Multi–level Evolution of Sexuality in Anthropogenesis: A Conceptual Reconstruction

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2021-54-2/87-109

Abstract

Diverse studies of human sexuality allow a conceptual reconstruction of its main evolutionary stages. There are complex dynamic interconnections between natural and social environment (hazards, subsistence strategies, intergroup relations), group needs and practices concerning intragroup interactions; individual concerns and practices of men and women including both innate instinctive programs and behavioral stereotypes; appearance and sexual characteristics; the structure of male and female genitalia and reproductive systems. Anatomical, physiological and psychophysiological structures bear the imprint of the most ancient social orders and the sexual life of our distant ancestors. Many concerns and structures of a very different nature are built around the reproductive “core”. These include attractiveness, erotic signals and responses, arousal, various feelings, emotional relations, interactions and practices (passion, love, solidarity, fidelity, erotic prestige, power, sexual property, jealousy, violence, etc.). At the same time the mental and behavioral components of sexuality are multilayered and, along with archaic structures, include more or less flexible layers that change from era to era, from culture to culture, from one social orders of kinship, power, wealth, prestige, violence to others. All this “peripheral” sexuality acquires its autonomy with its own mechanisms and patterns, which are closely related to ecology, culture and social environment, therefore, they are not always determined by the concerns and structures of the “core”: human reproductive system and hereditary adaptive mechanisms. Both the “core” and “periphery” of sexuality are characterized by additional turns of complexity. Sexual concerns and structures of males and females are closely related to the concerns and structures of the opposite sex, in many aspects they evolve as a whole, albeit divided among individuals of both sexes. Each major period of anthropogenesis has left its mark on human sexuality. It is shown that renewed tensions in the sexual sphere (in particular, associated with adultery) indicate a certain internal conflict between the deep properties of sexuality and subsequent social and cultural layers.

For Citation:  Rozov, N.S. 2021. Multi–level Evolution of Sexuality in Anthropogenesis: A Conceptual Reconstruction. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 2: 87–100.

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