How different would civilization be if humans had "mating season" ?
How different would civilization be if humans had "mating season" ?
Let's imagine, a world where 10 month a year, men and women don't care about each other. However, twice a year, during 2-3 weeks, non pregnant women produce pheromone that men can't resist and start calling every boy around to breed with them.
How would this impact the civilisation ?
I know about David Brin's *glory season * but not sure whether any other writer explored that idea.
Lots more people would have the same birthdays.
87I sometimes do the math on people's birthdays to see what holiday they were conceived around. Lots of early September (Christmas/New Years) and November birthdays (Valentines)
7August = Thanksgiving which is why there's always family drama.
4
I had the discussion the other day of how civilization would be different if humans followed the 'have loads of babies at once and see which ones survive' style of reproduction.
"Oh hi Sarah! How're the kids?"
"Oh, little Jeremy wasn't eating as much as the others so I threw him outside onto the road."
67It would be a very large undertaking to describe the changes since hidden breeding cycles are one of the things that separates humans from other apes.
Human women being able to choose when and with whom to mate, secretly, is one of the most significant aspects of what it means to be human.
Humanity is one of the few species whose evolution is primarily driven by sexual selection and not just the “I survived long enough to find a female so I reproduced” strategy we know of as natural selection.
64Username checks out,
But nice answer
24Yeah. Note a very fun answer, but I'd go so far as to say this was critical enough in hominem development that there wouldn't be human society if humans had a mating season. So many of critical points in human development seem to hinge on very social developments, and this may have played a large role in that.
11It's like when someone says something like "Oh if men could get pregnant there'd be an abortion clinic on every corner". Not getting pregnant is the core attribute that makes "men" a concept.
6We’re like humanity’s spartans. I literally feel less fear than is rational for my own survival, because it’s optimal for the group that I should be ready to be overwhelmed by rage or whatever and attack the lion and get killed so others can survive.
I spoke with a female marine once — someone who could kill me no problem — and she told me the fear she felt before training was still there. Conversely despite knowing from experience that I am useless in a fight, I feel cocky and self assured. Or, if I stay on top of the cockiness, I simply don’t feel afraid.
I don’t mean it’s not there. I’ve been terrified. But I’ve got a confidence that just slowly steadily increases in the absence of recent evidence, that somehow I’m invincible.
Anyway, I say it’s like spartans because this reminds me of some kind of drug cocktail you could inject into a solider to just make them not give a fuck.
I’m not complaining mind you. I’ve got no problem with having less fear. But mostly because I live in a super safe environment, so it doesn’t hurt me to have less fear.
7
Does it happen en masse or does each woman have their own heat season? Say, does everyone go crazy during the same 2-3 weeks or does it vary per person like it happens with periods?
In the masse heat I think there would be some obvious differences in stuff like festivities and each culture would adapt to these seasons. There would be a need to gather and store resources before the rut, and also to be prepared for the inevitable birthing en masse to come. We would probably have public holidays for the mating seasons and festivities for birthing season. In contemporary times, hospitals would need to do some heavy work planning and preparing maternity ward space to accommodate the seasonal influx. That's just what pops to mind.
Not too sure about the differences in the second case though. One option is, women would be allowed to retreat from society and become hermits during heat if they want to avoid pregnancy and this would be totally normal. Or, some cultures would lock them to prevent them getting pregnant. Coming to think of it, I think having women randomly in some kind of irresistible heat like this would be very disruptive and impossible to prepare for so I don't see much happening in the way of gender equality and women's rights sadly. I'm inclined to think the re would be a lot of gender based extreme segregation.
36Option #2 is basically werewolves.
5
I'll point out that many creatures that have seasonal mating still mate for life.
32Sexual crimes would increase.
22Not just SA crimes. Fighting between males would be insane.
21
I imagine it would look a lot like how Zoidberg’s home world is depicted on Futurama
20We sortof do, there's a huge cluster of birthdays roughly july to september
20here's a chart!
what's fascinating to me about this is how people are clearly using medical science to avoid giving birth on certain holidays.
22So Christmas?
