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The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior
An anthropological study of human sexuality considers the influence of bipedalism on radical changes in female sexuality, which in turn affected the development of the unique human propensity to bond and other behavior patterns
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
43 people are currently reading
760 people want to read
About the author
Helen Fisher
54 books691 followersHelen E. Fisher is an anthropology professor and human behavior researcher at the Rutgers University and is one of the major researchers in the field of romantic interpersonal attraction.Prior to becoming a research professor at Rutgers University, she was a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
By many accounts, Fisher is considered the world’s leading expert on the topic of love. Presently, Fisher is the most referenced scholar in the love research community. In 2005, she was hired by match.com to help structure the chemistry.com pair-matching website using both hormonal-based and personality-based matching techniques.
By many accounts, Fisher is considered the world’s leading expert on the topic of love. Presently, Fisher is the most referenced scholar in the love research community. In 2005, she was hired by match.com to help structure the chemistry.com pair-matching website using both hormonal-based and personality-based matching techniques.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 22, 2008
This is a good review of Anthropology 101 together with some interesting hypotheses of why humans "bond" in serial monogamy. What bugs me about anthropologists in general, and Fisher in this text specifically, is their tendency to reconstruct the past through the lenses of how we think today. For example, use of the word "logical." I don't think we can assume that any hypothesis in necessarily "logical." It is logical in terms of how we see the world today, but I'm not convinced that using a 19th, 20th or 21st-century perspective is going to build a realistic picture of what was going on 20 million years ago when dryopithecus was hanging out.
Another problem I have is the use of data collected on other primate groups (orangutans, gorillas or Goodall's chimpanzees) as some sort of indicator of the behavior of our "ancestors." If human behavior has evolved, then hasn't gorilla or chimpanzee behavior evolved? Even if they seem "primitive" compared to us, they are still affected by natural selection and changes in thought processes or behavioral areas as well. To ignore that fact is to disregard evolutionary theory. Knowing that they were not frozen in time while we moved forward, how can one use their behavior over the past 100 years as a model for what protohominids were like?
Brain size is touted again and again as an argument as ancient craniums have been measured and the growth put forward as evidence of our becoming more intelligent, but we know that brain size isn't necessarily an indicator of advanced intelligence. This was an argument used in the 19th-century to "prove" that women were inferior to men: overall brain size is smaller and, disregarding the fact of proportionality, therefore women were considered less intelligent. From my admittedly very basic understanding of the human brain, there are also chemical and electrical factors to take into consideration. Size alone tells us very little, and, unfortunately, we cannot research actual brains from millions of years ago.
I also could do without the little dramatizations that Fisher throws in. I understand that she writes for the general public as opposed to the niche of people who study anthropology, but I ended up skipping over those sections after a while because I felt they were useless stories that didn't add anything to the scientific content.
Ultimately, I think I am waiting for some Derridian thinker to come along and approach the last million years from a totally unexpected point of view that will be anything but "logical," but entirely plausible anyway because thinking about the past that long ago requires escaping from the constraints of 21st-century thought. I hope this thinker comes before I die!
Another problem I have is the use of data collected on other primate groups (orangutans, gorillas or Goodall's chimpanzees) as some sort of indicator of the behavior of our "ancestors." If human behavior has evolved, then hasn't gorilla or chimpanzee behavior evolved? Even if they seem "primitive" compared to us, they are still affected by natural selection and changes in thought processes or behavioral areas as well. To ignore that fact is to disregard evolutionary theory. Knowing that they were not frozen in time while we moved forward, how can one use their behavior over the past 100 years as a model for what protohominids were like?
Brain size is touted again and again as an argument as ancient craniums have been measured and the growth put forward as evidence of our becoming more intelligent, but we know that brain size isn't necessarily an indicator of advanced intelligence. This was an argument used in the 19th-century to "prove" that women were inferior to men: overall brain size is smaller and, disregarding the fact of proportionality, therefore women were considered less intelligent. From my admittedly very basic understanding of the human brain, there are also chemical and electrical factors to take into consideration. Size alone tells us very little, and, unfortunately, we cannot research actual brains from millions of years ago.
I also could do without the little dramatizations that Fisher throws in. I understand that she writes for the general public as opposed to the niche of people who study anthropology, but I ended up skipping over those sections after a while because I felt they were useless stories that didn't add anything to the scientific content.
Ultimately, I think I am waiting for some Derridian thinker to come along and approach the last million years from a totally unexpected point of view that will be anything but "logical," but entirely plausible anyway because thinking about the past that long ago requires escaping from the constraints of 21st-century thought. I hope this thinker comes before I die!
