animal behavior and evolutionary behavior fields (of which I work in, although I'm more in genetics than behavior) debunked those theories about 20 years ago, although most of the public and a few scientists still believe it.
Relaxed, the commenters are taking issue with the assumption that grooming = payment rather than foreplay.
Nothing more. You are the one complicating things.
It's like observing sex between humans and concluding that manual stimulation of the female is the male's method of paying for entrance to her vagina.
By picking this report apart, londoner, we are actually engaging in the very same thing that any other scientist who was interested in the study and it's results would do. If a scientific "answer" doesn't stand up to legitimate questions about methods, it's crap science. Period.
relaxing_londoner: "To Vanessa and those who are frightened or offended by the idea that male monkeys may purchase sex from female monkeys"
What? Where do you get off assuming that their comments were based on fear or being offended? If they just said "I hate this it's stupid!!!" or "The guy who wrote this went to jail once therefore everything he writes is wrong" then I'd understand, but they said things like "although the females don't necessarily even have sex with the macaque who grooms them" and "Everything I've read about primates considers grooming to be an expression of affection and social bonding" and "There’s no concept of money here" - in other words, arguments regarding the validity of the article's conclusions based on the facts. And Seraph and Basoriana even pointed out that it can be argued that there is prostitution among animals, and just that this particular example is a bad one. I can only assume that you didn't bother to understand what people were saying and just wanted to get into an argument with feminists about gender roles in human society.
As for why this may be relevant to feminism, that's because some people do bad science, and then sometimes other people latch onto that bad science and do bad philosophy based on it, and then conclude that things like sexism and racism are justified. And it is perfectly reasonable to want to stop people from believing bad science before this happens, both because it's untrue and because it can be harmful. As long as the arguments against the allegedly bad science are rational, there's nothing wrong with this, and these arguments were rational. If you have a counterargument, let's hear it, but if you just want to assume that we're against women having the freedom to sell sex if they choose, I'd rather you just go troll somewhere else.
@judgesnineteen
> What?
From your comment, we agree mostly - that science should be evaluated without prejudice.
My original point (before admittedly expanding the scope) was that the responses were jumping to conclusions.
Consider this - the responders have almost certainly not read the full report, yet they use inflammatory and emotional language.
Some examples:
"That's insane. Really insane."
"This is gobbledy-gook."
"Goes to show the extreme lengths people (ahem, men--only men are quoted here) to justify patriarchal oppression and behavior."
My critique of this forum is that articles are selected on the basis that they may be (or are perceived to be) easily criticized, and that forum members come here for a kind of rage-fix.
Your own comment is slightly aggressive, using language such as:
"What? Where do you get off assuming that their comments were based on fear or being offended?"
and
"I'd rather you just go troll somewhere else"
I assume people are afraid or offended when they use aggressive or apoplectic language - in summary, I stand by my original post.
@SarahMC
> the commenters are taking issue with the assumption that grooming = payment rather than foreplay.
I believe the assumption is more of an observation? i.e. the study claims that the 'foreplay' (or payment) decreased as supply of females (or sex) increased?
@leah
> debunked those theories about 20 years ago
I'd be very interested in a citation :)
@waxghost
>If a scientific "answer" doesn't stand up to legitimate questions about methods, it's crap scienc
I agree
First, Wow, lots of claim of "junk science" and "gobbledy-gook" and such considering we haven't even read the actual report. It was published in respected journal Animal Behaviour so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00033472
SARAHMC: "Relaxed, the commenters are taking issue with the assumption that grooming = payment rather than foreplay."
Whether it is "payment" or "foreplay" is not really the relevant issue here. It is likely that grooming is acting as foreplay - the male grooming elicits arousal in the female, which leads to sex.
But even in that case, the male is paying a cost: time and energy. Time is an important resource that could be spent foraging, forming alliances, etc. Males needed to give up some of that time in order to receive sexual access. Females did not need to groom in order to gain sexual access to the male.
So there is an imbalance in the costs and need for of grooming for males and females. Hence the reason it is considered a "payment" for sex - males need to incur a cost in order to gain sex.
Also, as noted in the article, grooming isn't used simply as a payment for sex. It can be used as payment for forming alliances with higher ranking males. In other words, any time you have a situation where one individual has something the other desires (sex, protection, resources, etc.), one can provide a service (grooming) to obtain what was desired. Maybe "bartering" is more apt than "payment". In macacues, the males are more frequently interested in sex. If the reverse were true, you'd see a female to male grooming for sex pattern.
The primary benefit to the female is quite practical - grooming removes parasites, dirt, tangles, etc. Arousal is likely a byproduct of that process meant to facilitate further grooming. Many people argue that grooming behaviors evolved into foreplay behaviors in humans.
There are other examples of this in the animal kingdom. For example, meat-for-sex trades, where male chimps provide meat to females who then become sexually receptive. And there are non-sexual payments as well - for example, providing meat to form alliances.
The most interesting findings haven't even been discussed. They favor the payment interpretation over the foreplay interpretation
A) female to male grooming was actually related to lower sexual frequency, which doesn't favor the foreplay interpretation (unless males for some reason don't like foreplay).
B) High ranking females required more
Is it foreplay or payment seems to be the question people are asking. In some ways, the difference doesn't matter. In both cases, the male is providing a service in exchange for sex. Time is a limited resource that could be used for foraging, grooming one's self, etc. It's a cost to exchange something (time, food, etc.) for sex. The reverse pattern did not occur (female grooming of males did not correlate with sexual frequency).
