Is sex knowledge innate? If two people had never discussed sex growing up, when they get together (after marriage, if you like) would they know how to perform sex?

 

Originally Answered: Is sex knowledge innate? If two people had never discussed sex growing up, when they get together (after marriage, if you like) would they know how to perform sex?

Interesting question. Animals certainly know how to "perform sex" without any classes or manuals. But humans expect a bit more from their experience, don't they?

I would argue that the basic answer is yes. Two humans, knowing nothing about anatomy or procreation, if thrown together would rather quickly figure out what goes where. But to modern sensibilities, this act would be sadly lacking.

My parents married in 1951. Both were virgins. My father was raised in a Quaker household. My mother's mother, a widow and a staunch Methodist, told my mother only that "nice girls didn't enjoy that kind of nonsense." From the hints of quickly hushed conversation and the shared inside jokes I overheard while growing up, I gather that their wedding night was a messy embarassing disaster.

But love, kindness, a sense of "being in this together," and ordering a book from the Sears Catalog -- the kind that came through the mails in those days in a "plain brown wrapper," apparently eventually alleviated their initial discomfort.

The reason I tell that story is to emphasize that the sex act itself might be purely instinctual, but most humans crave more than that. It might be love. It might be bonding. It might be adventure. It might be fun. None of those perfectly legitimate human reasons for "performing sex" would occur to an animal.

A wonderful movie which helps the viewer differentiate between performing sex and making love is Quest for Fire, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1981. Set in the Paleolithic era, the main plot line concerns a tribe of humans learning to make and use fire. But the movie is rich in detail. The storyline also shows how humans might have evolved from merely engaging in animalistic copulation with whatever human might be handy to forming couples -- mating and engaging in sex not just because it feels good, but because it makes the other person feel good, too.