<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Rainer,<br>The following proposition, excerpted from your brilliant introduction—(...) This is a speculative narrative about how the ritualization of human sexual behavior was likely caused by the transition to bipedalism. The genetic heritage of those ancient times may still influence the social behavior of modern humans and may be part of contemporary sexual conflicts, such as sexual harassment, high divorce rates, or declining birth rates in liberal societies. (...)—stimulates me to affirm—confirm your conception in light of my New Economy based on the theory of value—love, value-art, and value-beauty: a triad founded on existential and cognitive emo-rationality.<br>Thank you and best wishes.<br>Francesco.<br>Caro Rainer,</div><div><h3 style="overflow:hidden;font-size:0.75rem;font-weight:inherit;margin:inherit;text-overflow:ellipsis;font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(95,99,104);line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">la seguente proposizione stralciata dalla tua brillante introduzione - <i>(...) Questa è una narrazione speculativa su come la ritualizzazione del comportamento sessuale umano sia stata probabilmente causata dalla transizione all'andatura bipede. Il patrimonio genetico di quei tempi antichi potrebbe ancora influenzare il comportamento sociale degli esseri umani moderni e potrebbe essere parte dei conflitti sessuali contemporanei, come le molestie sessuali, gli alti tassi di divorzio o il calo delle nascite nelle società liberali.(...)-</i> mi stimola ad affermare-confermare la tua concezione alla luce della mia Nuova economia basata sulla teoria del valore- amore, valore-arte e valore-bellezza: triade fondata sulla emo-ra-zionalità esistenziale e cognitiva.</span></h3></div><div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Grazie e auguri.</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Francesco.</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></span></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Il giorno gio 12 feb 2026 alle ore 11:08 Rainer Feistel (IOW) <<a href="mailto:rainer.feistel@iow.de" target="_blank">rainer.feistel@iow.de</a>> ha scritto:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:14pt;line-height:107%">FIS:
Foundations of Information Science</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> (<span><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TC2CF1FSxOwksszfRibYo-j0C5j9X5Cs5vqGu7HETa00ZgkgNYYHGXR8xptIeqtIIXPKzi_jI3a9XLFc541ei259VdY$" target="_blank">https://fis.sciforum.net/</a></span>)
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Discussion kickoff narrative
by Rainer Feistel, 11 Feb 2026</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Emergence of
Human Sexual Behaviour</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Natural evolution invented
symbols as information carriers, universally exploited by any
living being in various forms. As a rule, self-organised
symbols appear by ritualisation, a qualitative transition from
behavioural use-activities to related signal-activities, as
discovered by Julian Huxley in 1914. Numerous novel and
unparalleled symbols emerged in the course of anthropogenesis.
Sex symbols, or courtship habits, are typically unambiguous
intra-species information tools, governing the species’
reproduction behaviour by starting and terminating the mating
season.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Permanent adipose mammary
glands recognised as sex symbols are unique to humans only. If
those emerged by a ritualisation transition, what may have
been the use activity they had originated from? Anatomically,
the most likely such activity is breastfeeding. However,
lactating female mammals are generally infertile and typically
avoid any mating activities in favour of their childcare. “The
verdict is still out on why the permanent breast evolved in
humans” wrote Deena Emera yet in 2024.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Fossil and genetic evidence is
consistent with the plausible hypothesis that the last common
ancestor (LCA) of humans and great apes lived about 7 million
years ago and was similar to recent chimpanzees. The sexual
behaviour of the latter, however, is very distinct from that
of humans. Female chimps breastfeed their offspring, carried
on their back, for about five years. Premature weaning poses a
high lethal risk to the helpless infant. After weaning,
females develop a prominent anogenital swelling as a sex
symbol that invites males to mate. It is exclusively then that
males show relevant sexual interest, and preferably in old
“ugly” females. How may human sex life have evolved from such
foreign roots during a relatively short period of history?
Likely, the radical change was enforced by violent selective
pressure.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When the LCA gradually turned
to bipedalism, carrying older, heavier infants on the back
became impractical and weaning occurred earlier, with
increasing risks for the offspring and generally reduced
reproduction rates. Females suppressing the fertility swelling
protected the toddler by preventing early pregnancy. Males
responded with permanent sexual interest also in non-swollen
females. Females reacted with repulsive frigidity, males in
turn with coercive mating. Already from a distance,
ostentatious adipose breasts, perfectly imitating lactating
ones, prevented coercive male approaches, who in return
started closer visual, manual or oral inspection of the
nipples in order to check fertility and reveal the possible
fake. Successful contraception by fertile females caused
periodic futile ovulation and subsequent regular menstruation.
The resulting ovary depletion lowered the menopause age into
the lifespan, so that old females became infertile and could
take care of their grandchildren when the mother became
pregnant too soon. This grandmother effect raised the
reproduction rate substantially, supporting enhanced migration
pressure on the younger generation. The previous inspection of
female nipples and genitals was no longer a necessary
use-activity and turned into a courtship habit of humans by a
ritualisation transition, similar to that of waterfowls
originally discovered by Huxley. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This is a speculative
narrative of how the ritualisation of human sexual behaviour
was possibly caused by the transition to bipedal gait. The
genetic heritage of those old days may still influence the
social behaviour of modern humans and may be part of
contemporary sexual conflicts, such as sexual harassment, high
divorce rates or declining birth numbers in liberal societies.
Causal mental models are key for understanding the origin of
such problems rather than just lamenting and deprecating their
symptoms. Finding suitable compromises between mutually
inconsistent sexual interests may provide a challenging but
promising future solution, rather than implementing
restrictive, one-sided patriarchal or matriarchal social
suppression systems. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Further reading</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Feistel, R. (2025):
Bipedalism, childhood, and ritualisation of human sexual
behaviour: A hominin model scenario of ontogenetic selection.
BioSystems 257, 105598. <span><u><span style="color:blue"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2025.105598__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TC2CF1FSxOwksszfRibYo-j0C5j9X5Cs5vqGu7HETa00ZgkgNYYHGXR8xptIeqtIIXPKzi_jI3a9XLFc541eOyxoBfw$" title="Persistent link using digital object identifier" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2025.105598</span></a></span></u></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Feistel, R. (2023): On the
Evolution of Symbols and Prediction Models. Biosemiotics 16,
311–371. <span><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-023-09528-9__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TC2CF1FSxOwksszfRibYo-j0C5j9X5Cs5vqGu7HETa00ZgkgNYYHGXR8xptIeqtIIXPKzi_jI3a9XLFc541eNp-bGc4$" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-023-09528-9</a></span>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
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<pre cols="72">--
Note: New Email Address: <a href="mailto:rainer.feistel@iow.de" target="_blank">rainer.feistel@iow.de</a>
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</pre>
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