The Prehistory of Sex

Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture

Bantam Books, 1996.
Paperback, 353 pages

Truly a Grand Sweep

Ranging from Stone-Age dildos to New York drag-queens and from Bonobo sexuality to the genital enlargement practiced by San women in Africa, Taylor's book provides a fascinating history of human (d)evolution and the many approaches peoples have taken with regards to sexuality.

Although this is most certainly a serious and scholarly work, including lots of notes and a beautifully mixed bibliography, the author (born 1960) succeeded in making it a juicy book that reads well and easily, not even shying away from humorous word play in the the titles to chapters and sub-chapters. "Lucy in the Tree with Apemen", "Skull Sex and Brain Sex", "Nazi's Prefer Blondes" and "Tantric Sex in Iron-Age Denmark" are just a few examples.

The author, who lectures in archaeology at the University of Bradford (UK), has a very good eye for the usually advanced clichés concerning sex and gender-issues (and he both avoids them and points them out) and is also not homophobic; a combination which makes for refreshing reading.

Review: RCC

Here's a part of the author's introduction:

Because of the inaccessibility, for a variety of reasons, of data relating to prehistoric sexuality worldwide, I have focused in the latter part of the book (which deals with the later prehistoric period) on Europe, western Asia and the former Soviet Union. These are areas that I know well and where my colleagues and contacts have been able to help me track down hidden or little-known material. Despite this focus, many of the themes relevant to this material are of universal significance (or have now become so through the pervasive influence of Western ideology).

Starting around 5,000 years ago, it is possible to document great variation in human sexuality in Eurasia: bestiality, homosexuality, prostitution (emphatically not the oldest profession), transvestism (male and female), transsexuality, hormone treatments, sadomasochism, a vigorous interest in contraception, ideas about racially "pure" breeding, sex as an acrobatic and competitive pastime, and sex as a transcendental spiritual discipline. This variation went underground when Christian values were publicly adopted, whereupon the chivalric ideal of romantic, preferably unconsummated love gave rise to a view of physical sex as essentially sinful and forbidden, the legacy of which lingers on.

Despite these relatively recent influences on our experience of sex, the last few thousand years represent just a tiny part of the four-million-year saga of its prehistory. By taking the long view of the evolution of human sexual culture - by seeing what people actually did rather than making claims about what they ought to have done - we will be better able to consider our options for the next four million years.

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