Sexual and reproductive relationships: cross-cultural evidence and biosocial implications.

Abstract

The title of this paper, Sexual and Reproductive Relationships: Cross-Cultural Evidence and Biosocial Implications, contains two important assumptions that pervade material that follows. First, it assumes that it is possible to distinguish between sexual and reproductive behavior. Although they are associated with each other, they do not necessarily coincide, particularly in higher This distinction highlights a major aspect of human sexuality: humans engage in a relatively high amount of nonreproductive sexual behavior—so much so that we are sometimes called the sexiest of primates. Second, it is productive to analyze sexual and reproductive behavior from a biosocial perspective: one which considers significance of feedback between biological, social, and cultural processes. According to this point of view, biological processes complement social and cultural ones. Humans are biological organisms whose physicality is a relevant aspect of their being. In addition, humans are very social primates whose sociality is an intrinsic part of their adaptation to their environment. Consequently, an overly biological or sociocultural interpretation of human sexuality robs it of its complexity. The approach adopted here is first to ask how human sexual and reproductive relationships are patterned and relate to each other cross-culturally. The second step is to demonstrate fruitfulness of a biosocial perspective by interpreting some of crosscultural findings in biosocial terms.