In this case, the service is either getting rid of parasite/insects/dirt/tanges from fur or generating arousal in the female, both of which create a cost to the male.
It does bring up an interesting question of what mechanism is operating. Did the male monkeys learn through trial and error that longer grooming bouts lead to sexual gratification? Is there an innate tendency for males to attempt to groom females because males with that impulse reproduced more successfully? Then, on the flip
LEAH: "HOWEVER, this study is still biased because it terms sex as a trade-off for the female; in this study the female rewards the grooming behavior by "giving" sex; the author fails to view sex as something the female might want, too. It takes two to tango, as it were, and sex has roughly equal "rewards" for both partners, whereas grooming rewards one partner more than the other. It is not an equal exchange and sex must not be seen as having more rewards for one biological sex over the other; that is a bias introduced into animal research from human assumptions about human behavior."
It's not introducing a bias. It's looking at what actually happened in the study. In the study, female grooming males was less common and not related to sexual behavior. Second, male were more likely to initiate sexual encounters. So in this species, sex appears to be the limited resource for males and not females. At that point you have a simple supply and demand problem. If female macaques are less interested in sex and males are more interested, how can the males increase the frequency of sex?
They can give females something they want - in this case, grooming.
Is it foreplay or payment seems to be the question people are asking. In some ways, the difference doesn't matter. In both cases, the male is providing a service in exchange for sex.
But UCLA, isn't that assuming that the male does not enjoy or get anything positive out of the grooming experience? That is the relevant difference between payment and foreplay: the men I've slept with, at least, do seem to enjoy the foreplay.
ACTUAL STUDY ABSTRACT
In primate sexual relationships, males and females can cooperate through social trade. Market-like trading of sexual activity has been theorized, but no data have yet been presented that clearly show its existence. I collected data to test whether biological market theory could account for exchanges of male-to-female grooming and sexual activity in longtailed macaques. I explored male-to-female grooming, rates of sexual activity, and grooming–mating interchanges, which were male-to-female grooming bouts that directly involved mating. Male-to-female grooming mainly occurred when females were sexually active, and males groomed females longer per bout when mating, inspection, or presentation of female hindquarters was involved. Moreover, male-to-female grooming was associated with an increase in female rates for all forms of sexual activity, where in contrast, female-to-male grooming was associated with decreased rates of mating in the groomed males. Males did not preferentially mate with swollen females or invest more grooming in them during grooming–mating interchanges, as swellings did not seem to be a reliable indicator of female fertility. Rank status was correlated with grooming payment during grooming–mating interchanges in favour of higher-ranked males and females. In support of a biological market interpretation, the amount of grooming a male performed on a female during grooming–mating interchanges was related to the current supply of females around the interaction. The results provided evidence of a grooming–mating trade that was influenced by a mating market.
Keywords: biological markets
Whoops, my January 3rd 11:16pm post got a little out of whack. Just ignore the bottom half.
EG: "But UCLA, isn't that assuming that the male does not enjoy or get anything positive out of the grooming experience? That is the relevant difference between payment and foreplay: the men I've slept with, at least, do seem to enjoy the foreplay."
It would be like the guy performing 30 minutes of oral sex every time in order to get sex.
But you never having to perform oral sex in order to get sex.
Or I guess more directly: Your partner performing a 30 minute massage in order to get sex, but you never having to perform a massage in order to get sex. One sex is consistently paying a cost to get something desired, while the other doesn't.
"As for why this may be relevant to feminism, that's because some people do bad science, and then sometimes other people latch onto that bad science and do bad philosophy based on it, and then conclude that things like sexism and racism are justified."
Well I certainly don't think this is a case of bad science at all. Sensationalistic journalism, perhaps, but the study looks quite interesting to me.
Never judge a science paper by how it's reported by media. It could be saying something completely different.
"It would be like the guy performing 30 minutes of oral sex every time in order to get sex."
omg. Someone found my secret.
"One sex is consistently paying a cost to get something desired, while the other doesn't."
That assumes the female's feeling is mutual, which is also the same as with humans. I saw the thread last month, but I know some women do not desire sex, at least not as much as their partners. My wife is among them.
"the author fails to view sex as something the female might want, too. It takes two to tango, as it were, and sex has roughly equal "rewards" for both partners"
Human females are the only females among animals scientists can be sure of which experience orgasm. (Some researchers have claimed both sexes have the capacity to enjoy sex to promote intercourse at random times, because human females, unlike many others that have mating season perhaps once a year, do not go into heat, but may be fertile [or "receptive" to sex] at any given time.) Females of certain ape species (chimps being one IIRC) make a particular O mouthed face during sex which researchers associate with "orgasm," but we can't actually ask. So I cannot be sure that female animals other than humans gain anything positive from the act of sex in itself (as opposed to eg, bonding behavior for some other motive). And no, I do not judge animals by human standards, so it is not a big deal.
Call it "junk" if you wish, but my mother, being a retired high school chemistry teacher, read respected peer reviewed journals like Scientific American (a challenging read even for professionals, try it), so I read as well. It favors the "hard" sciences like physics and mathematics. A conclusive proof for Fermat's Last Theorum? omg.
It would be like the guy performing 30 minutes of oral sex every time in order to get sex.
That's not normal? It's pretty much how I have sex.
Cunnilingus is sex. If he's going down on me, the guy is getting sex. It may not be the sort of sex he likes best (or it may well be--there are men like that out there), but it's sex nonetheless.
