I'm going to go off script and make Chris quite nervous here by making this audience participation. All right. Are you with me? Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Odstupiću od scenarija i učiniću Krisa prilično nervoznim time što ću pozvati publiku da učestvuje. Je l' hoćete? Da. U redu.
So what I'd like to do is have you raise your hand if you've ever heard a heterosexual couple having sex. Could be the neighbors, hotel room, your parents. Sorry. Okay. Pretty much everybody. Now raise your hand if the man was making more noise than the woman. I see one guy there. It doesn't count if it was you, sir. (Laughter) So his hand's down. And one woman. Okay. Sitting next to a loud guy.
Onda, hteo bih da podignete ruku ako ste ikada čuli heteroseksualni par prilikom seksa. To mogu da budu komšije, hotelska soba, vaši roditelji. Izvinite. Okej. Uglavnom svi. Sada podignite ruku ako je muškarac bio glasniji od žene. Vidim jednog čoveka tamo. Ne računa se ako ste to bili vi, gospodine. (Smeh) Spustio je ruku. I jedna žena. Okej. Koja sedi pored glasnog muškarca.
Now what does this tell us? It tells us that human beings make noise when they have sex, and it's generally the woman who makes more noise. This is known as female copulatory vocalization to the clipboard crowd. I wasn't even going to mention this, but somebody told me that Meg Ryan might be here, and she is the world's most famous female copulatory vocalizer. So I thought, got to talk about that. We'll get back to that a little bit later.
Šta nam ovo govori? Govori nam da su ljudska bića glasna kada imaju seksualni odnos i uglavnom je žena glasnija. Ovo je poznato kao ženska kopulatorna vokalizacija. Čak nisam hteo ni da pomenem ovo, ali rekli su mi da je Meg Rajan možda ovde, a ona je najpoznatiji ženski kopulativni vokalizator na svetu. Pa sam pomislio da moram da govorim o tome. Vratićemo se na to malo kasnije.
Let me start by saying human beings are not descended from apes, despite what you may have heard. We are apes. We are more closely related to the chimp and the bonobo than the African elephant is to the Indian elephant, as Jared Diamond pointed out in one of his early books. We're more closely related to chimps and bonobos than chimps and bonobos are related to any other primate -- gorillas, orangutans, what have you. So we're extremely closely related to them, and as you'll see in terms of our behavior, we've got some relationship as well. So what I'm asking today, the question I want to explore with you today is, what kind of ape are we in terms of our sexuality? Now, since Darwin's day there's been what Cacilda and I have called the standard narrative of human sexual evolution, and you're all familiar with it, even if you haven't read this stuff. The idea is that, as part of human nature, from the beginning of our species' time, men have sort of leased women's reproductive potential by providing them with certain goods and services. Generally we're talking about meat, shelter, status, protection, things like that. And in exchange, women have offered fidelity, or at least a promise of fidelity. Now this sets men and women up in an oppositional relationship. The war between the sexes is built right into our DNA, according to this vision. Right? What Cacilda and I have argued is that no, this economic relationship, this oppositional relationship, is actually an artifact of agriculture, which only arose about 10,000 years ago at the earliest. Anatomically modern human beings have been around for about 200,000 years, so we're talking about five percent, at most, of our time as a modern, distinct species. So before agriculture, before the agricultural revolution, it's important to understand that human beings lived in hunter-gatherer groups that are characterized wherever they're found in the world by what anthropologists called fierce egalitarianism. They not only share things, they demand that things be shared: meat, shelter, protection, all these things that were supposedly being traded to women for their sexual fidelity, it turns out, are shared widely among these societies. Now I'm not saying that our ancestors were noble savages, and I'm not saying modern day hunter-gatherers are noble savages either. What I'm saying is that this is simply the best way to mitigate risk in a foraging context. And there's really no argument about this among anthropologists. All Cacilda and I have done is extend this sharing behavior to sexuality. So we've argued that human sexuality has essentially evolved, until agriculture, as a way of establishing and maintaining the complex, flexible social systems, networks, that our ancestors were very good at, and that's why our species has survived so well.
