Your Curmudgeon might be wrong about this, but we suspect we’ve found a topic with great potential to be exploited by creationists — if they have the courage to discuss it. We found it at PhysOrg: Why do humans prefer to mate in private?
You will probably want to read it all for yourself, so we’ll give you only a fee excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
Yitzchak Ben Mocha, an anthropologist with Zürich University, has conducted a study of human procreation habits as part of an effort to understand why humans prefer to mate in private. In his paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, he describes his analysis of other studies that involved human sexual practices, among other things.
Here’s the published paper, which you can read on-line without a subscription: Why do human and non-human species conceal mating? The cooperation maintenance hypothesis, but we’ll stay with PhysOrg, which then says:
Anecdotal evidence suggests that human beings generally prefer to mate in private — but why? And why is it so rare? Other than humans, only one other species has demonstrated a preference for privacy during mating: Arabian babblers.
Meet the only other species in all of creation that shares your sense of shame: Arabian babbler. Returning to PhysOrg, we’re told:
To learn more, Ben Mocha retrieved data from 4,572 accounts of cultural studies — ethnographies — and studied them looking for what he describes as normal sexual practices. Those involved were not trying to shock or avoid punishment for engaging in taboo practices such as incest — and were also not in the pornography business. He found that virtually every known culture practices private mating — even in places where privacy is difficult to find.
Fascinating, huh? PhysOrg continues:
He also looked for examples of other animals mating in private, and found none, except for the babblers. He also found that there were no explanations for it, and in fact, there were very few other people wondering why humans have such a proclivity. And, not surprisingly, he was unable to find any evolutionary theories on the topic.
Perhaps there’s a scriptural reason. We don’t know, because we haven’t searched the holy book for this subject. Anyway, here’s one last excerpt from PhysOrg:
Ben Mocha concludes his paper by introducing a theory of his own — he believes that the reason humans (and babblers) began looking for privacy during sex was because the male wanted to prevent other males from seeing his female partner in a state of arousal.
Do you have a better theory, dear reader? Or can you imagine how the creationists might exploit this topic? There are all kinds of possibilities here, so we know you’ll come up with something. But please — control yourselves. We’re counting on you to help us maintain the high quality for which this humble blog is known.
Okay, dear reader — have at it!
Copyright © 2020. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
We have a society (almost all of them) that puts shame onto sex because … RELIGION!! … and there is the additional of powerful people wanting to have sex with who ever and others that might take exception to this if seen. It is all about power over others.
Is there other behavor, in any species, which is done in private?
In humans, there is defecating etc.
And some acts of acquring goods, even if they are considered proper. It’s
none of your business how I made so much money.
The first thought that occurs to me is protection. When one is engaged in mating, one is vulnerable.
And, on the other hand, contrast that with some behavior which is done ostentatiously.
TomS says: “Is there other behavor, in any species, which is done in private? In humans, there is defecating etc.”
It’s obvious that you’ve never been in the Army — or any other branch of service.
Yeah, I’m gonna need a citation that humans are universally inclined to mate in private, because while I only minored in anthropology, I can recall quite a few cultures where this is very much not the case.
There is, of course, a Scripture passage that gets used for this – after The Fall, Adam and Eve are “ashamed” of being naked, which is read as being ashamed of sex.
Our Curmudgeon observes
Very high on Olivia’s list of your egregious faults is your inability to divest yourself of hideous habits acquired at boot camp…
@SC: “….. or any other branch of service.”
Well, I am in postal service but defecating in private is normal. Perhaps that’s different in the postal service of Florida?
Big time communications problem.
Hmmmmm….we don’t know when that became standard policy…mating in private. No way of knowing if that was common say 20,000 or 200,000 years ago. It could be simply a societal / cultural “thing”. Recently in the news was a young couple getting arrested for mating in a car. My goodness…my entire generation would of been guilty of that. That’s why drive-ins were invented….:).
I recently saw a nature documentary about chimpanzees. Normally, it’s only the alpha male that mates, and all the females in the troop are expected to “behave”. However, one female took a liking to a younger male, and they went off to a secluded glen. Even so, they were caught in the act, she was banished from the troop, and he was “taught a lesson” by Alpha.
The point of the documentary was how similar chimp behavior is to human. We, too, would sneak off to the woods for an illicit tryst. Does this explain our desire for privacy? Probably not. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that we are probably the only species with the knowledge that intercourse leads to procreation.
@SC, TomS. I don’t know the origin of the term, but “Private” is what the army’s basic training latrine was not.
Megalonyx speaks of “your egregious faults”
What would you know about Sapiens mating behavior?
There are, as the ancient joke states, no privates in the Army.
