How did the first people figure out that sex equals ....

How did the first people figure out that sex equals creating children? anyone read discussion on this topic? gestation for human embryos is long enough that it doesn't seem logical to assume they knew the two things were connected. if so, how did they know? too much time passes between the event and a noticeable change in the physiology of the woman.

that's a real head scratcher.

Good question!

I have no idea!

It is a bit like ,"which came first?The chicken,or the egg?"

Now my brain hurts!!

reply to post by scobro


The egg,as for the question.Im not sure,it seems to me an inbuilt biological function...they may have not known all the processes involved but im sure *like animals* they knew mating created offspring.

reply to post by scobro


i know. i was thinking about a thread where all or most of the posts are specifically about thiings we assume without actually thinking about what happened. really obvious things, like how did they know? we could guess they knew by watching animals but the same problem applies to animals. there's a big enough gestation that they could just as easily accuse the thing they ate for their previous meal, to be the cause of it. it's weird in a sort of "the ancients were smarter than we thought" way

Why would they have to know?

Seems to me like a luxury piece of knowledge when it comes to reproduction of humans..Hormones are all in place to make sure that what should happen indeed does (right, men ;P)..

i would say that they found out through trial and error, so to speak.

just because you dont know sex leads to kids doesnt mean you abstain from sex.

They must have had pretty strong sex urges, just like we do now, but and then found that they had kids, eventually as the years passed they must have realized that women get pregnant and stop having their period after sex, or the aliens taught us after they created us, either way makes sense

I think hormones induce instinct and eople just know like animals. People need the hormones to start before they are interested in sex, if you do not have them, your totally empty to the idea.

But i think once the hormones start instinct, drives you to know what to do, things like kissing and knowing about genital areas.

So i just thnk it was instinct that they knew it would make babies etc...



[edit on 5/4/2009 by andy1033]

reply to post by undo


well i have to say that this is a very good question indeed, and needs to be answered , so why not ask those who don't believe in a creator, maybe they have the answer.

as for those who believe in a creator , it will be easy to answer.

S&F to get some attention

They didn't.

They started having sex early. So it just appeared that girls hit a certain age and magically became the bringers of life.

This is probably why the feminine form was worshipped.

At some point people did start making the connection, and that is when men started isolating women to assure paternity.

The swap over in the human consciousness is writ large in human myth and history.

Clearly it wasn't humans that figured it out, it was all sexual organisms. And by that I mean organisms that reproduce sexually, and I assume you mean internal fertilization.

So I think that would be... some types of segmented worms. Probably did it first.

How did they figure it out? Well, how do sponges know to reproduce asexually? Survival. The need for survival.

We just happened to link it to pleasure, the "Sex" you're thinking of.

I'd like to mention that dolphins, bonobos, pigs, lions... they all have very colorful sex lives. They do it because they need to procreate so their DNA survives. And also because it feels good.

But of course for segmented worms, it's the same sort of thing as digestion. Necessary, not linked to intelligence or pleasure (no advanced nervous system/brain/spinal cord/notochord).

So yeah but for sure it wasn't people. The primates we evolved from knew it from what they evolved from who knew it from what they evolved from all the way back to asexuality and sponges and choanocytes.





Oh and a simple answer would be hormones, or more direct answer I guess. You don't know why you want to do it, you feel like you have to. I mean, when you're little you don't know why you want to eat when you're hungry but you do. Your body tells you to do it. To survive and pass on genes.


[edit on 5/4/2009 by ravenshadow13]

As an interesting side note, I could imagine it being quite confusing in the regard that in tribal societies breastfeeding ( a natural birth control) lasts until the child is three or four years old. So sex during that time did not usually result in pregnancy, though it sometimes did. Most children in tribal societies are spaced around three years apart due to this.

reply to post by undo


How did the first people figure out that sex equals creating children?

Great question . S & F

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Just as well then that conception is possible whether or not we understand the process. Hence our sex drive , ...... the urge to procreate is older than the "newer " ,evolutionary speaking, urge to "understand" .... why .

I think somebody already mentioned the segregation of females (Aeons) , a male who was assured he was the only mate , could realise that intercourse was followed approx 9 moons later with childbirth , with the obvious physical cues along the way.

If i was to hazard a guess , i`d say that women figured it out first being privy to information the male was not .( numbers of other partners, if any.)

Re; paternity / offspring
The inability of a male to know if a female is carrying his child or not , has a evolutionary value . With males providing for offspring that might not be their own.etc.
The phenomenon of synchronisation of the female menstrual cycle in group of women who live together has not been totally verified by research ,but if there is such a phenomenon, one could see it lending itself to the idea re; distinguishing paternity , with males raising another's males offspring.

These were some of the topics covered in Matt Ridleys `The Origins of Virtue` .

The nature of modern society has changed a lot since our hunter gather past , with modern insight gained by the use of technology allowing further understanding.

Thank you for drawing out my thoughts with your interesting question . I`ll have to dig out the book for a reread.




[edit on 4-5-2009 by UmbraSumus]

reply to post by ravenshadow13
If I understand your post, I agree. The urge for sex predates any sentience. Before we understood the connection between a 'good night in' and babies, it was all about urges and orgasms. Biologically, it's all carrot and no stick Bonobos and Pavlov's dog will hump anything animate or otherwise for the pleasure of orgasm...

I do not know but my best guess is that it has to do with instinct. Pure and simple instinct.

The same way that other animals who do not have the ability to think, in the way that humans do. They mate and I bet they do not know that sex equals children.

Sex being an instinct makes since to me. I mean, think of the hormones and feramones that trigger sexual feelings...

What does everyone else think?

reply to post by scobro


The correct answer is: .............. wait for it............... the Rooster came first.

As to the OP's query...... I would guess that the first humans did what came naturally to them and after several generations, they gleaned what produced offspring. Early Native Americans as well as other early cultures, had natural remedies for birth control. I have to believe that eventually it was figured out.

The women knew.

But they didn't tell the men for a really long time.

Finally, the men figured it out. They decided that having lots of kids proved their manhood, set up priesthoods, and started trading women for goats and camels and stuff. Ruined everything! The world went straight to hell after that.

reply to post by soficrow


Fortunately, nature dictated that men, as they grew older, would loose the hair on their heads, and gain hair in their ears and on their backs, thus making them less attractive for the female population, and inclining them to stay with the mother of their children. This assisted with the favorable growth of their children, and the world progressed.

So, you see, even though men are basically feral animals, nature saw a way to keep them at home.

edit to add: ...........and yes, even though the men became homebodies, that didn't stop them from screwing up the world.

........... which is why I was all in favor of Hillary being Prez. dash it all!


[edit on 4-5-2009 by argentus]

I am sure that it was easier to figure out then you think.

First they were not just looking at their own behavior. Animals also have sex and their gestation period is much shorter and easier to determine.

Using the base knowledge from watching the animals made it easier to understand that the sex act had something to with that little mini-me that arrived around nine months later.

Umm ..me watch women. Women watch animals. Animals chase women.
Umm ..women run into our cave. We hit women over head. Umm . .

Umm ..we protect women, hunt for food. Women cook. Umm .. good.

Umm ..we tell women food is good. Women get happy and sit closer. Umm.

Umm ..we sleep with women and get very warm. Umm .. women howl like
hyena, bark like dog. Sleep no good. Only play. Umm .. soon women
learn to fight with man. Man go hunting.

Umm ..when hunting party return, many little people also in cave. Umm . .
cry all time. Umm ..

We knew the same way salmon travel thousands of miles to somewhere they have never been to spawn. Its programed in our DNA.