Dozvolite mi da počnem time što ću reći da ljudska bića nisu postala od majmuna, uprkos onome što ste čuli. Mi jesmo majmuni. Bliže smo povezani sa šimpanzom i bonobo šimpanzom nego afrički slon sa indijskim slonom, kao što je Džered Dajmond istakao u jednoj od svojih prvih knjiga. Bliže smo povezani sa šimpanzama i bonobo šimpanzama nego što su šimpanze i bonoboi povezani sa bilo kojim drugim primatom - gorilom, orangutanom ili bilo kojim drugim. Izuzetno blisko smo povezani sa njima i kao što ćete videti, u smislu ponašanja imamo takođe neki odnos. Pitanje koje postavljam danas, koje želim da istražim zajedno sa vama je: koja smo mi vrsta majmuna što se tiče seksualnosti? Od Darvinovih dana, postoji ono što Kasilda i ja zovemo standardna priča o ljudskoj seksualnoj evoluciji i ona vam je svima poznata, čak i ako niste čitali ovo. Ideja je da su, kao deo ljudske prirode, od početka naše vrste, muškarci iznajmljivali reproduktivni potencijal žena tako što su ih snabdevali određenom robom i uslugama. Uopšteno mislimo na meso, sklonište, status, zaštitu, takve stvari. A u zamenu, žene su često nudile vernost ili barem obećanje vernosti. Ovo stavlja muškarce i žene u suprotstavljen odnos. Prema ovom viđenju, rat između polova je ugrađen u naš DNK. Ono što smo Kasilda i ja razmatrali je to da li je ovaj ekonomski odnos, ovaj suprotstavljen odnos, u stvari proizvod poljoprivrede koja je nastala najranije pre 10.000 godina. Anatomski moderna ljudska bića postoje od pre, otprilike, 200.000 godina, tako da se radi o najviše 5% vremena u kojem postojimo kao moderna, posebna vrsta. Pre poljoprivrede, pre poljoprivredne revolucije, važno je shvatiti da su ljudska bića živela u grupama lovaca sakupljača koje antropolozi, gde god da su se nalazile u svetu, karakterišu kao žestoki egalitarizam. Oni ne samo da dele stvari, već zahtevaju da se one dele. Meso, sklonište, zaštita, sve ove stvari koje bi trebalo davati u zamenu ženama za njihovu seksualnu vernost, po svemu sudeći su se široko delile u ovim društvima. Ne kažem da su naši preci bili plemeniti divljaci i ne kažem ni da su to moderni lovci sakupljači. Ono što kažem je da je ovo jednostavno najbolji način da se umanji rizik u kontekstu lova. Među antropolozima oko ovoga nema spora. Kasilda i ja smo samo proširili ovu sklonost ka deljenju na seksualnost. Rekli smo da je ljudska seksualnost, do pojave poljoprivrede, u osnovi evoluirala kao način za uspostavljanje i održavanje složenih, fleksibilnih društvenih sistema, mreža, u čemu su naši preci bili veoma dobri i zato je naša vrsta tako uspešno opstala.
Now, this makes some people uncomfortable, and so I always need to take a moment in these talks to say, listen, I'm saying our ancestors were promiscuous, but I'm not saying they were having sex with strangers. There were no strangers. Right? In a hunter-gatherer band, there are no strangers. You've known these people your entire life. So I'm saying, yes, there were overlapping sexual relationships, that our ancestors probably had several different sexual relationships going on at any given moment in their adult lives. But I'm not saying they were having sex with strangers. I'm not saying that they didn't love the people they were having sex with. And I'm not saying there was no pair-bonding going on. I'm just saying it wasn't sexually exclusive.