August 9, 2017
14 million years ago, the climate changed. Africa was becoming cooler and drier. The trees were thinning, and the apes were forced to come down to the grasslands to find food. This was dangerous. They had to rely more on each other - strength in numbers. A bit of cooperation and coordination was needed for survival.
As the climate change progressed, the woodlands disappeared altogether and it was savanna. 10 million years ago, the apes had to adapt. They couldn't just eat wherever they found food - or they would be eaten themselves. They had to carry off the food to safety, which meant bipedalism was an advantage (hands are more efficient in carrying). As selection pressure pushed them toward walking on two feet, anatomical changes made child birth too dangerous.
Those females who tended to give birth prematurely had an advantage - they lived rather than die in child birth. And their offspring survived. But premature infants meant more work for the mother. She couldn't carry the baby on her back as in the four legged days. Carrying baby and food was tough. She needed help.
The females who could offer sex for longer periods in each cycle got more help. Selection drove the monthly period of heat longer and longer until it pretty much disappeared. She could now copulate almost all month, during pregnancy and quite soon after birthing. She got the males' favors in return - he shared more meat, and helped around.
One thing led to another, and soon they were becoming a bonded pair. This meant a whole lot of new brain functions - communication, planning, feelings like jealousy, kinship.
Let this film run few million years. Bingo! We have modern humans.
The female's ability to have sex pretty much all the time as pivotal to the evolution of homo sapiens, and this is what distinguishes us from all other creatures till today. And oh, we have technology, language, etc. too. But sex made it all happen.
As the climate change progressed, the woodlands disappeared altogether and it was savanna. 10 million years ago, the apes had to adapt. They couldn't just eat wherever they found food - or they would be eaten themselves. They had to carry off the food to safety, which meant bipedalism was an advantage (hands are more efficient in carrying). As selection pressure pushed them toward walking on two feet, anatomical changes made child birth too dangerous.
Those females who tended to give birth prematurely had an advantage - they lived rather than die in child birth. And their offspring survived. But premature infants meant more work for the mother. She couldn't carry the baby on her back as in the four legged days. Carrying baby and food was tough. She needed help.
The females who could offer sex for longer periods in each cycle got more help. Selection drove the monthly period of heat longer and longer until it pretty much disappeared. She could now copulate almost all month, during pregnancy and quite soon after birthing. She got the males' favors in return - he shared more meat, and helped around.
One thing led to another, and soon they were becoming a bonded pair. This meant a whole lot of new brain functions - communication, planning, feelings like jealousy, kinship.
Let this film run few million years. Bingo! We have modern humans.
The female's ability to have sex pretty much all the time as pivotal to the evolution of homo sapiens, and this is what distinguishes us from all other creatures till today. And oh, we have technology, language, etc. too. But sex made it all happen.
July 13, 2021
Amazing anthropology knowledge! This book really opens my mind about the formation of the lives of our ancestors millions of years ago. Wish I knew about Helen Fisher and her work sooner.
January 3, 2026
Leí este libro por primera vez en la universidad, como parte del programa de alguna materia de formación básica (ya no recuerdo cuál). Fue uno de mis primeros textos feministas, y me voló la cabeza. Fisher da un giro a todas las concepciones tradicionales sobre la evolución del homínido (que era un bruto cazador y poco más) y desarrolla la hipótesis de que todo lo que nos hace humanos en la actualidad tiene sus raíces en los cambios evolutivos de la sexualidad de la hembra.
Esta idea me impresionó y fascinó a mis 19 años. Era la primera vez que un texto sobre el humano no me hablaba de "El hombre" como abarcativo de ambos géneros, y daba un rol activo a la mujer en la historia. Fue, además, mi primer texto antropológico, y el primero que me habló de conducta humana sin recurrir a constructos abstractos mediadores como "mente" e "inconsciente". Siempre lo recordé como uno de los libros más importantes que leí en mi formación académica.
¿Vieron eso que dicen de "no conozcas a tus ídolos, porque podrían decepcionarte"?
En esta relectura, a mi pesar, encontré cierto simplismo en las teorías de Fisher. Es como si estuviera más interesada en avanzar que en justificar lo que se está afirmando en cada párrafo. Entiendo que eso podría justificarse en que este no es un libro científico, sino de divulgación. En ese sentido la prosa de la autora es simpática y llevadera: hasta incluye cuentos cortos que escenifican la vida de nuestros ancestros. Sin embargo, la falta de rigurosidad científica me frustró mucho durante la lectura.