Honestly, I always thought it just made good sense for a male partner to go down on me before fucking. It's only fair for us both to have at least one orgasm over the course of things, and while I like fucking, it doesn't help me come, but I'm the one who can quite happily carry on after coming. So, me first, then him.
Sometimes there is bad science, and bad things follow. Therefore this is worth investigating, in case it should turn out to be one of those cases. But I haven't even tried to say if it is one of those cases or not.
"Cunnilingus is sex. If he's going down on me, the guy is getting sex. It may not be the sort of sex he likes best (or it may well be--there are men like that out there), but it's sex nonetheless."
Indeed. I prefer watching my wife's grand mal reaction and envying female (multiple/consecutive/continuous) orgasm, and often go without intercourse because she cannot continue or falls asleep before opening her eyes again. It's better than watching porn. If I just want my own orgasm, I have other means. Male orgasm is lame. One reason I said I wouldn't mind waking up as a real woman.
"Honestly, I always thought it just made good sense for a male partner to go down on me before fucking."
Men also have hands, if they are not calloused, and nails kept trim. My wife happens to like G-spot stimulation, or simultaneous clitoral/G-spot stimulation. Can't imagine why. Xo Bwah ha ha ha ha
"Sometimes there is bad science, and bad things follow. Therefore this is worth investigating, in case it should turn out to be one of those cases."
Well I believe this particular study does look like crap. If they want to test their "prostitution" hypothesis, they should try some primate which practices an actual *material* exchange for sex, like certain male spiders or praying mantises which may bring offerings of prey to the larger females, if for nothing more than a distraction to avoid being eaten (as is often the case) so the female absentmindedly eats while the male deposits his sperm. No romance at all.
EG: "That's not normal? It's pretty much how I have sex. Cunnilingus is sex. If he's going down on me, the guy is getting sex."
Well, most couples do about 25-50% of the times they have sex. But the key point here is that ONE sex is required to perform a service in order to obtain sex, a service that requires effort and energy. The other sex is not.
So go with the massage example, which is more like grooming. The male is always required to give a massage before sex, which requires energy and effort. The female isn't. Hence, services are being bartered - tit for tat.
More generally, grooming is a service one provides to get a host of other desired services, not just sex (alliance formation, food, protection, etc.).
A MALE: "Well I believe this particular study does look like crap."
Jeez, I hope that I can produce crap this good someday.
AMALE: "If they want to test their "prostitution" hypothesis, they should try some primate which practices an actual *material* exchange for sex"
Nuptial gifts, like the giving of a food packet in order to induce sex, is only one form of bartering. One can barter with services as well. In this case, the service is grooming, which isn't just about feeling warm and fuzzy. It's a critical service that removes parasites and other nasties from the body.
"EG: "That's not normal? It's pretty much how I have sex. "
Ahh, this is the stat I was looking for:
60% of women say they give oral sex to their partner always, usually, or half the time they have sex.
53% of men say they give oral sex to their partner always, usually, or about half the time they have sex.
From the 2006 "Good Sex Survey" N = 60,000.
FROM THE ARTICLE: "The work supports the theory that biological market forces can explain social behaviour, the British weekly says.
'There is a very well-known mix of economic and mating markets in the human species itself,' said Ronald Noe of France's University of Strasbourg.
'There are many examples of rich old men getting young attractive ladies.'"
This quote refers to the biological market aspect of the study.
In the study, they find that males with less desirable qualities (e.g., lower rank) need to groom for longer periods of time before they receiving sexual access. In other words, if a male has less than desirable qualities, they can make up for that with extra services.
This has an analogy in our society. Older males might lack some of the characteristics deemed attractive in our society. Some older males can provide extra services (e.g. Donald Trump) and therefore can attract members of the opposite sex with attractive characteristics.
Basically it's saying that in a mating market, there is competition for mates, and individuals who can provide additional services will be more successful attracting mates.
To clarify my 'gobbledy-gook' comment... I accept that the study itself may be using highly specialized terminology to describe the behavior that has been studied. Given that they didn't use the word prostitution at any point, I would like to reserve my 'gobbledy-gook' comment and my subesequent (though conveniently ignored) expansion on that idea for the people who wrote the news story. They seem to be the ones who hear prostitution when a researcher says exchange. Is there a difference? Of course, but the more subtle findings of the research team don't fit the script that the armchair pundits have ready.
It is interesting to know how animals interact, and to speculate on the evolutionary strategies that may contribute to animal behavior. The point at which any such research is used to suggest that human sex is always an economic exchange with the females selling and males buying? That's where scientific inquiry ends and bullshit begins.
A process comment/question for all the science-y men with their calm, rational minds:
If almost every reported scientific study you were presented with was reported to conclude that you were a whore, or a grasping whore, or a crazy bitch, or stupid, or a grasping whorish crazy stupid bitch, do you think maybe you'd start to rebel when presented with more studies? Do you think maybe you'd want to start kicking first, and find it difficult to calmly look for the real culprits?
Do you see how that could be? Or do I need to study macaques so I can put out a study that determines that male macaques lack empathy? Which, of course, would tell us so much about the behavior of oh-so rational men on feminist blogs.
UCLAbodyimage, I'm not really talking about you so much. You could try to lay off the science sometimes and focus on the elements of the article (not the study) that offend, but maybe you've educated yourself out of any capacity to do that sort of thing.
"Honestly, I always thought it just made good sense for a male partner to go down on me before fucking. It's only fair for us both to have at least one orgasm over the course of things, and while I like fucking, it doesn't help me come, but I'm the one who can quite happily carry on after coming. So, me first, then him."