Ovo je nekim ljudima neprijatno, tako da tako da uvek u ovim govorima kažem: čujte, kažem da su naši preci bili promiskuitetni, ali ne kažem da su imali seks sa nepoznatima. Nile bilo nepoznatih. Zar ne? U lovačko-sakupljačkoj grupi nema stranaca. Poznajete te ljude čitav život. I kažem: da, bilo je seksualnih veza koje su se preklapale, naši preci su verovatno imali nekoliko različitih seksualnih veza u svakom momentu njihovih života kao odraslih. Ali ne kažem da su imali seks sa nepoznatima. Ne kažem da nisu voleli ljude sa kojima su imali seks. I ne kažem da tu nije bilo vezivanja. Samo kažem da nisu isključivali i druge seksualne odnose.
And those of us who have chosen to be monogamous -- my parents, for example, have been married for 52 years monogamously, and if it wasn't monogamously, Mom and Dad, I don't want to hear about it— I'm not criticizing this and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. What I'm saying is that to argue that our ancestors were sexual omnivores is no more a criticism of monogamy than to argue that our ancestors were dietary omnivores is a criticism of vegetarianism. You can choose to be a vegetarian, but don't think that just because you've made that decision, bacon suddenly stops smelling good. Okay? So this is my point. (Laughter) That one took a minute to sink in, huh?
A oni među nama koji su odabrali da budu monogamni - moji roditelji, na primer, u monogamnom su braku 52 godine, a ako nije bio monogaman: mama i tata, neću da znam za to - ne kritikujem i ne kažem da ima nešto loše u tome. Ono što hoću da kažem je da mišljenje da su naši preci bili seksualni svaštojedi nije ništa više kritika monogamije, nego što je mišljenje da su naši preci bili svaštojedi u smislu ishrane kritika vegetarijanizma. Možete izabrati da budete vegetarijanac, ali mislim da zbog te odluke slanina ne prestane odjednom da vam miriše dobro. Okej? To je moja poenta. (Smeh) Trebalo je malo vremena da se ovo shvati, zar ne?
Now, in addition to being a great genius, a wonderful man, a wonderful husband, a wonderful father, Charles Darwin was also a world-class Victorian prude. All right? He was perplexed by the sexual swellings of certain primates, including chimps and bonobos, because these sexual swellings tend to provoke many males to mate with the females. So he couldn't understand why on Earth would the female have developed this thing if all they were supposed to be doing is forming their pair bond, right? Chimps and bonobos, Darwin didn't really know this, but chimps and bonobos mate one to four times per hour with up to a dozen males per day when they have their sexual swellings. Interestingly, chimps have sexual swellings through 40 percent, roughly, of their menstrual cycle, bonobos 90 percent, and humans are among the only species on the planet where the female is available for sex throughout the menstrual cycle, whether she's menstruating, whether she's post-menopausal, whether she's already pregnant. This is vanishingly rare among mammals. So it's a very interesting aspect of human sexuality. Now, Darwin ignored the reflections of the sexual swelling in his own day, as scientists tend to do sometimes.
Pored toga što je bio veliki genije, divan čovek, divan muž, divan otac, Čarls Darvin je takođe bio prvoklasni viktorijanski puritanac. Bio je zbunjen seksualnim naduvavanjem određenih primata, uklučujući šimpanze i bonobo šimpanze, jer ova seksualna naduvavanja teže da isprovociraju mnoge mužjake da se pare sa ženkama. On nije mogao da shvati zašto su, za ime sveta, ženke razvile ovo, ako bi samo trebalo da nađu svoj par. Darvin nije znao da se šimpanze i bonobo šimpanze pare jednom do četiri puta na sat sa do 12 mužjaka na dan kada imaju seksualno naduvavanje. Interesantno je da šimpanze imaju seksualno naduvavanje tokom, otprilike, 40 posto svog menstrualnog ciklusa, bonobo šimpanze - 90 posto, a ljudi su skoro jedina vrsta na planeti gde su ženke spremne za seks tokom celog menstrualnog ciklusa, bilo da imaju menstruaciju, bilo da su u menopauzi, bilo da su već trudne. Ovo je izuzetno retko među sisarima. To je vrlo zanimljiv aspekt ljudske seksualnosti. Darvin je ignorisao uticaje seksualnog naduvavanja, u svoje vreme, kao što naučnici ponekad znaju da urade.
