Rosie, are we really just sex apes?!

Rosie, are we really just sex apes?!

This question came from someone left feeling shell-shocked after asking me about my thoughts on human nature.

‘So, are we really just sex apes?’

Yes, I’m afraid we are!

Sex is like air; it’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

Research has demonstrated that we are born with a brain already hardwired with a specific circuit that impacts our actions. In effect, it cannot be changed. Acknowledged and understood, yes, but changed, no.

Sadly, for many people, this is an uncomfortable truth. They don’t want to accept that they are responding to their DNA, and are, instead, separate from the animal kingdom; they are not slaves to their biological make-up. Whilst we can make choices in how we act, thanks to the development of our brain’s frontal lobes, which allows us to choose our actions, it is important to recognise that present-day humans come with a lot of ancestral baggage. Baggage that is often in conflict with our ever-changing world. There’s no real escape from how our brains work, and when you look at why we are here, to procreate (pass on our genes) and find food and shelter, you will realise that we all are taking steps to do this. However, that looks for us.

We may not actively be looking to create another life with our chosen partner, but our bodies have done everything to prepare us for that, should it happen.

Are they a compatible match? Tick.

Do they provide resources and food? Tick.

Are they able to nurture and care for the young? Tick.

We may not want to see these traits in action explicitly, but we still are hardwired to look for these qualities in potential partners. We now say that ‘he is protective’ or ‘she is caring’, but we are saying, ‘if I procreated with this person, they would prove useful in helping me raise my young/ pass on my genes successfully’.

You may not want to hear this, and I may take the romance out of relationships, but it’s hardwired into us; we can’t turn it off.

What is sex drive?

Sexual urges and drives have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Love, lust, romance and sexual desire are all chemical responses triggered in the brain.

Sex drive is what happens when a cocktail of chemicals is released into the blood by the brain, which stimulates the production of hormones, namely testosterone and oestrogen. Humans like to refer to this sudden rush as lust or love at first sight, and some of us even attribute it to Saturn moving into Aquarius, but what it is is your body saying, ‘hell yeah, you tick my boxes’. By understanding why we make the choices we make and examining love and lust under a microscope, we are able to understand why we make the choices we make. It’s not a mystical force; it’s your body doing what it pre-programmed to do.

The conflicts we now face

We live in a time where relationships are more difficult to start and harder to keep going than in past generations. Our expectations of one another are entirely unrealistic, and time and time again, we set ourselves up for failure. We expect our one partner to fulfil all our wishes, sexually, physically, and emotionally and in return, we are expected to do the same.

Many of us expect tunnel vision from our partners whilst keeping one eye open ourselves. And, unless it’s a Disneyesque happy ending, then we believe we have failed miserably in our relationships. Society has a lot to answer for, and the minute someone like me dares suggest that maybe there are other ways to live, we are met with hostility. Why? Because we, as a species, don’t ‘identify’ as mammals here to pass on their genes.

We are slow-evolving creatures in a fast-paced world.

You can call yourselves enlightened beings, Gen-Z, millennials, or whatever you want; we aren’t anything but mammals with the ability to understand why we do what we do. And here is the irony: we have the ability to understand the science but still ignore it. It makes me so sad. We have the knowledge, but the knowlede scares us, so we will keep on struggling on.

Modern medicine is both a blessing and a curse.

It allows us to lead unnaturally long lives, procreate when we decide, and prevents us from dying due to infection and illness. And these, and the many other hundreds of benefits of modern medicine, are the wonder of the modern age.

But is it right that we ignore biology and rely solely on medicine? Let me explain what I mean: a man can, at 80, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, get a 21-year-old woman pregnant. Some of you may shudder at the thought, but this is a reality of the world in which we live.

Now, I want to roll back the clock 1,000 years. And ask, would the same scenario have happened?

No, because he wouldn’t have been alive at 80, and even if he was, then it would be highly unlikely that he would have been able to procreate. Chances are, a younger, fitter, more virile man would have defeated his ‘enemy’ and impregnated the young woman himself. And on a side note, the woman in question would not have been considered ‘young’, as chances are you would be dead by 40, so being 20, you would have been classed as middle-aged.

Do you see the problem with this? In only a very short space of evolutionary time, we have become so far removed from human biology that we now lead unnaturally long lives and can manipulate circumstances to suit us. Sure, there are positives, but this is one reason we struggle so much. Our worlds have evolved far too fast for biology to catch up. I’m not against age-gap relationships, and I know that there are plenty of couples where this exact scenario plays out, but sometimes we do have to look at the realities; there’s a reason why we are most sexually virile between the ages of 16–25.

We need to cut ourselves some slack

One of the kindest things we can do for ourselves and our partners is to understand our primitive motivations, and once you have, you will have unlocked the door to a happy relationship.

When you begin to understand your urges and feelings are controlled by chemical responses in the brain, you can learn to work with rather than against them.

Society may have changed beyond all recognition in the last century, but our needs and motivations have remained unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. We are slow-evolving creatures in a fast-paced world.

The media has given both men and women unrealistic expectations of relationships; nobody is perfect, and trying to look for someone who is or change your partner will never end well.

Embrace your inner sex ape, and make it your mission to understand why we do the things we do; I can promise you that you will find it an enlightening and slightly uncomfortable journey.