When did humans stop mating and start making love?

I think we have always made love, it’s our nature.

Not sure, but I’m fairly certain Barry White was involved.

Thank you @Freedom_Issues. Just out of curiosity, what makes you think that affection and tenderness is part of our nature?

@cprevite, I’m sure he was!

Interesting question. I would suspect that it happened at the same time that society evolved to the point where abstract values of justice, beauty, etc. came to the forefront. Throughout history, people who are in survival mode focus in on just that, and all notions of goodness or other values go out the window when there is not enough to eat, fresh water, and meaningful sustainability.

Thank you @PandoraBoxx, that’s the line of thinking I was aiming for, and more or less what I figured myself.

When did this happen, and where was I? This “love” thing sounds amazing! I hope someday I will get to experience this type of intercourse!

You and me both, @ava.

@cprevite damn… that’s funny.

Who knows when it changed for humans, but it might have been fairly early on. Dolphins also have sex just for pleasure.

Yep, @Haleth, I knew about the dolphins. And I’m also willing to bet that it was reasonably early on too.

I do not know.

The time when we stopped mating and started making love is when we were emotionally capable of doing the latter.

Mating is a purely biological act. Making love is when the emotional attachment is present between the two parties and they are having sex for other than just procreation.

Good point about emotional capability @Arisztid. Thank you.

That’s so weird @Arisztid…I had no idea that men were capable of emotional attachment. Amazing!

@ava That is one of the lesser known facts about us guys. Shhhhhhhh… do not spread it around.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard .. most welcome :)

@Arisztid Where do I find these “guys” you speak of?

@ava, I’m a guy who builds relationships off of emotional attachment. Believe me, we do exist.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard (with an Elaine from Seinfeld style push) Get out!

This question made me think of caveman sex scenes the 1981 Canadian film Quest for Fire, a film about cavemen’s search for fire, and how early societies formed. It’s an excellent movie, and quite funny, although I have to warn you that there is not one discernible spoken word in the whole film. Among the cast is Rae Dawn Chong, the daughter of Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong. The movie is well worth the Netflix rental.

I find myself thinking about how civilizations evolve and devolve, in the context of Afghanistan and the Middle East. This image of the Paghman Gardens is quite chilling. Algebra developed in Iraq circa 830. The Minaret of Jam was built ca. 12th century, one of 60 or so minarets across the Middle East.

Funny you should mention that @PandoraBoxx, that scene is exactly what I was thinking of when I posed this question. The rather brutal, doggy-style-ish one.

They did? This is the first I’ve heard of it. ;p

Lol, thanks @HumourMe.

right after Cro-Magnons, so 17,000–30,000 years ago

Also more or less what I figured. Thanks, @Violet.

When we are in love.

Well, that’s simple enough, @curlysue.

When we became bipedal females lost the property of announcing ovulation with visual cues. (Previously there was swelling and redness, as in infra-human primates) at that time, two related phenomena occurred: permanent breast enlargement, and copulation unrelated to ovulatory clues (e. g. the strategy became intercourse during the entire menstrual cycle.)

Wow, @pdworkin, that’s an interesting explanation, and evolutionarily, it makes sense. Thank you.

It has some interesting ramifications – constant attentiveness strengthens pair-bonding (especially orgasmic attention, which releases oxitocin) so it was really quite an adaptive strategy, especially for a female, who would have been in very dire straits indeed if abandoned while with child, as she would have lost her provisioning.

Indeed it does, and it only strengthens my conception of love as an evolutionary tool.

That’s an interesting question in itself—the development of the aesthete.

I’ve never liked the term “making love”. It’s intimacy and sex. Sensuality, to me, doesn’t need to be made in the sense used with that term. I don’t have sex to mate, I have sex because I love the people I am with and want to be as close as possible.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this comment. Let’s blame my lack of sleep and insanity. Colour me ignorable.

Well I see what you are getting at, @seeing_red. Thank you.

I think it happened when man became the dominant species and stop thinking how to reproduce ourselfs

@Christian95, huh?

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard when humans remained without any natural enemy,probably they stopped thought about survival and that’s when they realized that life can be good.They discovered pleasure(and they included sex among them)
Is this clear enough for you?

Okay, gotcha, @Christian95. That makes sense.

@Christian95, I could see where that could make sense. Do you think then that in times of species reduction, such as during the Black Plague, sex would revert back to more of an animal instinct for procreative purposes? Heading for The History of Private Lives to see if anything illuminating jumps out…

Sexual pleasure in all animals is inversely proportional to multiparous birth, and to opportunity for sexual congress. For example in the Atlantic Salmon, which mates once and then dies, but produces great numbers of fingerlings, there is no sexual pleasure. But in humans, whose offspring are altricial and who tend to have one child per pregnancy, sexual pleasure is very high, to encourage continuous mating.

I think once there was sustainable agriculture, people had more time to devote to thinking about all sorts of things, and romance was one of those things.

As soon as people wanted to be politically correct and sound “nicer”.

Good answers guys. Sorry, this is becoming slightly cumbersome to address each one individually.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard: You don’ need to bother. Just send out an @all, Thanks very much for your thoughtful answers.” Or, “Awesome, dudes.”

I think that humans stopped having sex and started making love when we became domesticated. We are domesticated animals. The only difference between us and say, animals in zoos, is that we have domesticated ourselves. This is not a bad thing. What it means is that we no longer worry so much about survival. Now, sex is fun rather than necessary and, hey, every once in a while, we pop out a baby. Add into this birth control and the myriad ways that people can have children without sexual intercourse shout out to my mother and sex is no longer a way to procreate. Sex is more about having fun than anything else.

Edit to add: And the most superb irony is that my next question to look at is the one about sandystrachan’s baby!

We have?

@KatawaGrey, that seems to be the theme here. Once we had to stop breeding to survive, we started exploiting the pleasure that was already existent.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard: Interestingly enough, humans are the only animals that I know of that don’t actually know they are pregnant right away. I think this might be an extension of that.

Wow, I had no idea, @KatawaGrey, where did you hear that?

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard: One of my high school teachers told me. Now, she wasn’t a biology teacher but she is the kind of woman who knows a little about everything so I trust her judgment.

Thanks @KatawaGrey, that’s really interesting, and pertinent to this discussion. Much appreciated :D

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard: Glad I could help!

I dont think some have gotten to that stage yet… chavs etc.

Yeah, @thejoker, chavs definitely seem more like breeders than lovers

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, hahahaha, yeh thats certainly one way to describe them :)