So what we're talking about is sperm competition. Now the average human ejaculate has about 300 million sperm cells, so it's already a competitive environment. The question is whether these sperm are competing against other men's sperm or just their own. There's a lot to talk about in this chart. The one thing I'll call your attention to right away is the little musical note above the female chimp and bonobo and human. That indicates female copulatory vocalization. Just look at the numbers. The average human has sex about 1,000 times per birth. If that number seems high for some of you, I assure you it seems low for others in the room. We share that ratio with chimps and bonobos. We don't share it with the other three apes, the gorilla, the orangutan and the gibbon, who are more typical of mammals, having sex only about a dozen times per birth. Humans and bonobos are the only animals that have sex face-to-face when both of them are alive. (Laughter) And you'll see that the human, chimp and bonobo all have external testicles, which in our book we equate to a special fridge you have in the garage just for beer. If you're the kind of guy who has a beer fridge in the garage, you expect a party to happen at any moment, and you need to be ready. That's what the external testicles are. They keep the sperm cells cool so you can have frequent ejaculations. I'm sorry. It's true. The human, some of you will be happy to hear, has the largest, thickest penis of any primate.
Ovde se radi o nadmetanju spermatozoida. Prosečni ljudski ejakulat ima oko 300 miliona spermatozoida, tako da je to već kompetitivno okruženje. Pitanje je da li se oni takmiče protiv spermatozoida drugog muškarca ili samo između sebe. Ima mnogo da se kaže u vezi sa ovim dijagramom. Jedna stvar na koju ću vam odmah skrenuti pažnju je mala muzička nota iznad ženke šimpanze, bonoboa i čoveka. To označava žensku kopulatornu vokalizaciju. Samo pogledajte brojeve. Prosečan čovek ima seks oko 1000 puta po jednom rođenju. Ako taj broj izgleda visok nekome od vas, uveravam vas da nekima u sali izgleda nizak. Kod šimpanzi i bonoboa ovaj odnos je isti kao kod nas. Kod druge tri vrste, nije. Gorile, orangutani i giboni, koji su tipičniji sisari, imaju seks samo oko 12 puta po jednom rođenju. Ljudi i bonoboi su jedine životinje koje se gledaju dok imaju seks kad su oboje živi. (Smeh) I primetićete da ljudi, šimpanze i bonoboi imaju eksterne testise koje mi izjednačavamo sa posebnim frižiderom koji imamo u garaži samo za pivo. Ako ste osoba koja ima frižider za pivo u garaži, onda očekujete žurku u svakom momentu i morate da budete spremni. To su eksterni testisi. Oni hlade spermatozoide da biste imali česte ejakulacije. Žao mi je, ali to je tačno. Čovek, neki od vas će biti srećni da to čuju, ima najveći i najdeblji penis od svih primata.
Now, this evidence goes way beyond anatomy. It goes into anthropology as well. Historical records are full of accounts of people around the world who have sexual practices that should be impossible given what we have assumed about human sexual evolution. These women are the Mosuo from southwestern China. In their society, everyone, men and women, are completely sexually autonomous. There's no shame associated with sexual behavior. Women have hundreds of partners. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Nobody gossips. It's not an issue. When the woman becomes pregnant, the child is cared for by her, her sisters, and her brothers. The biological father is a nonissue. On the other side of the planet, in the Amazon, we've got many tribes which practice what anthropologists call partible paternity. These people actually believe -- and they have no contact among them, no common language or anything, so it's not an idea that spread, it's an idea that's arisen around the world -- they believe that a fetus is literally made of accumulated semen. So a woman who wants to have a child who's smart and funny and strong makes sure she has lots of sex with the smart guy, the funny guy and the strong guy, to get the essence of each of these men into the baby, and then when the child is born, these different men will come forward and acknowledge their paternity of the child. So paternity is actually sort of a team endeavor in this society. So there are all sorts of examples like this that we go through in the book.
