[Fis] Emergence of Human Sexual Behaviour. Anxiety management... and more

[Pedro C. Marijuán]

Dear Rainer & FIS Colleagues,

The impact of sexual selection on human evolution can hardly be 
overestimated.
While the transformation of female body and the permanence of breasts, 
the other side was also experimenting concerted changes:
Aggressivity was diminishing (far less jaw, loss of protruding canines), 
less hair, less sexual dimorphism... self-domestication is a term often 
used.
More cooperation and larger social groups become possible. Language will 
multiply the effects and possibilities.
But in that larger social context, in order to maintain the strong bonds 
necessary for family survival, apart from more permanent sex, beauty and 
romantic love emerge.
It prolongs predispositions already present in most species, not only 
the advanced ones.
In the human case it is amazing how the "complex of love" will be 
handled around from the great arts to all kind of realms.
It is a "superglue" of our species, though other potent emotional 
solvents enter: jealousy, envy, humiliation, resentment, revenge...
The mess where we live.

Best --Pedro
El 19/02/2026 a las 15:55, Rainer Feistel (IOW) escribió:
>
> Dear Christophe,
>
> My approach to pre-human evolution is a very narrow but general one, 
> namely, the specifically human evolution of symbols. As any other 
> organism, thermodynamically, humans are metastable, active systems far 
> from equilibrium. Minor internal or external effects may trigger 
> macroscopic activities by releasing energy that had been accumulated 
> internally.
>
> To those small triggers belong neuronal signals which, as a result of 
> mental processes, seem to play a much more important role in humans 
> than in any other species. Any activities, including sexual ones, are 
> started or stopped by decisions which release an associated trigger 
> for, say, a well-structured cascade of muscle contractions or the like.
>
> Such decisions are the result of alternative prediction models for the 
> expected future impact of the perticular decision. Many such 
> prediction models are genetically inherited and result from 
> phylogenetic experience of all successful ancestors, other such models 
> from the individual ontogenetic experience during the personal life, 
> and finally, rather specific for humans, certain models result from 
> cultural experience by symbolic communication with other humans by 
> books, diaries, chats etc.
>
> Prediction models associate weights to the alternative potential 
> activities. Comparison of those weights results in a decision. From 
> introspection we know that inherited weights include pain, anxiety, 
> happiness or pleasure, as "qualia", and this may apply similarly to 
> all higher animals.
>
> To survive on the ground, hominins developed intense social 
> cooperation, controlled by symbolic mutual communication and advanced 
> mental information processing. The progress of such capabilities 
> dominated hominin evolution, including the later development of 
> science and technology with its sophisticated prediction models in the 
> form of cooking recipes, mathematical theories or technical 
> construction plans.
>
> For more details, please see "On the evolution of symbols and 
> prediction models", https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-023-09528-9__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XCKMy8AMH4OWQbt3KiZ729DnFzYLKKS9bR1SViJzrIO71adqIWFGavOGescE3tC3kRLVod8Uzup_tYVavz-WDjKX-iPS$ 
>
> Rainer
>
>
>
> Am 19.02.2026 um 12:53 schrieb Christophe Menant:
>> Dear Rainer,
>> Thanks for your support. Our evolutionary frameworks look indeed close.
>> More precisely, how would you support the specific and important 
>> development of sexual pleasure by our pre-human ancestors to limit 
>> anxiety as a key part of our phylum evolution?
>> Anxiety limitation with its various feedback (see drawing) is for me 
>> part of an evolutionary engine that brought us from LCAncestor to 
>> today humans. That engine is still active. I feel that the better we 
>> understand its nature, the better we can address human possible 
>> future (ex: vs de-identification fueling some of our evil trends).
>> A lot remains to be done, and it is interesting (and a bit 
>> surprising) to note that philosophy of mind has had so far little 
>> interest for our pre-human evolution.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *De :* Rainer Feistel (IOW) <rainer.feistel at iow.de>
>> *Envoyé :* mercredi 18 février 2026 18:24
