"Are we designed to be sexual omnivores?"

I loved this talk. Take a few minutes and watch it. This guy, Christopher Ryan, is quite an interesting person. 

There are a few sentences in his talk which I really like to quote:

"To argue that our ancestors were sexual omnivores is no more a criticism of monogamy than to argue that our ancestors were dietary omnivores is a criticism of vegetarianism. You can chose to be a vegetarian but don't think just because you made that decision bacon suddenly stops smelling good."

"It's time we move beyond Mars and Venus because the truth is that men are from Africa and women are from Africa."

I also liked the quote mentioned in the video by E. O. Wilson:

"All that we can surmise of human kind's genetic history argues for a more liberal sexual morality, in which sexual practices are to be regarded first as binding devices and only second as means of procreation."

I didn't know much about Female Copulatory Vocalization in other primates. Ryan doesn't explain much about it in this talk. I read about it after watching the video and realized wow! It is really interesting how correlated FCV seems to be with promiscuity in different ape species. You might find this article by Ryan in Psychology Today informative. 

Well, I will end with this quote by Arthur Schopenhauer that Ryan mentions answering the question at the end of the talk: 

"Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."

I liked this quote a lot. I finally found a saying to convey what I generally think about free will through it!

I have started to read about this whole concept of Victorian morality more. I might write about it in future...