That makes sense to me. Or, in addition, clitoral stimulation during sex, or after the guy orgasms. No reason not to mix it up!
SGZAX "UCLAbodyimage, I'm not really talking about you so much. You could try to lay off the science sometimes and focus on the elements of the article (not the study) that offend, but maybe you've educated yourself out of any capacity to do that sort of thing."
If you'll notice, I've objected to the people who are addressing the science itself, calling it "junk" or "crappy study" without a) having read it or b) considering how viewing this a barter system might make sense rather than simply "foreplay".
I haven't taken issue with anyone who claimed that the news reporting was over the top or objected to people who claimed that "prostitution" was inappropriate anthropomorphism. So I don't see why you're deciding to attack me on that point. There are plenty of people here who can comment on that aspect more thoughtfully and incisively than I could.
SGZAX: "UCLAbodyimage, I'm not really talking about you so much. You could try to lay off the science sometimes and focus on the elements of the article (not the study) that offend, but maybe you've educated yourself out of any capacity to do that sort of thing."
Personally I think education is the most important thing for understanding the world and others around you, whether that's gained from the classroom, from reading the thoughts and opinions of others on blogs, or from having one's own opinions continually critiqued.
Second, imagine if people relied on the mainstream media's portrayal of feminism and feminist studies. They'd probably get a pretty biased view.
There is a recurring script on this blog where, out of the 1000s of evolutionary studies published each year, a few get focused on as proof that ev psych studies are inherently sexist and bad science. That is a serious issue in my mind because I think ev psych has a lot to offer in terms of understanding human behavior.
A significant portion of the original post was dedicated to critiquing the science itself (operationalizing "grooming" as "foreplay"), and many people here were critiquing the study itself. Hence the reason I focused my comments on the study itself.
I never disagreed with comments suggesting that the news article was overly anthropomorphic or could have negative consequences. Only with the characterization of the study.
UCLA, it is still a bit of a stretch to equate giving a massage as payment for sex. Or an exchange of services or whatever you called it before. If my boyfriend gives me a backrub and we have sex afterwards, those aren't necessarily a cause/effect thing. He's more likely to have sex with me if I rub his back, too...mostly because of all the sexy touching, not b/c I have to butter him up first. Foreplay is not an exchange for services, it is part of the sex act, and sometimes is the sex act. Mr. KMP enjoys going down on me with no expectation of receiving other sexual gratification. I'm more than happy to go down on him as the main course of our sex. There's not an exchange for services. It's not a chore. In fact some of his fantasies involve just grooming. He likes to paint my nails or brush my hair...just b/c he likes to. I think you're getting a little overly defensive of the study without looking at why many posters think that defining anything that precedes sex as payment for it is problemmatic and can in fact be introducing prejudice. I've always been under the impression that primates like to groom each other. And I prefer sex when I feel clean as opposed to when I'm sweaty and gross after work. If we take a shower and wash each other first, it's b/c it's arousing and we both like it. And then we both like the sex that follows. How is that hard to understand?
And here's a revolutionary concept: even in animals, not every behavior is necessarily an evolved reproductive strategy. It's a reduction of the vast complexity of animal behavior in order to boil it down to fit a flawed economic model. I compare the adherents to economists who worship at the altar of the free market, as though it is the One True Answer.
Here's an idea to ponder: maybe there is no One Answer that will explain animal behavior, or, if there is, perhaps it is so complicated as to be rendered absurd by an economic construct laid over it by a researcher.
If you use a very inclusive definition you can get grooming to fit into an economic model though, and I suppose it feels satisfying to work everything into a tidy little graph.
I may be showing my own educational bias though. I dumped Anthropology after my BA and got an MA in English instead. English, in which there are multiple readings of texts and no (contemporary) idea of one, final answer.
"One can barter with services as well."
The thing about grooming in particular, though, is that practically any member of the troop may do it to another, not just males on females to "get sex." What do groups of females or females and children who groom get? What about members who groom the dominant male? It's a bonding behavior, that as you point out, happens to serve a practical purpose. My cats and rabbits lick each other when they're lying around bored, too. They aren't looking for sex.
Another thing about that story was the stat that females had sex on average 1.5 times per hour without grooming, and 3.5 times per hour with grooming.
Wow. Per hour. That would be too much in a week for me.
I have access to the actual article in Animal Behaviour by virtue of my University library, if anyone is interested.
Sounds a lot more like foreplay than prostitution to me as well, and that's after reading the study results.
I have access to the actual article in Animal Behaviour by virtue of my University library, if anyone is interested.
Sounds a lot more like foreplay than prostitution to me as well, and that's after reading the study results.
SGZAX "And here's a revolutionary concept: even in animals, not every behavior is necessarily an evolved reproductive strategy. It's a reduction of the vast complexity of animal behavior in order to boil it down to fit a flawed economic model. I compare the adherents to economists who worship at the altar of the free market, as though it is the One True Answer. "
Oh, I definitely agree with that - not all grooming behaviors are directly part of a reproductive strategy. But here is a case where you have a) a behavior performed by males that induces sexual behavior and b) a required grooming period by the female that varies according to market properties (the attractiveness of the male and the presence of other females - which influences the relative supply and demand of grooming). So while not every behavior is part of a reproductive strategy, this seems like a good candidate one to me.
A MALE "Another thing about that story was the stat that females had sex on average 1.5 times per hour without grooming, and 3.5 times per hour with grooming.
