The new book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality is getting tonnes of press for its suggestion that monogamy comes unnaturally to humans. According to the book our ancestors lived in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care and sexual partners. Author Christopher Ryan’s research may also explain the tendency for females to scream emphatically during sex. Female primates announce (loudly) their pleasure before, during or immediately after mating in order to incite males to, well, come fuck. Thus, this “female copulatory vocalization” is associated with species that mate promiscuously rather than monogamously. Scientists even recorded the copulation calls of baboons – 550 of them – and analyzed their acoustic structure.
“Even the uninitiated can identify female nonhuman primate orgasm, or sexual pleasure,” says primatologist Meredith Small.
The variations in the calls contain complex information for listening males. Who knows what you might be implying with your orgasmic groans! (Though apparently humans lack the baboon’s complexity of note structure.) It’s no wonder that when we think of noisy sex, it’s the ladies who are most vigorously expressing their passion. I guess women have been noisy in bed since before there were beds!
Christopher Ryan writing for Psychology Today