Sexual integrity is crucial to human society.
It is crucial that young adults learn that for humans sexual health is sexual integrity. This is a foundation stone upon which our species has been built. For other species this may not be the case. As a matter of fact, monogamy is very rare among the millions of species that inhabit the earth. For one surprising example, our genetically most closely related species the chimpanzees, with which we share 99% of our DNA, have a much different mating system.
Chimpanzee’s mate promiscuously each time an adult female comes into estrus (heat). When this happens, a female will be mated with virtually all of the adult males in the troop. This can mean 40 to 50 mating’s in a short period of time. Of course, this often accomplishes pregnancy so the next time this happens will be after her baby is born and weaned which will then start her menstrual cycle once again. Once the baby is born the mother is on her own as far as caring for the young one. Chimp father’s never provide any help for either the mother or the infant chimpanzee. This leads to a hand to mouth existence for the mother and the baby.
Humans on the other hand have a mating system in which the female practices what is known as female choice. She shops for a male that is to her physical liking as well as one that she is convinced will be there for her to help raise their child as it is born and grows up. Human males, as opposed to chimpanzees, do bond with one female. This is called pair bonding and is very rare among species. The human male provisions the female while she is pregnant and after giving birth. This process continues with child after child.
This team approach has helped human couples produce children over thousands of years that have enormous proportional brain sizes in comparison to the other species. This huge brain has allowed humans to achieve the monumental accomplishments they have in comparison to all other species. Without that special pair bond that human men and women practice we would struggle to continue to accomplish great progress into the future. Humanity is literally built on, what has become in more recent times, marriage. This crucial situation however rests on a very sophisticated and finely balanced relationship that requires both partners to practice sexual loyalty to the other one. This is why sexual integrity is so important for the human species. There is much more physiological background knowledge to add about how all of this works and again why for humans, sexual health is sexual integrity, but I will go into that in following blog posts.