Evolution and human sexuality

Abstract

The aim of this review is to put core features of human sexuality in an evolutionary light. Toward that end, I address five topics concerning the evolution of human sexuality. First, I address theoretical foundations, including recent critiques and developments. While much traces back to Darwin and his view of sexual selection, more recent work helps refine the theoretical bases to sex differences and life history allocations to mating effort. Second, I consider central models attempting to specify the phylogenetic details regarding how hominin sexuality might have changed, with most of those models honing in on transitions from a possible chimpanzee-like ancestor to the slightly polygynous and long-term bonded sociosexual partnerships observed among most recently studied hunter-gatherers. Third, I address recent genetic and physiological data contributing to a refined understanding of human sexuality. As examples, the availability of rapidly increasing genomic information aids comparative approaches to discern signals of selection in sexuality-related phenotypes, and neuroendocrine studies of human responses to sexual stimuli provide insight into homologous and derived mechanisms. Fourth, I consider some of the most recent, large, and rigorous studies of human sexuality. These provide insights into sexual behavior across other national samples and on the Internet. Fifth, I discuss the relevance of a life course perspective to understanding the evolution of human sexuality. Most research on the evolution of human sexuality focuses on young adults. Yet humans are sexual beings from gestation to death, albeit in different ways across the life course, and in ways that can be theoretically couched within life history theory. Am J Phys Anthropol 57:94-118, 2013. V C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.The aim of this review is to put core features of human sexuality in an integrative, evolutionary light. Given the central importance of sexuality to the evolutionary imperative-reproductive success-there is strong theoretical impetus for understanding how evolution has shaped human sexuality in the past, and for how the influence of past selective forces continue to manifest in the present. For biological anthropologists, interdisciplinary social and biomedical scientists, and even wider audiences, questions about human sexuality can be among the most compelling and meaningful, another reason to try informing answers to fundamental questions of human sexuality with the most scientifically supported and current views. An understanding of human sexuality is central to topics as diverse as predicting the dynamics of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) outbreak to the reasons why people pour so much of their time and resources into mating effort. Human sexuality, as much as any other topical focus within biological anthropology, warrants ongoing evolutionary scrutiny.For several reasons, this is arguably an opportune time for providing a current overview of the evolution of human sexuality. For one, many of the foundati...

Instrumentos de Medida de Actitudes hacia la Sexualidad: Una Revisión Bibliográfica Sistemática

“…La panorámica cronológica permite, además, observar un cambio en tales actitudes, que han ido modificado los comportamientos sexuales a los que se hace referencia y el surgimiento de nuevos instrumentos destinados a atender las necesidades sexuales de personas discapacitadas y mayores. Esta evolución refleja el cambio de las actitudes de la población hacia la sexualidad y la evolución del concepto de sexualidad (Gray, 2013), que resulta cada vez más amplio.…”

Sex Workers Who Provide Services to Clients with Disability in New South Wales, Australia

“…Detailed theoretical analysis of human sexuality has been extensively examined in academic literature (Barker & Richards, 2013;Gray, 2013;Smith, 2000) with Foucault's "The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction" being perhaps one of the most well-known (Foucault, 1980). The current working definition of sexuality for the World Health Organisation (WHO) is:…”

La diversidad sexo-genérica: Un punto de vista evolutivo

“…En caso de que esto no sea probable, se agudizará la actividad homosexual. 21 Esta teoría se encuentra bien apoyada por las observaciones de la conducta sexual en el reino animal. Como se ha señalado, en los animales la "homosexualidad" es un térmi-no equivocado, pues realmente se refiere a la bisexualidad o "ambisexualidad", o al comportamiento de monta con los animales de ambos géneros.…”

“…Sólo hay unas pocas especies que tienen conductas del tipo de preferencias homosexuales (como en algunos primates, incluyendo los macacos japoneses). 21 Este modelo, que sugiere que la evolución ha favorecido un mayor deseo sexual en los hombres, se apoya en las tasas de masturbación observados: no hay culturas humanas conocidas en las que las mujeres se masturben con más frecuencia que los varones. Lo mismo sucede con los primates no humanos.…”

“…Sin embargo, a pesar de que parece que la homosexualidad es contraria a la evolución, no lo es, al menos no en un sentido real, pues existe, y no es un capricho, sino que cumple varias funciones evolutivas. 21 Para empezar, es una conducta que está muy extendida en todas las especies con reproducción sexual en animales. ¿Por qué?…”