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posted by chromas on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the go-away,-batin'! dept.

Why do humans prefer to mate in private?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that human beings generally prefer to mate in private—but why? And why is it so rare? Other than humans, only one other species has demonstrated a preference for privacy during mating: Arabian babblers. To learn more, [anthropologist Yitzchak] Ben Mocha retrieved data from 4,572 accounts of cultural studies—ethnographies—and studied them looking for what he describes as normal sexual practices. Those involved were not trying to shock or avoid punishment for engaging in taboo practices such as incest—and were also not in the pornography business. He found that virtually every known culture practices private mating—even in places where privacy is difficult to find. He also looked for examples of other animals mating in private, and found none, except for the babblers. He also found that there were no explanations for it, and in fact, there were very few other people wondering why humans have such a proclivity. And, not surprisingly, he was unable to find any evolutionary theories on the topic.

Journal Reference:
Yitzchak Ben Mocha. Why do human and non-human species conceal mating? The cooperation maintenance hypothesis, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1330)


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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:08PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:08PM (#1032578)

    Evidence of the problem, that people don't believe in things that have absolutely no evidence to support them?

    Even if God really did do it, the question remains *how* did God do it. There's presumably some physical mechanism It put in place to control the behavior of physical things.

    And if we understand enough of the mechanisms, it's very likely we'd see evidence of the nature and intent of the one who put them in place. Thus far we've seen none, but have seen a great deal of evidence of severe design shortcomings that suggest that either God is incompetent, or evolution is blind.

    The former goes strongly against the (generally presumed) nature of (a personal) God, while the latter is exactly what you would expect of evolution. Which suggests that if God does exist, It chose evolution as Its tool, and didn't interfere much if at all in the details for at least the last half-billion years.

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