When and How did Humankind Figure Out that Sex Makes Babies?
Tags: Sexuality, Science, History, Sex, Pregnancy

When and How did Humankind Figure Out that Sex Makes Babies?

Photo Credits: Spiegel

Well, I think the answer is, since the beginning. While historians, scholars, anthropologists, and biologists can’t tell us the exact time, all the evidence shows us that human beings have been able to understand that there definitely is some relationship between sex and childbirth, since the homo sapiens walked on this planet probably between the unfolding of our breed and the evolution of human culture about 50,000 years ago.

There isn’t much material evidence on this matter. However, a plaque from the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük illustrates a Neolithic understanding, with a mother and child on one side and two figures embracing on the other. What we need to understand here is that all cultural groups had their own explanations for conception, but everyone acknowledged some sort of link between copulation and babies.

Photo Credits: Wikipedia

Now coming to how ancient human beings attained reproductive consciousness, this part is a bit gloomy. I think that it’s most likely that they closely observed animals around them, and how those animals reproduced. They must’ve also observed that the women who don’t sleep with men, do not get pregnant. But this in no way means that those people had any idea about the complete process of the sperm meets eggs. That knowledge is fairly recent.

In the early 20th century, anthropologists who worked in places like New Guinea and Australia noted that their subjects were unable to establish a relationship between sex and babies. Later, further research told us that those reports were biased were at best only half-true. Let’s take the example of what Bronislaw Malinowski claimed in 1927. He said that in the Trobriand Islands, the father had nothing to do with producing a child. However, subsequent research on the same group established that semen for necessary for the congelation of menstrual blood, the suspension of which was believed to ultimately from the fetus.

The explanations of conception by the people of the Trobriand Islands might seem weird or strange but there is no doubt that on some level they did recognize the relationship between sex and childbirth. And surely, before us Westerners who like to feel superior, get all proud, it should be noted that our views on conception haven’t always been consistent or rational either. The number of unplanned pregnancies in the U.S. says it all.

Cynthia Eller, a woman’s studies scholar say that wile,

“other events may also be necessary — such as the entrance of a spirit child through the top of the head (in the case of the Triobriand Islanders), or the entrance of a soul into a fertilized egg (in the case of Roman Catholics) … it is simply not believed that women bear children without any male participation whatsoever.”

The question arises that if human beings have always been able to understand that sex leads us to the delivery room, then did that information have any impact or consequences on our evolution as a society? What we call reproductive consciousness, we know that of the entire animal world, this consciousness is unique to humankind. And that special information might explain both our capacity to bend procreative abilities of nature to our favor in almost everything from animal breeding to family planning and the evolution of our taboos revolving around sex.