>> *À :* Christophe Menant <christophe.menant at hotmail.fr>
>> *Cc :* fis at listas.unizar.es <fis at listas.unizar.es>; 
>> pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>> *Objet :* [Fis] Emergence of Human Sexual Behaviour. Anxiety management
>>
>> Dear Christophe,
>>
>> Thank you for your support and additional suggestions.
>> It seems to me that your description is perfectly consistent with my 
>> scenario, and a possible fruitful extension.
>>
>> In my fictitious narrative, the transition to bipedal gait lowered 
>> the reproduction rate to a subcritical level.
>> Only a series of severe transitions in sexual behaviour could keep 
>> hominins away from the brink of extinction.
>> Among those have likely been the concealed oestrus of females and the 
>> resulting permanent sexual interest of males.
>> The consecutive instabilities and innovations in this chain ended 
>> with the grandmother effect that ensured survival
>> in a final stable sexual regime. This is actually the end of my 
>> narrative.
>>
>> This process had established frequent mating activities in excess of 
>> just a few required for siring offspring.
>> As you say "it was possible for our ancestors to extend sexual 
>> pleasure by developing its occurrence independently of reproduction 
>> concerns".
>> Sexual interaction, consequently, became a relevant part of the 
>> social life of hominins, to serve for emotional
>> comfort, individual bindings, friendship and mutual assistance in 
>> feeding or personal hygiene, etc.
>> Your list of sex-based relations and behaviours fits very well to this.
>>
>> Thank you for your contribution,
>> Rainer
>>
>>
>> Betreff:     [Fis] Emergence of Human Sexual Behaviour. Anxiety 
>> management
>> Datum:     Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:25:37 +0000
>> Von:     Christophe Menant <christophe.menant at hotmail.fr> 
>> <mailto:christophe.menant at hotmail.fr>
>> An: rainer.feistel at iow.de <mailto:rainer.feistel at iow.de> 
>> <rainer.feistel at iow.de> <mailto:rainer.feistel at iow.de>
>> Kopie (CC): fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es> 
>> <fis at listas.unizar.es> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>, 
>> pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com <mailto:pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> 
>> <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> <mailto:pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Dear Rainer,
>> Your focus on the transition to bipedal gait as supporting pre-human 
>> sexual evolution is original and interesting. It highlights a complex 
>> subject that may be influencing our human behavior much more than 
>> assumed. Regarding this last perspective, let me propose a possible 
>> development of human sexuality based on sexual related pleasures that 
>> our pre-human ancestors may have been looking for in order to limit a 
>> specific pre-human anxiety.
>> You may know the hypothesis about evolution of our ancestors toward 
>> self-consciousness bringing them to face new anxieties coming from 
>> identifications with suffering conspecifics 
>> (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://philpapers.org/archive/MENEOS-5.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XCKMy8AMH4OWQbt3KiZ729DnFzYLKKS9bR1SViJzrIO71adqIWFGavOGescE3tC3kRLVod8Uzup_tYVavz-WDr-U32b3$  
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://philpapers.org/archive/MENEOS-5.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XCKMy8AMH4OWQbt3KiZ729DnFzYLKKS9bR1SViJzrIO71adqIWFGavOGescE3tC3kRLVod8Uzup_tYVavz-WDr-U32b3$ >). To limit that mental 
>> suffering our ancestors may have been obliged to look for new anxiety 
>> limitation processes. Pleasure, as naturally limiting anxiety, could 
>> have been a candidate for various developments in that perspective. 
>> More precisely, it was possible for our ancestors to extend sexual 
>> pleasure by developing its occurrence independently of reproduction 
>> concerns. Developing and amplifying sexual relations could have been 
>> an easy, and quite natural,  way for our ancestors to limit the 
>> anxiety increase they were facing.
>> What is proposed here is that our ancestors have capitalized on 
>> sexual pleasures to develop sources of anxiety limitation. This could 
>> have led pre-human sexuality to become highly ritualized and very 
>> different from chimpanzee’s sexual behaviours.
>> For instance, here are some human sexual specificities the 
>> implementation of which could illustrate the search for more pleasure 
>> by our pre-human ancestors:
