Origins Of Human Sexuality

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Origins Of Human Sexuality
Soc. 471
The Origins of
Human Sexuality
Daly & Wilson Theory:
In their book Homicide, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put forth a theory that challenges human societies common notion of human sexuality. They do this in an attempt to bring about a better understanding of homicide and male aggressiveness. According to Daly and Wilson, males instigate the overwhelming majority of dangerous altercations and they contend that this is due to status competition. Status competition is the idea that males must aggressively compete for sexual access to females in order to pass on their genes.
Daily and Wilson cite the work of Charles Darwin, who in 1859 published a famous work on the theory of natural selection. The concepts presented in his book were later elaborated in his second work, which dealt with the concept of sexual selection. Sexual selection according to Darwins theory, was based on the observation that not all evolutionary adaptations serve a survival function; that in many cases, a trait might be penalized by natural selection and yet win out by sexual selection. Darwin argued that surviving and living a long life did not ensure reproductive success and therefore an animals goal of longevity is secondary to its goal of passing on its genes through procreation. These ideas form the foundation for Martin Daly and Margo Wilsons theory.
Daly and Wilson also refer to the research done by a British geneticist named A.J. Bateman to strengthen their arguments for the idea of status competition. Batemans research focused on lab experiments done on Drosophila or fruit flies. The experiments consisted of taking fruit flies with distinct genetic markers and placing them in jars. It was made sure that each jar contained an equal number of males and females. The jars were then put under observation. Bateman noticed that there was a difference when he compared the reproductive success of the females to the success of the males. According to Batemans research a female fruit fly could expect to have about 60 to 80 offspring regardless of the number of male fruit flies she copulated with. However the reproductive success of a male fruit fly depended on the number of females it had mated with. Those who copulated with one female produced about 40 young, those who copulated with two produced about 80, and so forth. Bateman also notes the difference each sex of fruit fly could expect to produce-females could expect to have ab...

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