[Aracelis]

Meat-eating female ping!

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[ChewedGum]

The female lust for meat, Dr. Shlain suggests, is responsible for the evolution of much of human behavior, including intimate relations between men and women, foresight and puzzle solving, complex social interactions, different psychological moods between men and women, and any number of human traits that we now see in the best and worst of us.

Umm, interesting idea I guess. I was kind of thinking that it was the male's lust which led to intimate relations. (Silly me!) The interesting thing about such a hypothesis is that there is no evidence against it so it may stand forever. (There is no evidence for it either, it is all speculation, but that doesn't seem to matter much these days.)

Gum

[shrinkermd]

Interesting post. The real problem is how humans organize. Until comparatively recently we lived in very small groups and extended families. The rise of cities and nations of millions poses problems for which we are not properly prepared to deal with.

[rolling_stone]

I alaways thought it was gold women were after, stupid me, iron is so much cheaper, I can't wait to buy some iron supplement and see how that works to woo the ladies...

[KellyAdmirer]

Humans and apes separated about six million years ago

Someone at some point is going to come along with a meteor theory to explain this, I just know it.

[FormerLib]

Can we surmise from this that vegetarian women are less likely to produce intelligent babies? Anyone want to research how many Palm Beach voters had veggie moms?

[Aric2000]

Now isn't that a fascinating hypothesis?

It's fun to talk about, that's for sure.

We need to figure out how to build a time machine and go back and look for ourselves...

[xzins]

In our evolutionary past the best way to restore depleted iron was to eat meat. But women were probably not hunters, and so they must have manipulated men with sexual favors to bringing home a blood-soaked dinner. This manipulative move, Dr. Shlain suggests, then set into motion just about every aspect of human behavior.

This is too stupid for words.

Guess this prehistoric vixex had a blood test, and woke up one morning and said, "Hot damn...I'm low on red blood cells. If I can flirt my vegetarian male into killling meat, since I know that that will increase my iron supply due to the recent lab tests that tell me such, then I and my offspring will survive. Hmmmm.....wonder what kind of marinade to use on that meat?"

[GodfearingTexan]

what did early humans act like? i guess they would be mostly down-to-business most of the time. why dont you go live out in the woods off of fish and game and plant life and try to survive that way whilst you fended off attacks on your territory by other roaming humans. you'd be less snooty and more open to your God-given role of wife and mother. we feed you, then you give us your body and our children. then we build a family and conquer other families.

[rface]

... women should have their own genus name, Gyno sapiens

Gyno sapiens - good FReeper name

[KellyAdmirer]

Assumed throughout all this is that the women did not want sex as much as the men, but instead just used it to get things from them. The clear implication being that women are natural, um, women of the evening shall we say, being in polite company, and men simply their clientele.

No wonder the female reviewer was irked. ;)

[Bob]

Women have also lost the usual advertisement of fertility — heat — and are always open to sex.

This gal obviously never met my ex-wife.

[Right Wing Professor]

It's pretty darn speculative, and it imposes a very 21st century kind of sexual behavior on creatures that were as much ape as human, and may have had a social organization we know nothing about.

I haven't read the book, but to make anything like the sort of causal connection it tries to make it would have to

1. show anemic women actually crave meat.
2. show that 3 million years ago humans tended to anemia, so there was strong selective pressure.
3. show that they had a social organization (like bonobos, say) where it was possible for women to barter meat for sex. For example, if men were able to force women to have sex with them, why would they have had to share their meat (no Kobe jokes, please)?

The first could certainly be tested experimentally. There's probably fossil evidence that bears on the second. I don't know if there's any way to determine the third.

[dennisw]

makes some sense .... I think

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Men, who have high levels of testosterone, which increases their sex drive, are then lured into hunting and sharing meat by the promise of continuous sex from these menstruating, sexy women. The trade is meat for sex and everyone wins as genes are passed down by the iron-rich women who produce healthy, intelligent babies.

So we've been conditioned to buy dinner for hundreds of thousands of years?

[HalfFull]

The female lust for meat, Dr. Shlain suggests, is responsible for the evolution of much of human behavior,

Well....there you have it. Case closed.

[connectthedots]

The female lust for meat...

This is too easy.

[.cnI redruM]

I figured those lamo veggie burgers wouldn't get you laid.

[MD_Willington_1976]

How can this be...my wife's friend is a vegetarian..."she don't eat meat but she sure likes the bone" is the best way to describe her...