Wow. Per hour. That would be too much in a week for me."
Ha! it's not as impressive as it sounds :-). I'm not sure what species it is but around 10-30 seconds is probably typical before the male ejaculates.
A MALE "The thing about grooming in particular, though, is that practically any member of the troop may do it to another, not just males on females to "get sex." What do groups of females or females and children who groom get? What about members who groom the dominant male? It's a bonding behavior, that as you point out, happens to serve a practical purpose. My cats and rabbits lick each other when they're lying around bored, too. They aren't looking for sex."
I agree that it's a service that serves many purposes. It's a form of currency useful in a variety of exchanges. I noted this earlier in more detail, but it is something that one animal gives in order to receive something it desires (food, sex, alliance formation, etc.). It's a useful currency to barter with.
KMP "UCLA, it is still a bit of a stretch to equate giving a massage as payment for sex. Or an exchange of services or whatever you called it before. If my boyfriend gives me a backrub and we have sex afterwards, those aren't necessarily a cause/effect thing. He's more likely to have sex with me if I rub his back, too...mostly because of all the sexy touching, not b/c I have to butter him up first."
In this case, though, you're never giving Mr. KMP a backrub in order to get sex. It's Mr. KMP who is always using his teeth and nails to dig parasites out of your skin, remove clumps of dirt from your hair, and untangle twists and barbs from your hair.
I'm not denying that this could be arousing (I think it likely does induce arousal). All I am saying is that to call it "foreplay" without considering the bartering function it serves is to only capture half of the picture.
I'm totally down with the hypothesis that grooming behaviors may increase arousal and may be the foreground for modern human foreplay.
KMP "I think you're getting a little overly defensive of the study without looking at why many posters think that defining anything that precedes sex as payment for it is problemmatic and can in fact be introducing prejudice."
I don't think that I have any problem with challenging the idea that payment/bartering is the only interpretation of the behavior. It's the knee-jerk dismissal many people had that I object too. It's of course possible that a) the male monkeys are taking great pleasure in the grooming and b) this leads to arousal in the female, which suggests more of a recipricated action.
But the fact that the female monkeys don't groom the male monkeys for sex suggests to me that this particular behavior (not every behavior) is about the males performing a costly behavior in exchange for sex, which could be viewed as bartering.
KMP: "And I prefer sex when I feel clean as opposed to when I'm sweaty and gross after work. If we take a shower and wash each other first, it's b/c it's arousing and we both like it. And then we both like the sex that follows. How is that hard to understand?"
That's not hard to understand at all! But it is difficult to understand exactly where the anthropomorphizing is coming in here. Is it on the side of individuals who are assuming that grooming in monkeys is like foreplay? Or on the side of individuals who are assuming that sex is bartered for with services in monkeys? Maybe both.
What puzzles me, in either the barter or foreplay model is: why would females grooming males be correlated with lower sexual frequency?
Something I've read about recently which helps to explain, in a very concrete way, the problems with a lot of this evo psych style theorising is Developmental Systems Theory - there's a book called The Dependent Gene by David S. Moore which explains how the interdependence of genes and environments makes a lot of the ways popular debates about genetic "tendencies" to do things are framed very problematic. One of the moset evocative experiments he recounts involves taking a chick embryo, which has a layer of cells which normally develops into a beak, and replacing the adjacent layer of cells with mouse cells. The result? The chick cells, with chick DNA only, developed into fully formed mammalian teeth. What this goes to show is not only are the ways in which genes are "expressed" heavily, heavily influenced by their environment, it is not even possible, in virtually all circumstances, to say that the genes specify a range of possible outcomes, amongst which the "environment" then "chooses". While strictly speaking in theory one could do this if one knew all possible variants of the environment, because there are too many unknown features of the environment which we can never predict in advance (e.g. who knew that chick beak-cells-to-be could one day be put next to mouse cells?), in practice it's only useful in very limited circumstances.
If that's true for simple embryological development of a beak, what more for complex psychological behaviour, including sexual behaviour?
JOL "Something I've read about recently which helps to explain, in a very concrete way, the problems with a lot of this evo psych style theorising is Developmental Systems Theory - there's a book called The Dependent Gene by David S. Moore which explains how the interdependence of genes and environments makes a lot of the ways popular debates about genetic "tendencies" to do things are framed very problematic."
That's actually a point that a lot of evo psychologists make. That the expression of genes is highly dependent on the environment, and that genes are programmed to respond in different ways to specific environments.
JOL "it is not even possible, in virtually all circumstances, to say that the genes specify a range of possible outcomes, amongst which the "environment" then "chooses". While strictly speaking in theory one could do this if one knew all possible variants of the environment, because there are too many unknown features of the environment which we can never predict in advance (e.g. who knew that chick beak-cells-to-be could one day be put next to mouse cells?), in practice it's only useful in very limited circumstances."
While that is true to some extent, the interesting thing for evo psychologists is when an environmental variation does regularly activate an evolved system. For example, living in a high stress resource scarce environment regularly induces a) earlier menstruation in women and b) increased openness towards short-term sexual encounters. This is because a stressful environment signals that the long-term future is in doubt, so the body needs to prepare to reproduce quickly, both physically (a) and psychologically (b), rather than funnelling additional resources into physical development.
Does this system always get activated in exactly the same way? No. Is it reliable enough to be predicted in advance? Yes.
WERECHICK: "What puzzles me, in either the barter or foreplay model is: why would females grooming males be correlated with lower sexual frequency?"