Ova činjenica izlazi iz okvira anatomije. Ona ulazi i u antropologiju. Istorijski podaci su puni svedočenja ljudi širom sveta, koji upražnjavaju seks koji bi trebalo da bude nemoguć s obzirom na pretpostavke o ljudskoj seksualnoj evoluciji. Ove žene su iz naroda Mosuo sa jugozapada Kine. U njihovom društvu su svi, i muškarci i žene, potpuno seksualno autonomni. Nema stida u vezi sa seksualnim ponašanjem. Žene imaju na stotine partnera. Nije važno. Nikog nije briga. Niko ne tračari. To nije tema. Kad žena zatrudni, dete čuvaju ona, njene sestre i njena braća. Biološki otac je bez značaja. S druge strane planete, u Amazoniji, imamo mnoga plemena koja praktikuju ono što antropolozi nazivaju podeljeno očinstvo. Ovi ljudi veruju - a među njima nema kontakta, ni zajedničkog jezika, niti bilo čega drugog, tako da nije ideja koja je proširena, već ideja koja se pojavila širom sveta - oni veruju da je fetus bukvalno sastavljen od skupa sperme. I tako žena koja hoće da ima dete koje je pametno, duhovito i snažno ima mnogo seksa sa pametnim muškarcem, duhovitim muškarcem i snažnim muškarcem da bi beba imala osobine svakoga od njih i kada se dete rodi, ovi različiti ljudi se jave i priznaju očinstvo nad detetom. Tako da je očinstvo timski poduhvat u ovom društvu. Ima raznih primera kao što je ovaj koje pominjemo u knjizi.
Now, why does this matter? Edward Wilson says we need to understand that human sexuality is first a bonding device and only secondarily procreation. I think that's true. This matters because our evolved sexuality is in direct conflict with many aspects of the modern world. The contradictions between what we're told we should feel and what we actually do feel generates a huge amount of unnecessary suffering. My hope is that a more accurate, updated understanding of human sexuality will lead us to have greater tolerance for ourselves, for each other, greater respect for unconventional relationship configurations like same-sex marriage or polyamorous unions, and that we'll finally put to rest the idea that men have some innate, instinctive right to monitor and control women's sexual behavior. (Applause) Thank you. And we'll see that it's not only gay people that have to come out of the closet. We all have closets we have to come out of. Right? And when we do come out of those closets, we'll recognize that our fight is not with each other, our fight is with an outdated, Victorian sense of human sexuality that conflates desire with property rights, generates shame and confusion in place of understanding and empathy. It's time we moved beyond Mars and Venus, because the truth is that men are from Africa and women are from Africa.
Zašto je ovo važno? Edvard Vilson kaže da treba da razumemo da je ljudska seksualnost na prvom mestu sredstvo za stvaranje veze, a tek na drugom sredstvo za razmnožavanje. Mislim da je to tačno. Ovo je važno jer je naša evoluirana seksualnost u direktnom konfliktu sa mnogim aspektima modernog sveta. Kontradikcije između onoga što su nam rekli da bi trebalo da osećamo i onoga što stvarno osećamo stvaraju veliku količinu nepotrebne patnje. Ja se nadam da će nas tačnije, novije razumevanje ljudske seksualnosti dovesti do veće tolerancije prema sebi, jednih prema drugima, do većeg poštovanja za nekonvencionalne forme odnosa kao što su istopolni brakovi ili poliamorijalne zajednice i do toga da konačno napustimo ideju da muškarci imaju neko urođeno, instinktivno pravo da nadgledaju i kontrolišu seksualno ponašanje žena. (Aplauz) Hvala vam. I videćemo da nisu samo gej ljudi oni koji treba da "izađu iz ormana". Svi mi imamo ormane iz kojih treba da izađemo. I kada izađemo iz tih ormana, prepoznaćemo da naša borba nije borba jednih s drugima, već sa zastarelim viktorijanskim pogledom na ljudsku seksualnost koja spaja želju sa pravom na svojinu, proizvodi stid i konfuziju umesto razumevanja i empatije. Vreme je da se preselimo sa Marsa i Venere jer istina je da su muškarci iz Afrike i da su žene iz Afrike.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Chris Anderson: Thank you. Christopher Ryan: Thank you.