>> - No mating season, sexual pleasure possible at any time. Permanent 
>> breast as signal.
>> - Sexual behaviors embedded in symbolic, emotional, and cultural 
>> systems. More emotional sharing by face mating.
>> - Sexual pleasure layered with self-consciousness, fantasy, 
>> attachment, anxiety, and meaning.
>> - Sexual pleasure more intense as psychologically deeper, more 
>> elaborated and more cognitively amplified.
>> The above hypothesis brings sexuality and anxiety limitation to be at 
>> the forefront of human motivations. This subject is not new but 
>> deserves being developed a bit more, I feel.
>> Thanks again Rainer for having introduced it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Am 18.02.2026 um 14:25 schrieb Christophe Menant:
>>> Dear Rainer,
>>> Your focus on the transition to bipedal gait as supporting pre-human 
>>> sexual evolution is original and interesting. It highlights a 
>>> complex subject that may be influencing our human behavior much more 
>>> than assumed. Regarding this last perspective, let me propose a 
>>> possible development of human sexuality based on sexual related 
>>> pleasures that our pre-human ancestors may have been looking for in 
>>> order to limit a specific pre-human anxiety.
>>> You may know the hypothesis about evolution of our ancestors toward 
>>> self-consciousness bringing them to face new anxieties coming from 
>>> identifications with suffering conspecifics 
>>> (_https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://philpapers.org/archive/MENEOS-5.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XCKMy8AMH4OWQbt3KiZ729DnFzYLKKS9bR1SViJzrIO71adqIWFGavOGescE3tC3kRLVod8Uzup_tYVavz-WDr-U32b3$  
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://philpapers.org/archive/MENEOS-5.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XCKMy8AMH4OWQbt3KiZ729DnFzYLKKS9bR1SViJzrIO71adqIWFGavOGescE3tC3kRLVod8Uzup_tYVavz-WDr-U32b3$ >_). To limit that 
>>> mental suffering our ancestors may have been obliged to look for new 
>>> anxiety limitation processes. Pleasure, as naturally limiting 
>>> anxiety, could have been a candidate for various developments in 
>>> that perspective. More precisely, it was possible for our ancestors 
>>> to extend sexual pleasure by developing its occurrence independently 
>>> of reproduction concerns. Developing and amplifying sexual relations 
>>> could have been an easy, and quite natural,  way for our ancestors 
>>> to limit the anxiety increase they were facing.
>>> What is proposed here is that our ancestors have capitalized on 
>>> sexual pleasures to develop sources of anxiety limitation. This 
>>> could have led pre-human sexuality to become highly ritualized and 
>>> very different from chimpanzee’s sexual behaviours.
>>> For instance, here are some human sexual specificities the 
>>> implementation of which could illustrate the search for more 
>>> pleasure by our pre-human ancestors:
>>> - No mating season, sexual pleasure possible at any time. Permanent 
>>> breast as signal.
>>> - Sexual behaviors embedded in symbolic, emotional, and cultural 
>>> systems. More emotional sharing by face mating.
>>> - Sexual pleasure layered with self-consciousness, fantasy, 
>>> attachment, anxiety, and meaning.
>>> - Sexual pleasure more intense as psychologically deeper, more 
>>> elaborated and more cognitively amplified.
>>> The above hypothesis brings sexuality and anxiety limitation to be 
>>> at the forefront of human motivations. This subject is not new but 
>>> deserves being developed a bit more, I feel.
>>> Thanks again Rainer for having introduced it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> -- 
>> Note: New Email Address:rainer.feistel at iow.de <mailto:rainer.feistel at iow.de>
>> Dr. rer. nat. habil. Rainer Feistel
>> Physicist (emeritus)
>> PS Gustav Hertz Prize, Berlin 1981
>> CITAC Best Paper Award, Paris 2011
>> IAPWS Honorary Fellow, London 2013
>> BIPM Metrologia Highlight Articles, Paris 2016
>> EGU Fridtjof Nansen Medal, Vienna 2018
>> LS Daniel Ernst Jablonski Medal, Berlin 2021
>> IAPWS Gibbs Award, Boulder, Co., 2024
> -- 
> Note: New Email Address:rainer.feistel at iow.de
> Dr. rer. nat. habil. Rainer Feistel
> Physicist (emeritus)
> PS Gustav Hertz Prize, Berlin 1981
> CITAC Best Paper Award, Paris 2011
> IAPWS Honorary Fellow, London 2013
> BIPM Metrologia Highlight Articles, Paris 2016
> EGU Fridtjof Nansen Medal, Vienna 2018
> LS Daniel Ernst Jablonski Medal, Berlin 2021
> IAPWS Gibbs Award, Boulder, Co., 2024

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