Desde el punto de vista de género me pasó algo parecido. Tal vez en 2012 (o en 1984, cuando se publicó el libro) el planteamiento de Fisher resultase revolucionario. Ciertamente lo fue para mí en su momento. Pero hoy, después de dos campañas por el aborto legal (la última de ellas por fortuna exitosa), muchos hilos de twitter y algún que otro libro de teoría feminista, debo decir que no me impresiona. Incluso me parece cuestionable.
El punto central del libro es que la evolución del homínido hacia la marcha bípeda ocasionó cambios en la estructura ósea de la cadera de la hembra, modificando el canal de parto y complicando los nacimientos. Esto llevó a favorecer a aquellas hembras que parían prematuramente, lo cual les salvaba la vida pero planteaba un nuevo problema: ¿cómo garantizar la supervivencia de una cría tan vulnerable? Es en este momento cuando la evolución empieza a favorecer una especie de hipersexualización de la hembra. Según Fisher, nuestra capacidad para tener sexo en cualquier momento del mes, durante la lactancia y tantas veces como queramos es lo que atrajo a los machos para colaborar en la crianza de las crías. De ahí el contrato sexual: los tipos se unen a nosotras a cambio de sexo, y esa colaboración garantiza la supervivencia.
Creo que no hace falta que especifique sobre las problemáticas implicaciones que tiene esta teoría para la consideración de nuestros vínculos de género actuales.
Otro aspecto cuestionable es que, pasado este punto, Fisher parece olvidarse de (o no saber cómo) incluir a la mujer como agente activo en la construcción prehistórica de la humanidad. Tal vez esto se deba a que la antropología de la época aún adolecía de sesgos muy marcados e insistía en asignar el género masculino a todo fósil que se encontrara (sesgo que se encarga de desmontar, muy exhaustivamente, el libro de Patou-Mathis "El hombre prehistórico es también una mujer"). Aún así, la ausencia casi total de la perspectiva feminista pasados los primeros dos capítulos hace que el planteamiento inicial se diluya y se sienta un poco flojo.
Con todo, sigo teniéndole mucho cariño a esta autora, a este libro y a su teoría del contrato sexual, que fue germen de muchas reconsideraciones sobre el papel de la mujer en el diseño de la arquitectura humana. Ciertamente lo fue para mí en su momento, y ojalá lo siga siendo para todas las mentes jóvenes que se lo crucen.
Esta idea me impresionó y fascinó a mis 19 años. Era la primera vez que un texto sobre el humano no me hablaba de "El hombre" como abarcativo de ambos géneros, y daba un rol activo a la mujer en la historia. Fue, además, mi primer texto antropológico, y el primero que me habló de conducta humana sin recurrir a constructos abstractos mediadores como "mente" e "inconsciente". Siempre lo recordé como uno de los libros más importantes que leí en mi formación académica.
¿Vieron eso que dicen de "no conozcas a tus ídolos, porque podrían decepcionarte"?
En esta relectura, a mi pesar, encontré cierto simplismo en las teorías de Fisher. Es como si estuviera más interesada en avanzar que en justificar lo que se está afirmando en cada párrafo. Entiendo que eso podría justificarse en que este no es un libro científico, sino de divulgación. En ese sentido la prosa de la autora es simpática y llevadera: hasta incluye cuentos cortos que escenifican la vida de nuestros ancestros. Sin embargo, la falta de rigurosidad científica me frustró mucho durante la lectura.
Desde el punto de vista de género me pasó algo parecido. Tal vez en 2012 (o en 1984, cuando se publicó el libro) el planteamiento de Fisher resultase revolucionario. Ciertamente lo fue para mí en su momento. Pero hoy, después de dos campañas por el aborto legal (la última de ellas por fortuna exitosa), muchos hilos de twitter y algún que otro libro de teoría feminista, debo decir que no me impresiona. Incluso me parece cuestionable.
El punto central del libro es que la evolución del homínido hacia la marcha bípeda ocasionó cambios en la estructura ósea de la cadera de la hembra, modificando el canal de parto y complicando los nacimientos. Esto llevó a favorecer a aquellas hembras que parían prematuramente, lo cual les salvaba la vida pero planteaba un nuevo problema: ¿cómo garantizar la supervivencia de una cría tan vulnerable? Es en este momento cuando la evolución empieza a favorecer una especie de hipersexualización de la hembra. Según Fisher, nuestra capacidad para tener sexo en cualquier momento del mes, durante la lactancia y tantas veces como queramos es lo que atrajo a los machos para colaborar en la crianza de las crías. De ahí el contrato sexual: los tipos se unen a nosotras a cambio de sexo, y esa colaboración garantiza la supervivencia.