I recall – I can’t find the reference now – that the Carib “Indians” scandalised the Spanish by their practice of copulating wherever the mood took them. It was one of the, er, seminal moments in the film “Dances with Wolves” that the Lakhota thought it nothing unusual for husband and wife to have sexual intercourse in the presence of guests. The sexual practices of Polynesian peoples at celebrations were a horror and a delight to the first European sailors to reach them, which, alas, accounts for the horrifically rapid uptake of STD’s. There was the occasional culture in which mass public intercourse was a form of ceremony, sometimes associated with marriage. And of course there are swingers’ clubs in every substantial western city, and they have mass copulation in one another’s presence, though whether that amounts to public intercourse is a matter of definition.
Even within Europe, we learn from Arab sources that the Kievan Rus commonly had casual sexual intercourse with “slave girls” at meals, while in company. Other examples will no doubt occur to others.
All in all, I think it defensible that sexual intercourse in private is a cultural norm (although often transgressed) that is characteristic of western societies; and the source for this cultural norm is probably Christian mores derived from Judaism and the ancient middle east generally. Western societies are strongly dominant at present, but I think there are sufficient cultures with different mores to cast doubt on the thesis that human beings generally have sex in private.
Mating is not the only peculiar habit of our species:
Boar leaves nudist grunting in laptop chase
Am I correct in assuming that humans are the only species on earth that know why animals mate?
Another question would be, since when?
Pope Retiredsciguy makes a shocking claim:
…But…but…what does the stork leave in the cabbage patch, then!?
Semi-serious comment: although the source is not compelling (it’s Desmond Morris, in The Naked Ape), one speculative line is: because from birth we are dependent on adult care for a much longer time relative to other critters, we have evolved mechanisms to ensure strong ‘pair bonding’ to keep both parents invested in protecting/rearing offspring. Hence all the hullabaloo around sex and exclusiveness.
But maybe a better source is Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts:
I knew this was too juicy for the creationists to ignore it. The Discoveroids have seized the issue. First, Wesley J. Smith posted Privacy in Human Intimacy Isn’t About Evolution. He says: “We transcend the strictly material forces that spur natural selection. We, alone in the known universe, are moral beings.”
Then Klinghoffer contributes his wisdom in Evolution Can’t Explain Sexual Modesty; Why Not? He ends by saying: “It’s noteworthy that evolutionists can’t explain any of this, a failure that itself speaks loudly and eloquently to the limits of materialist science.”
“We, alone in the known universe, are moral beings.”
Wise Wesley carefully ignores the research of my compatriot Frans de Waal.
Kclunkcerdunkcer prattles:about “the limits of materialist science.”
The problem with immaterialist non-sciences is exactly that it’s unlimited.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/888934-a-theory-that-explains-everything-explains-nothing
I think moral is defined so that it only applies to human behavior.
Are you less moral in the shower?
@FrankB
While I am sympathetic to “explains everything explains nothing”, and I see that this is widely attributed to Karl Popper, I didn’t see any citation to the works of Popper, nor any justification for that sentiment.
Eddie Janssen asks,
“Am I correct in assuming that humans are the only species on earth that know why animals mate?
Another question would be, since when?”
Since when? According to Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon History of the Universe, since about the time humans domesticated sheep and started the practice of animal husbandry, maybe 10,000 or so years ago, give or take, more or less, circa this, circa that.
(Pg. 95 of my ancient copy of Volumes 1-7)
Since they were in continuous possession of a ewe from the time they observed copulation to the birth of the lamb, a light bulb lit up (even though it hadn’t been invented yet), and the observant shepherd made the connection between the ram-ewe and man-woman. According to Gronick, this then led to the concept of personal ownership of property, etc., etc.
Not being a historian, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of Gronick’s book. However, it is fascinating and I highly recommend it. Fun read! (I’m sure it would make Ken Ham’s skin crawl.)
@TomS: “I didn’t see any citation to the works of Popper”
Indeed, neither did I. After three hours (plus a 20 minutes break) of delivering post during a heat wave, for a large part in the harsh sun, I didn’t exactly feel like finding out where the quote came from. One thing I guarantee you: I didn’t think up it myself.
Good old Wesley J., essentialist. “Moral sex” is sex for the purpose of procreation between a married cis female and cis male in the dark. Sex for any other purpose or between any other individuals or with the lights on is immoral. Feel free to add more conditions.
@Michael Fugate
In case that it is impossible that the act would result in a pregnancy, whatever the reason …
Interesting to note that most polygamists tend to have conjugal visits with one sister wife at a time rather than participate in a group orgy. Even the term sister wife is a bit of a downer. Not sure how that works with polygamists in other cultures who have multiple concubines.
However, since women have had a profound effect on sexual selection, i.e. human males having the largest penis of all primates, yes we put gorillas to shame, the preference for pair seclusion during intimacy I am almost sure was driven by female selection and the need to secure permanent pair bonds with the male in order to raise infants who take over a decade to reach sexual maturation. Yes, our large, slow developing brains are to blame for our prudishness.
Michael Fugate: The married cis-female and cis-male have to be married to each other. That’s important.
“My father was a married man, and what was more perverse,
He was married to my mother, which only made it worse…”
– Old Australian Army song