Hormones and history: the evolution and development of primate female sexuality

Journal of Sex Research
Kim Wallen, Julia L Zehr

Abstract

Sexual behavior is required for reproduction in internally fertilizing species but poses significant social and physical risks. Females in many nonprimate species have evolved physical and behavioral mechanisms restricting sexual behavior to when females are fertile. The same hormones producing female fertility also control these mechanisms, assuring that sex only occurs when reproduction is possible. In contrast to nonprimate mammals, hormones do not regulate the capacity to engage in sex in female anthropoid primates, uncoupling fertility and the physical capacity to mate. Instead, in primates, sexual motivation has become the primary coordinator between sexual behavior and fertility. This dependence upon psychological mechanisms to coordinate physiology with behavior is possibly unique to primates, including humans, and allows a variety of nonphysiological influences, particularly social context, to regulate sexual behavior. The independence between hormonal state and sexual behavior allows sex to be used for social purposes. This complex regulation of primate sexuality develops during adolescence, where female monkeys show both hormonally influenced sexual motivation and socially modulated sexual behavior. We present findin...Continue Reading

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