Creo que no hace falta que especifique sobre las problemáticas implicaciones que tiene esta teoría para la consideración de nuestros vínculos de género actuales.
Otro aspecto cuestionable es que, pasado este punto, Fisher parece olvidarse de (o no saber cómo) incluir a la mujer como agente activo en la construcción prehistórica de la humanidad. Tal vez esto se deba a que la antropología de la época aún adolecía de sesgos muy marcados e insistía en asignar el género masculino a todo fósil que se encontrara (sesgo que se encarga de desmontar, muy exhaustivamente, el libro de Patou-Mathis "El hombre prehistórico es también una mujer"). Aún así, la ausencia casi total de la perspectiva feminista pasados los primeros dos capítulos hace que el planteamiento inicial se diluya y se sienta un poco flojo.
Con todo, sigo teniéndole mucho cariño a esta autora, a este libro y a su teoría del contrato sexual, que fue germen de muchas reconsideraciones sobre el papel de la mujer en el diseño de la arquitectura humana. Ciertamente lo fue para mí en su momento, y ojalá lo siga siendo para todas las mentes jóvenes que se lo crucen.
May 11, 2020
Excelent anthropological point of view on evolution of human behaviour!
The sex contract evolved between primitive men and women more than 4 millions years ago. It was a contract cemented by regular sex and designed to help the female raise her young.
But bonding did much more than help the young survive. With time it would initiate such primal human emotions as jealousy and altruism, the human drive to categorize people in terms of kin, the human ability to communicate by sophisticated language, the human capacity for complicated thought, the human need to make tools, weapon, houses, governments, rules, enemies, gods and afterworlds...my recommendations for the book!
The sex contract evolved between primitive men and women more than 4 millions years ago. It was a contract cemented by regular sex and designed to help the female raise her young.
But bonding did much more than help the young survive. With time it would initiate such primal human emotions as jealousy and altruism, the human drive to categorize people in terms of kin, the human ability to communicate by sophisticated language, the human capacity for complicated thought, the human need to make tools, weapon, houses, governments, rules, enemies, gods and afterworlds...my recommendations for the book!
June 28, 2022
Full review to come.
This book is a dumpster fire of pseudoscience and ideology. It has the scientific credibility of Naomi Wolf's "Vagina" or of Graham Hancock's books. The depressing part is that to this day most anthropologists hold the same idiotic, implausible, and unscientific beliefs about the social structure and behavior of our prehistoric and ancient ancestors that the author defends in this book.
This book is a dumpster fire of pseudoscience and ideology. It has the scientific credibility of Naomi Wolf's "Vagina" or of Graham Hancock's books. The depressing part is that to this day most anthropologists hold the same idiotic, implausible, and unscientific beliefs about the social structure and behavior of our prehistoric and ancient ancestors that the author defends in this book.
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January 23, 2023Es buenísimo con estructuró el libro. Expone la tesis y pasa a paso va desgajando la complejidad en la que estamos insertos para llevarnos a aquellos tiempos donde no había sistemas ni ideas solo instinto.
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March 24, 2021Read online here.
August 18, 2022
Entretenido, pero demasiado extenso para lo que es. Algo simplista, hipótesis con muy poco respaldo de evidencia...
March 18, 2017
Excellent study of human behavior.
October 1, 2016
Like Barbara Seaman in her Free and Female, in the Sex Contract Ms. Fisher would put the lie to male effulgence and female shortcomings in the human sexual arena. She accomplishes this, however, inadvertently, as a by-product of her attempt as an anthropologist to explain the origins of heterosexual bonding and its formative place in the creation of that institution known as the nuclear family.
The crux of her theory is that one of the main catalysts for bringing this about were the revolutionary changes in female sexuality that occurred eons ago among our protohominid ancestors. Foremost but not limited to these were nature's phasing out of estrus in our species, enabling women to make love the year-round; the birth and development of the clitoral system, resulting in the ability to achieve powerful and multiple orgasms; and the adaptation of breasts, protruding buttocks, a high voice, a forward-rotated vagina, and an increasingly hairless body, all designed to boost her desirability to her male partner. In addition, like many primates, she is hard-wired to want sex to the point of aggressively seeking it out if necessary.
