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Mating for Money

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A Sexual Odyssey

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Abstract

The cliché that prostitution is the oldest profession may or may not be true, but it is almost certainly true that mating for food or favors, not just for fun, is one of the oldest play-for-pay sports. Anthropologist Helen Fisher in The Sex Contract tells us something of its origin. By 10 million years ago our protohuman ancestors experienced revolutionary changes in life-style. The female, like other primates, was sexually available at infrequent intervals, but at such times was highly promiscuous like our close primate relatives. But feeding and carrying the helpless human young caused motherhood to become a grind, so females increasingly needed males to help them raise the children. But how to get the males to help? The human female evolved into what Fisher says was a “female sex athlete” that brought gifts of food and favors. This development inevitably led to male-female bonding, a helpmate, sharing, and family—what Fisher calls the “sex contract”— more than 4 million years ago.1

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Authors
  1. Kenneth Maxwell
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© 1996 Kenneth Maxwell

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Maxwell, K. (1996). Mating for Money. In: A Sexual Odyssey. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3462-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3462-8_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-45405-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-3462-8

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