There are certainly apocrine glands in armpits, face, nipples, anal and genital regions of both sexes, which become 'activated' at puberty - so the concept of a specifically 'pheromonal' smell seems pretty plausible to me.
Lurid: Like yourself, I'm sceptical of evolutional theory which attempts to do more than speculate on the impact of biology on social groupings; and, like science fiction, evolutionary psychology invariably tells us more about contemporary cultural assumptions/obsessions than past ones. The 'Selfish Gene' strand is certainly influential and seems intuitive, but I would hesitate to base too much on the concept that men are invariably driven ('biologically') to fertilise widely, and women to nurture solely. I think the influence of culture is often undervalued in such accounts.
I can't find specific descriptions of the material in the plethysmographic studies, but there's an implication that partial or total nudity was the standard, rather than specifically 'explicit' poses, etc. (The latter would've been difficult to get past an ethical committee, for one thing).
Sorry to sound critical again, Chrome, but I'm finding the phrase "physically meant to" rather difficult to establish to my own satisfaction. If we're talking in terms of what does and doesn't cause tissue damage then you're quite right - but this would also apply to oral or anal intercourse between adults, vaginal penetration between adults who are mismatched in terms of genital size, and fisting. When it comes to sex, humans (and other animals) appear to have evolved a range of uses for our orifices which, on the face of it, weren't 'meant to' be so.
I'm not saying that the tissue damage aspect is irrelevant, morally; on the contrary, I think it lends weight to the larger issue of consent (ie. is a prepubertal child able to give informed consent to sex), where penetrative intercourse is concerned. |