The difference is fairly small (1.0 vs. 1.5 times per hour). This finding doesn't make sense in the context of foreplay - why wouldn't males iniate sex if they are being aroused by the female? If foreplay is arousing for the female, why isn't grooming encouraging females to have sex.
This pattern makes more sense in the exchange model. The females are requiring some form of service before consenting to sex (being groomed). Since male sex isn't a limited resource, females don't need to groom males in order to get sex. What they are getting out of grooming the males instead of sex is worth investigating. That's the whole idea behind biological market theory - that social behaviors are exchangeable goods, much like people barter for physical items. Female grooming of males might be inducing greater protection for themselves or their offspring, for example. Or, it might have a direct benefit, it's just be to relieve boredom. Or it may serve as a training mechanism for grooming. etc.
It is indeed quite a reach to call this behavior "prostitution". However, Keith Chen of Yale, who studies the economic behavior of capuchin monkeys, has observed prostitution in the strictly literal sense of the word. See this New York Times article.
"And here's a revolutionary concept: even in animals, not every behavior is necessarily an evolved reproductive strategy."
What about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N03236alxsw
"For example, living in a high stress resource scarce environment regularly induces a) earlier menstruation in women"
OTOH, don't starving girls tend to hit menarche later than well-fed girls do?
Or are you talking about some non-malnutrition stress, like maybe if a bunch of young women are all starving the ones who face the second stress tend to hit menarche at 20 and the ones who don't face it tend to hit menarche at 25?
Thanks for the link, Jacob.
This is exactly what I was talking about. Monkeys demonstrating an understanding of abstract concepts of "money," and direct exchange of a token for sex. It is a pity that the researcher took steps to curb further escalation of the monkey trading behavior. There is more available online for M. Keith Chen and his monkey economy research, including at his faculty web page*.
Monkey Business
By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT
Published: June 5, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html?_r=3&8hpib=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
"Once, a capuchin in the testing chamber picked up an entire tray of tokens, flung them into the main chamber and then scurried in after them -- a combination jailbreak and bank heist -- which led to a chaotic scene in which the human researchers had to rush into the main chamber and offer food bribes for the tokens, a reinforcement that in effect encouraged more stealing."
"Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys' true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)"
* http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/keith.chen/articles.htm
While that is true to some extent, the interesting thing for evo psychologists is when an environmental variation does regularly activate an evolved system. For example, living in a high stress resource scarce environment regularly induces a) earlier menstruation in women and b) increased openness towards short-term sexual encounters. This is because a stressful environment signals that the long-term future is in doubt, so the body needs to prepare to reproduce quickly, both physically (a) and psychologically (b), rather than funnelling additional resources into physical development.
Does this system always get activated in exactly the same way? No. Is it reliable enough to be predicted in advance? Yes.
I would be very interested in a link to the actual empirical studies which have found this to be true, mostly, because I find it very hard to see how such studies could have been performed with the types of controls which are necessary.
While that is true to some extent, the interesting thing for evo psychologists is when an environmental variation does regularly activate an evolved system. For example, living in a high stress resource scarce environment regularly induces a) earlier menstruation in women and b) increased openness towards short-term sexual encounters. This is because a stressful environment signals that the long-term future is in doubt, so the body needs to prepare to reproduce quickly, both physically (a) and psychologically (b), rather than funnelling additional resources into physical development.
Does this system always get activated in exactly the same way? No. Is it reliable enough to be predicted in advance? Yes.
I would be very interested in a link to the actual empirical studies which have found this to be true, mostly, because I find it very hard to see how such studies could have been performed with the types of controls which are necessary.
I'm also concerned about the risk of anthropomorphism in the use of the market concept. Note that the market that is described (if it is to be viewed as a market) is one of barter rather than something with a monetary currency. Thus, one monkey "sells" grooming, one monkey "sells" sex, and likewise one monkey "buys" sex and one monkey "buys" grooming.
But the interpretation in the popular version is that the male monkeys are not selling anything and that the female monkeys are not buying anything.
This makes the transaction into something that can then be popularized as prostitution.
The difference may be subtle but the value judgments it provokes are not.
Sirriamnis, I would be very interested in seeing the whole article. My e-mail is vtybg at netzero dot com.
My apologies for the double post above.
"But the interpretation in the popular version is that the male monkeys are not selling anything and that the female monkeys are not buying anything."
Since we are talking about monkeys, could the females not be getting status, protection, or favor through their "trade" of sex? Or on an instinctive level, realize that they are "getting" favorable DNA input for their offspring from what the article calls "hunky" males performing the grooming?
And who grooms the sexually mature males, anyway, and what do they get for it? Do lower ranked males do it to kiss up to dominant males?
Are we certain that it's not the females to who determine social standing? As I understand it, this is often (usually?) the case. If this is true it's more likely to be the other way around - the males are trying to curry favor. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Which would explain why sex is only more likely to happen, not certain to happen.
btw, I don't know about this particular species, but similar behavior has been observed among females in other primates - lower status females will curry favor with the higher status females and acceptance is marked by the two rubbing their genitals together. Which suggests that the grooming in the study is more akin to an overture or offering (or foreplay as others have suggested) than a form of bartering. If one insists on couching this behavior in terms of economics, a bribe for employment on the part of the male would be more accurate.
After all, if this were really an exchange of goods and services - or anything else akin to prostitution - the female would have to either make her lack of interest known in the beginning or give up something in return - or face the consequences.