As space doesn't permit it here, I'll leave it to you to read the book and see for yourself how the above contributed to the gender pair-bonding that characterizes our kind to this day. My point, and again if inadvertently Ms. Fisher's, is that the human female is a virtual sex machine with no equal on the planet, including her masculine counterpart. Why this dynamic should be reversed in the minds of most people is a question better explored in another kind of book.
The crux of her theory is that one of the main catalysts for bringing this about were the revolutionary changes in female sexuality that occurred eons ago among our protohominid ancestors. Foremost but not limited to these were nature's phasing out of estrus in our species, enabling women to make love the year-round; the birth and development of the clitoral system, resulting in the ability to achieve powerful and multiple orgasms; and the adaptation of breasts, protruding buttocks, a high voice, a forward-rotated vagina, and an increasingly hairless body, all designed to boost her desirability to her male partner. In addition, like many primates, she is hard-wired to want sex to the point of aggressively seeking it out if necessary.
As space doesn't permit it here, I'll leave it to you to read the book and see for yourself how the above contributed to the gender pair-bonding that characterizes our kind to this day. My point, and again if inadvertently Ms. Fisher's, is that the human female is a virtual sex machine with no equal on the planet, including her masculine counterpart. Why this dynamic should be reversed in the minds of most people is a question better explored in another kind of book.
February 15, 2016
This book is clearly a product of its time, and a few minor items have been refined by evolutionary psychologists and biologists. The gist of it still holds true to research conducted since the early 1980s.
A lot of what experts discuss in this field has been published in not-so-great self-help books (I have yet to read more by Fisher, but suspect hers are better). Reading this, I can tell I'm reading something written by another woman--something I definitely appreciate. There's no condescension or lack of understanding regarding how women behave.
If you're reading this as an introduction to evolutionary biology and psychology, I recommend it. But for me, I can't stress enough how refreshing (and eye-opening) it is to read a general scientific text which posits women at the center without appearing to try hard to do so. It's a book about evolution which doesn't focus on early hominid males hunting. It would be interesting to have a review from a man on this book--the question of, do you get it now? Do you now understand what it's like for a woman to read a book on "people" and see women included only in the margins?
I realize that more often than not, the majority of feminists are opposed to the research in this field. I hope they read this book. The content not only shows the role women have played in shaping human evolution and societies, but its focus and style make it one of the most-feminist-without-announcing-itself-as-such books I've ever read. And I've read a lot of books.
A lot of what experts discuss in this field has been published in not-so-great self-help books (I have yet to read more by Fisher, but suspect hers are better). Reading this, I can tell I'm reading something written by another woman--something I definitely appreciate. There's no condescension or lack of understanding regarding how women behave.
If you're reading this as an introduction to evolutionary biology and psychology, I recommend it. But for me, I can't stress enough how refreshing (and eye-opening) it is to read a general scientific text which posits women at the center without appearing to try hard to do so. It's a book about evolution which doesn't focus on early hominid males hunting. It would be interesting to have a review from a man on this book--the question of, do you get it now? Do you now understand what it's like for a woman to read a book on "people" and see women included only in the margins?
I realize that more often than not, the majority of feminists are opposed to the research in this field. I hope they read this book. The content not only shows the role women have played in shaping human evolution and societies, but its focus and style make it one of the most-feminist-without-announcing-itself-as-such books I've ever read. And I've read a lot of books.
December 28, 2008
I read this years ago after I first went to hear Helen Fisher speak at the Museum of Natural History in NY. That was a profound experience for me because every thing she said resonated like it was there inside me and I knew it all along. And here was this anthropologist who had done the work and research. Yes, serial monogamy was evolutionary based on us coming to stand on two feet. What makes more sense! I was enthralled by her. I have not been able to read her later books to completion however. Maybe one was enough.
March 15, 2008
A worthwhile read for anyone trying to get a perspective beyond "Men are from Mars...Woman from Venus..." regarding men, women and biological factors effecting our behavior towards one another, from an easy reading, anthropological view.
June 6, 2008
Fisher breaks down human evolution from the basis of monogamy to the reason for the family unit. Really intriguing theories. Would recommend this book to anyone interested with an in-depth look into why we are who we are.
September 19, 2008
Great book! I read this in a Physical Anthropology class in College. Loved it.
August 29, 2017
Helen Fisher is a far better evolutionary psychologist than Christopher Ryan.
Anyone who says otherwise is a sexist tool of the patriarchy trying to keep smart women down.
Anyone who says otherwise is a sexist tool of the patriarchy trying to keep smart women down.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews