Patterns of Sexual Behavior.

Why do human and non-human species conceal mating? The cooperation maintenance hypothesis

“…burrows, thick vegetation) and (ii) will not conceal the solicitation of mating from conspecifics. These predictions are not fulfilled in Arabian babblers [23], nor humans [1].…”

“…Although the claim that all human cultures conceal mating was repeated during the last century [1][2][3]5,6,11], to my knowledge, there is a lack of systematic supporting evidence (but see [1,12]).…”

“…Various scholars have claimed that in virtually all cultures, husbands and/or wives try to control mating access to their spouse(s)-at least to a certain degree [1,2,9,36]. Three clarifications should be made regarding this claim.…”

“…Although it has been claimed repeatedly that restrictive sexual norms are virtually universal, there is a dearth of supporting evidence (but see [1,9]). Hence, I analysed whether social norms in this study's dataset entitle husbands and/or wives to at least some control over mating access to their spouse(s), or, in contrast, if both spouses are allowed to have unrestricted extramarital sex (see electronic supplementary material, appendix S1 for methodology).…”

“…Despite the extraordinary cultural diversity that has evolved in the human species, humans from distinct cultures have been reported to take active precautions to conceal sexual intercourse from the sensory perception of others [1]. During the last century, scholars argued that the preference for concealed mating represents a 'human universal' [2][3][4][5][6][7] and is also uniquely human [1,8]. Others speculated this had a significant effect on the evolution of human emotions (e.g.…”