It's helpful to remember two more things that don't fit most people's conception of primate relations. First of all, that non-human female primates do not rely on males for food. While the males in some species will harass the females and the females may need protection in that sense, they don't need to trade sex for room and board. Secondly, the females of just about every species of primate are veritable sluts. :) Concepts like prostitution and even bartering suggest that the females need to be persuaded to have sex - that sex is something they give up as opposed to something they do with others. But the question isn't if the females will agree to have sex, it's whom the females will have sex with when they decide to have sex.
And as far as using the results as an evo psych argument...primates are social animals. Who says this isn't a learned behavior rather than a genetic one?
"While that is true to some extent, the interesting thing for evo psychologists is when an environmental variation does regularly activate an evolved system. For example, living in a high stress resource scarce environment regularly induces a) earlier menstruation in women and b) increased openness towards short-term sexual encounters. This is because a stressful environment signals that the long-term future is in doubt, so the body needs to prepare to reproduce quickly, both physically (a) and psychologically (b), rather than funnelling additional resources into physical development.
Does this system always get activated in exactly the same way? No. Is it reliable enough to be predicted in advance? Yes."
How do you know "this is because" anything of the sort? That's precisely the kind of question developmental systems theorists think are the important ones - unless you can trace the biochemical processes concerned, does the correlation itself really tell the story that you think it does, rather than any kind of rival story?
Moreover, part of the DST argument, as I understand it, is that when you refer to "evolved systems" you aren't referring only to "genetic" predispositions, since elements of the environment are selected along with genes by natural selection (I'm aware this is counter to the orthodox neo-Darwinism position, but Moore explains quite lucidly why this is possible). Thus, it may be that all other things being equal you observe certain consequences when you change certain variables, but those other things include the entire social system in which an organism is embedded, which is composed of myriad relevant elements overwhelming numbers of which we can't identify in advance.
Until anyone has conducted experiments in human social systems free of sexism, nobody can say much abot how anything observed in those experiments conducted has to do with "femaleness" in some sense which social change would not readily affect. So for all practical purposes, it's hard to see why it should affect out thinking about how we should understand the sort of complex psychological behaviour in relation to which the potentially relevant and heavily influential environmental factors are almost unthinkably numerous.
"Are we certain that it's not the females to who determine social standing?"
Yes, in primates like chimps, the would be leader needs the approval of the female. It has been documented how a younger, stronger male who has physically dominated an established leader, has failed to take its place, because the females did not approve.
But certain females can still be the leader's "favorites." As for the "sluts" remark, yes, I have also seen in documentaries how female chimps will allow younger, lower status males to mate with them when the leader is not looking. In one interesting example, while such a coupling was taking place, the leader happened by. Before the leader could attack, the female broke off and drove the lower male away. There is a Japanese researcher from the University of Tokyo who has spent over 30 years in Africa studying chimpanzees, and his work is reported on quite often on television. His findings are published, but he is not as well known as Jane Goodall, however. I believe he is T. Nishida who conducted research in the Mahele Mountains. And bonobos are certainly the ones where females perform "G-G rub" and do not appear dominated by males. Just one source, which contains some typical information on bonobos:
http://www.aphroweb.net/articles/bonobo.htm
It reports food is common, but sex may still be exchanged for "desired food," as well as procreation, pleasure, appeasement and signs of affection. Perhaps some food is more scarce, or preferable to others. In the regular chimpanzee species, which in the wild is hardly as cute and docile as seen in entertainment, males conduct savage hunts of small herbivores, monkeys, and chimpanzees have even been known to steal human children, presumably for food. It is also the males who physically defend against rival groups of chimpanzee males. "Protection" is not only about from males of one's own group. Females, as you have pointed out, are capable of choosing their male partners, anyway.
And once more, we are talking about animals, who allegedly do not have the same capacity to reason that we do, so we do not need to judge them by human standards, or believe that they are reflective of humans or their behavior. Bonobo society, however, appears to be more equitable and peaceful than humans are, with the females as influential as they are, possibly even being dominant.
Which isn't at all what I was talking about.
First of all, you are assigning value judgements to their behavior. You describe the females as "allowing' the males to have sex with them. This phrasing carries with it the connotation that the females only have sex because the males want to have sex, which observations and experiments show to be anything but the truth.
It's also not only males that do the protecting. The females in every species mobilize fairly quickly to protect not only all of the children form anything, but also - in many species - other females from unwanted attention. Which plays a role in deciding which males is on top.
"First of all, you are assigning value judgements to their behavior. You describe the females as "allowing' the males to have sex with them. This phrasing carries with it the connotation that the females only have sex because the males want to have sex, which observations and experiments show to be anything but the truth."
Fine. Females are actively seeking out sex, perhaps for other favorable genetic influences in their young than mere potential to lead. Human women, who do have the ability to reason, don't go for the biggest, strongest, healthiest, most intelligent, richest, most successful men, either. Thank God, or most men like myself, would never be able to get married. And I am not claiming women act like chimpanzees, or that women behave in that rational manner, because of our genetic links to chimpanzees.
My point is, we are free to ignore the article in the OP, as well as any allegedly hardwired aspects of our evolution*, and live our own lives.
"How does one exchange sex for procreation?"
The correct quote from the "Apes from Venus" article is "use sex" for those things. My mistake.