2Or just winter, I think. Lots of people indoors with nothing better to do.
Edit: actually, I'm curious how this chart looks for just the southern hemisphere.
6
This is actually a HUGE factor in human sexual selection. Other primates have visible Estrous cycles. I.e. what people commonly call going into heat.
This has a big impact on reproductive dynamics. Who mates, when they mate, etc.
Humans, for whatever reason, do not have a visible indicator of fertility, which provides females more sexual selection options. Because it's not obvious when they're in heat, they can choose who they mate with at the right time. They can also socially mate all the time, which can increase human bonding.
17Not only that. Menstruation started as a way to decrease the chance of non viable pregnancies (because we are susceptible to genetic mutations which we needed to in order to adapt). Because it reduced fertility, people had to fuck more often. Not only that, men were selected on certain traits that resulted in paternal care evolving. Because well... if the mom dies, then at least the dad makes sure they both succesfully reproduced. Male chimps are more likely to eat orphans than take care of em. After all, they can always force a another one.
Menstruation became so good at reducing fertility, that we developed monogamous behaviour. Men developed the ability to bond at all. By becomming more sensitive to oxytocin despite producing less of the stuff compared to women. Men also express prolactin in the brain after their baby is born, which is hard to find in other primates. It's amazing that men don't kill infants whereas male apes and monkeys do... just to get the female in estrus faster again.
I mean just look at the other primates. The males really don't care about anything except their position, and control over females. Whereas men can love interacting with dogs. Ever seen a cat dad? That's true care and love right there. It sounds like a "duh." But there is so much more behind the behaviour.
Humans are dope.
17
It would be like the purge, but stickier.
14The Urge
24
first two things come to mind:
water-cooler conversations at work would be different. telecommuting may be an important option during the season.
My shiny seashell collection may be in jeopardy. the ladies love seashells 🐚.
13From what I have heard/been told the "ignoring partner and sex 1-2 times a year" is a lot of marriages, so maybe your scenario wouldn't change much
11Reminds me of how the Vulkans have it in Star Trek. I'm no expert but there was an episode where Spock went into his horny craze :)
8This had been a theme through multiple Trek series. They call it Pon farr.
2Yes, it's the Pon Farr, that makes Vulkans have blood fever. The episode you are talking about is Amok Time
1
Post nut clarity for most of the year sounds peaceful, but I'm guessing people in heat would think with their genitals and wouldn't care about STDs or pregnancy.
Everyone wound have some STD and birth control would be a side note. Human reproduction would work like clockwork and without neutering world would have exploded long time ago.
6We sort of do
4O.O
Do you want to read this part again slowly, out loud, then consider this from a female point of view.
non pregnant women produce pheromone that men can't resist and start calling every boy around to breed with them.
Women have enough problems with unwanted male interaction, not to mention so many lies about women's anatomy. This makes it so much worse.
-36What, are you above biology? The guy is asking how things would be different if we were biologically similar to other animals thar have mating seasons.
Maybe sex wouldn't have the same stigmas. Maybe we wouldn't care who a child's father was and would raise our partners children as our own.
Maybe there would be less creepy aggressive people since presumably it would be easier for them to have their sexual needs met. Maybe the ones that still act aggressively are quickly delta with and somehow excluded or punished.
Maybe maybe maybe. Thought experiment. Hypothetical. Relax.
Are you just off-put assuming that this is some guys sexual fantasy?
56its a hypothetical situation
40That's a fair point, and indeed, it looks like pretty awful, you're right that I could have phrased it better.
The worst, is that the question came when reading stuff like Being a cat girl must be cool and I was thinking about how cat reproduce making being a cat girl pretty uncool
28Read again
13Women have enough problems with unwanted male interaction, not to mention so many lies about women's anatomy. This makes it so much worse.
In this hypothetical, men switch from having a sexual interest in women 52/52 weeks a year to 4/52 weeks a year. I would expect a >92% reduction in "unwanted male interaction".
12Do you want to read this part again slowly, out loud
If you ever see yourself typing this, please realize that it will have the opposite effect than intended, because this is super obnoxious to say to people
2