Sex, truth and theater

A recent surge in media attention centers on the scientific construction of infidelity and monogamy.

Why do we do it? What is the function of love in an evolutionary context? What are alternatives to long-term, single-partner relationships, and are they the solution to infidelity?

One book that addresses these questions is the New York Times bestseller Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

Ryan will lecture on his increasingly popular work at the Bagdad Theater tomorrow. The event will take a humorous look at the subject and introduce the science behind the book. The lecture will be followed by a Q-and-A and book signing.

Gabriella Cordova, a member of the sex-positive coalition “Sex, Love & Spirit,” said Sex at Dawn is for everyone who has ever questioned single-partner relationships as the be-all and end-all. Ryan will inform, entertain and bring a new slant to the “love-marriage-children” paradigm.

“With humor and scientific data, the book answers: ‘There is nothing wrong with you. You are not a failure,’” Cordova said. “A long-term monogamous relationship is hard. In fact, it is not the natural order of humans.”

Sex at Dawn aims to promote knowledge, honesty and introspection while providing scientific clues to social behaviors. Ryan will address why long-term fidelity can be difficult for so many of us, why “sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens” and “what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality,” according to press materials.

The book draws from a smorgasbord of sciences, including anthropology, archeology, anatomy and psychosexuality to prove that there’s no wrong way to get it right in love (and nookie). It investigates the origins of monogamy as a dominant structure, infidelity as a social taboo and why marriage became universal among all human societies. There’s even an explanation of why one kind of sex is louder in bed than another.

“For those of us in the majority—the 90 percent—who do not fit into the tidy, little world of happily-ever-after, this book has been a veritable Goddess-send,” Cordova said. “It validates what we have believed for some time—that we’re not alone.”

In societies that vilify all relationships except heterosexual, single-partner, long-term marriages, the book gives readers an opportunity to explore humanity’s relationship choices as socialized phenomena and offers alternatives. Ryan argues that while marriage in the traditional sense works for many couples, some people find solace in other relationship models.

“Ryan’s event will show how cultures have been perpetuating lies and conditioning us with fairy tales,” Cordova said. “There might be better ways that we can organize ourselves in community that are more peaceful, more sustainable and a whole lot more enjoyable.”

Unsurprising for a city with more strip clubs per capita than most big cities in the country, more tickets for this Sex at Dawn event have been sold in Portland than any other stop on Ryan’s tour thus far. The event promises to offer an exciting and hard-headed look into the complex world of human sexual interaction, and with a comic twist no less.

“It’s time to ‘occupy the bedroom,’ to take it back for the people, and that’s what this event is about,” Cordova said.