I do believe there are hardwired aspects to our neurological function. I am not even going to touch the issues of sexual or racial differences, but much of psychiatry depends on the well documented findings that structure and function of the brain are linked to certain conditions (the cause or effect debate, I will leave to experts, but I believe homosexuality or intergender or trans conditions, NOT illnesses or psychiatric disorders, do have biological origins, and determined at birth). One tenet of psychiatric nursing, which insurance companies and the general population are slow to accept, is that psychiatric conditions are every bit as real and debilitating as physical conditions. I liken my own conditions (allegedly, clinical depression, ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Apergers) to going through life with one leg, which my wife refuses to accept. She thinks I am free to simply buckle down and study and work just like anyone else. Bullshit. I am able to do what I am able. On the other hand, nooo, I must not question the reality or influence of her severely impaired vision (no peripheral vision and patches of blindness within her field of view). She says I must not expect her to be as capable or vigilant as I when looking out for my children's safety, or criticize her on that basis. (Just in past months, I literally pulled my wife and daughter, whom she was leading by the hand, out of the path of a truck when crossing a city street. I asked my wife why she did not check traffic. She says she did. Fine. So I am supposed to ignore the fact that she and my daughter could have been killed instead of asking her to be more careful. Even totally blind people do not simply allow themselves to be run down by cars on the busiest of streets or make excuses for it.) Even with behavioral therapy or reeducation, there are some psychiatric conditions that will simply not be cured or outgrown. The 100% progressive and fatal condition Alzheimers, is just one example. We probably have a better understanding and treatment regimen for AIDS. I was surprised to find Magic Johnson still with us, and healthy at least 17 years later. In current nursing, HIV positive status is increasingly seen as a manageable chronic, rather than fatal, condition, without becoming full blown AIDS.
"First of all, you are assigning value judgements to their behavior."
Oh, but more importantly, while you seem to be using a different definition, when I mean I am not making value judgments of animals, means I am not critical. So someone called females of some primate species "sluts." So what? And male chimpanzees practice infantcide and have a viciously enforced (sometimes to the death) pecking order. Illogical, by human standards. Why would fighting ability determine fitness to lead when for a chimpanzee, it also requires the intelligence and leadership to lead the group to favorable feeding sites? Animal behavior doesn't have to mean anything about humans, despite any similarities. There are a list of characteristics of life* which are required by definition, and hold true for all known forms of life (the status of viruses is still debated). Even bacteria can do what humans do in that regard. All life may have come from single celled forms such as amoeba or bacteria, but it does not mean we act like them, or should.
Which is why I also considered this article silly. Even a Yale professor of economics has consistently found more explicit examples of monkey economy using a *human* system of nonedible tokens, in at least one case, making the direct exchange of token for sex, and the immediate exchange of token received, for food.
* Six characteristics of life, by one count. I believe I learned something different in microbiology: cells, organization, energy use [metabolism], homeostasis, growth, and reproduction.
http://mimi.essortment.com/characteristics_rbrc.htm
Other sources also include movement (also true of plants), response to stimuli, heredity, evolution/adaptability, and death.
Which is why I also considered this article silly. Even a Yale professor of economics has consistently found more explicit examples of monkey economy using a *human* system of nonedible tokens, in at least one case, making the direct exchange of token for sex, and the immediate exchange of token received, for food.
And that study is within a laboratory, not inside the natural environment of the species. There are problems with laboratory studies. In some ways it's as if we were studied in a large prison camp with chicken and fruit at each meal.
I understand your point, but in this case, does it make a difference? Even if it started as a behavior learned from humans, the subjects demonstrated an ability to use "money," some made the necessary mental association to "steal" it, and at least one understood its utility in the novel and direct exchange of "money" for sex, and another subject that used the "payment" to get a desired grape. Primate individuals (two in one account of Chen's research) may behave in a novel manner that seems similar to a human practice of prostitution. It does not reflect badly on the monkeys or we humans. Further research may explore the hows and whys of primates and any possible links to humans and human behavior. I may not agree with the conclusions or their implications, but I find such research fascinating.
(Do we need monkeys to study "why" or how humans practice prostitution, or where it started, or "why" or how humans get sex in general? We can study humans, for one. Also, many animals give or do something for sex or mating rights. Males may duel, strut, sing or dance, or offer females a favorable nest or nesting place. Male anglerfish are literal parasites permanently attached to females, feeding off her, and living only to produce sperm. Female emperor penguins of Antarctica somehow select mates whom they entrust to stand with their eggs perched on their feet in their brood pouches for warmth, fasting for months while the female makes the hundred mile trek to the sea to feed. The male endures some of the harshest, coldest weather found anywhere on the earth, and loses up to half his body weight in the process of three or four months of starvation until the female returns. Then they switch places thereafter to keep baby fed. That's service - more extreme than grooming, or what most humans are willing to do to get sex or a baby. The animal kingdom has more extreme cases of mating and parenthood, like where parents (one or both) die in the process.)
Depending on what is being studied (not the Kinsey study, I've read concerns), research among a prison population can be perfectly valid. I'd love to learn the whys/hows and how much/how many, of the local correctional facility with its unique and revolutionary pre-release training and self-discipline program. It is the brainchild of the local warden, but how effective is it? What is necessary to make it work? Can the program be used effectively elsewhere? How can it be expanded or improved upon? What do current inmates and participants past and present have to say?
One may also posit that Michael Gumert, et. al., spent way too much time in the field and may have had something else on his mind when he returned to civilization.
I believe one calls this research artifact the Iatrogenic Effect. Or to state this phenomenon more bluntly: A conclusion is the place where you got too horny to think.