Kris Anderson: Hvala. Kristofer Rajan: Hvala.
CA: So a question. It's so perplexing, trying to use arguments about evolutionary history to turn that into what we ought to do today. Someone could give a talk and say, look at us, we've got these really sharp teeth and muscles and a brain that's really good at throwing weapons, and if you look at lots of societies around the world, you'll see very high rates of violence. Nonviolence is a choice like vegetarianism, but it's not who you are. How is that different from the talk you gave?
K. A.: Pitanje. Zbunjujuće je, ako pokušamo da upotrebimo argumente o istoriji evolucije da bismo to pretvorili u ono što treba da radimo danas. Neko bi mogao da održi govor i kaže: pogledajte nas, imamo vrlo oštre zube i mišiće i mozak koji su stvarno dobri u bacanju oružja i ako pogledate mnoga društva širom sveta, videćete vrlo visoke stope nasilja. Nenasilje je izbor, kao i vegetarijanizam, ali to nije ono što ste vi. Kako je to drugačije od govora koji ste održali?
CR: Well first of all, the evidence for high levels of violence in prehistory is very debatable. But that's just an example. Certainly, you know, lots of people say to me, just because we lived a certain way in the past doesn't mean we should live that way now, and I agree with that. Everyone has to respond to the modern world. But the body does have its inherent evolved trajectories. And so you could live on McDonald's and milkshakes, but your body will rebel against that. We have appetites. I think it was Schopenhauer who said, a person can do what they want but not want what they want. And so what I'm arguing against is the shame that's associated with desires. It's the idea that if you love your husband or wife but you still are attracted to other people, there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with your marriage, something wrong with your partner. I think a lot of families are fractured by unrealistic expectations that are based upon this false vision of human sexuality. That's what I'm trying to get at.
K. R.: Na prvom mestu, dokazi za visok stepen nasilja u praistoriji su vrlo diskutabilni. Ali to je samo primer. Sigurno, mnogi ljudi mi kažu: samo zato što smo živeli na određen način u prošlosti, to ne znači da treba da živimo tako sada, i slažem se s tim. Svako treba da odgovori modernom svetu. Ali telo ima svoje sopstvene evoluirane putanje. Mogli biste da živite na Mekdonaldsu i milkšejkovima, ali vaše telo će se pobuniti protiv toga. Imamo apetite. Mislim da je Šopenhauer rekao da: osoba može da uradi ono što želi, ali ne može da želi ono što želi. Tako da sam ja protiv stida koji je povezan sa željama. To je ideja da ako volite svog muža ili ženu, ali vas i dalje privlače drugi ljudi, onda nešto nije u redu sa vama, nešto nije u redu u vašem braku, sa vašim partnerom. Mislim da su se mnoge porodice raspale zbog nerealnih očekivanja koja su zasnovana na ovoj pogrešnoj viziji ljudske seksualnosti. Na to ciljam.
CA: Thank you. Communicated powerfully. Thanks a lot.
K. A.: Hvala vam, Govorili ste odlično. Hvala mnogo.
CR: Thank you, Chris. (Applause)
K. R.: Hvala Kris. (Aplauz)