Study: Prehistoric Man Had Sex for Fun

[Augustus Caesar]

He may have come down from the trees, but prehistoric man did not stop swinging. New research into Stone Age humans has argued that, far from having intercourse simply to reproduce, they had sex for fun. Practices ranging from bondage to group sex, transvestism and the use of sex toys were widespread in primitive societies as a way of building up cultural ties.

 

According to the study, a 30,000-year-old statue of a naked woman -- the Venus of Willendorf -- and an equally ancient stone phallus found in a German cave, provide the earliest direct evidence that sex was about far more than babies...

 

The study may well be more challenging than the newspaper reports (it can be hard to get your research noticed!) but my comment would be that women and phalluses (which are necessarily attached to men, but the phallus is the only useful part) are essential to the production of babies. 30,000 years ago, people had already noticed this. So the two artworks don't prove that "sex was about far more than babies"; they could just as well prove that baby production was seen as necessary to the community.

 

As for transvestism, I'm a bit sceptical. Has research shown that people wore clothes, and that they wore them when not out hunting, and that the two sexes wore them differently, 30,000 years ago? That would be needed first, I feel ...

 

Quite right Andrew I think it would be very clever of someone to give an exact account of detail from lives lived some 30,000 years or more ago. Quite how this research was done or what parameters were used is beyond me but as we don't know I don't really think anyone should criticese it and dismiss it out of hand though. Any research has to start from a foundation base but it's really how it develops from there and to what extent you allow yourself to be taken down the wrong paths.

 

Personally, I would try and put myself in the position of anyone in the past into a particular scenario and at my best guess, see what I can come up with. I feel I would need to take away all my notions about modern life and proceed to adjust to the surroundings and environment of the times. That way, just maybe, I could get a grasp of what life MIGHT have been like. Another aspect is the time they may have had on their hands. Spare time is for recreation or socialising nowadays but then it may have been different. The only way to get proof of what they did then is to find an authentic wall painting or something that may say "My name is Ugg and I loved sex games and had great fun with phaluses while others were out hunting with near naked bodeis and huge long pointy wooden spears to kill our supper with."

 

Like most other periods in history a lot will never be known and must really be left open to conjecture. Some of these studies are worthwhile though. It depends, as I said above, upon parameters and paths followed.