Does anyone else remember Desmond Morris’s The Human Animal? You may not remember the series but, if you were anywhere near a TV in 1994, odds are you remember the episode, “The Biology of Love.”
Why? It’s probably the first and last time you saw explicit sex on primetime television and a glorious full color money shot to top it all off!
The Learning Channel got away with such scandalousness because The Human Animal is a BBC production, it was shared in the name of science and education, and the really naughty bits are filmed with a heat-sensitive camera and the money shot is seen from the inside. Way inside. Like cervix deep inside!
Thanks to the miracle of You Tube, I can share with you the glorious culmination of this fine piece of scientific investigation (not work appropriate). I can’t find a clip that shows the whole sex scene so you will need to content yourself with the grand finale:
Other than the inside-the-body money shot, the other thing that stuck with me from this episode is the claim that bold eye-to-eye contact is the touchstone for all future courtship.
Which nicely dovetails with yesterday’s holiday thoughts about sunglasses.
I don’t care what your Grade 8 health teacher told you, smoking always makes you look cool. And so do sunglasses. And because looking cool is inevitably about attracting a mate, it seems odd to me that sunglasses impede our ability to make eye-to-eye contact.
I’ve come up with three plausible theories (the third is inspired by Nadine’s comment on yesterday’s post).
- Perhaps, the large dark lenses reference large dilated pupils — a sure sign of arousal.
- Perhaps, covering the eyes more easily creates the illusion of bold eye-to-eye contact. For more confident wooers, covered eyes always means that all eyes are on them.
- Perhaps, sunglasses create an opportunity for a ritual of intimacy: the eyes are uncovered only for those who really deserve that level of intimacy.
What do you think? What role do sunglasses play in the your mating rituals? And does anyone else have any fond memories of the first time they saw “The Biology of Love?”
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Bryn
April 4, 2010
I think it has to have something to do with mystery.
I disagree, though… smoking does not make anybody look cool. It makes them look like somebody I don’t want to date.
sterlinglynch
April 5, 2010
Bryn! You don’t want to date cool people! I guess you’re more of a love’m and leave’m type.
C’mon. You wouldn’t date Humphrey Bogart! From Casablanca! C’mon! Really? 
Mystery makes sense. But that begs the questions: what’s attractive about mystery
miklev
April 5, 2010
Where was your mind wandering over the holidays? So you’re saying sunglasses for men (and women) are like push-up bras for women (hopefully not for men, not that there’s anything wrong with that)? I figure that those nearly translucent sunglasses that let others see the shape of an eye but not the pupil are the sexiest of all cause they put mental perception on steroids.
sterlinglynch
April 5, 2010
Mike, I’m not going to lie to you! My Easter anthropological reflections caused something to rise but it sure wasn’t our lord and savior! The winter has neither been cold nor long but it sure has been lonely!
On the one one hand, it seems to me that sunglasses are the opposite of push-up bras because they hide what is arguably the most important expression of desire (whereas push-up bras accentuate / simulate a feature of arousal). On the other hand, given your own preference for translucent lenses, it may be the case that sunglasses function as one more in the elaborate strip tease of courtship and seduction.
nadinethornhill
April 5, 2010
As a person ages, it can be seen around the eyes earlier and more clearly than in other parts of the body. I know some people who use sunglasses as way to appear more youthful.
On a separate note, I remember the first time I saw this series and how annoyed I was that the female nipple erections were in full technicolor, while the penile erection was all infrared. I called bullshit on it then and I call bullshit on it now! Bullshit!
sterlinglynch
April 5, 2010
I assume you meant youthful rather than useful, so I made an edit.
I fully support your call of bullshit! Bullshit!
jessicaruano
April 5, 2010
I have never seen that video before. And yes, that technicolor stuff was just silly. All or nothing, people!
Another reason I hate sunglasses is that I can’t tell whether or not people are staring at my push-up bra cleavage. So I just assume they are.
sterlinglynch
April 5, 2010
And does assuming that make you feel better or worse? Background assumption: I was always taught not to stare at a girl’s cleavage.
jessicaruano
April 5, 2010
It makes me feel self-conscious. And I’m only partly kidding about the cleavage thing: I do wonder if my companion is making eye contact with me, or if their eyes are wandering off in a different direction. For some reason, I connect eye contact with listening, so if someone is looking off into the distance, I imagine they aren’t actually listening to me. Wondering about all this is very distracting. But, I suppose, so is squinting.
sterlinglynch
April 6, 2010
Gotcha!
You are not alone when it comes to eye-contact = listening. That is the standard. Much to my chagrin. I find eyes distracting and am a much better listener when I’m not making constant eye contact.
Wayne C.
April 8, 2010
I’m still confused. If we’re not actually listening to a woman talk is it OK to look at her cleavage? I still follow the Seinfeld rule: Cleavage is like the sun don’t stare at it, just take quick surreptitious glances.
sterlinglynch
April 9, 2010
Most of us should carry-on with the Seinfeld rule. The George approach might work for you….
Meg
April 6, 2010
Sorry, Sterling, no recollection of this series. In 1994, I was 10.
sterlinglynch
April 7, 2010
If I had seen that program when I was 10, it would have blown my, um, mind. It was pretty awesome at 20!
isaacbickerstaff
April 7, 2010
I remember that series and being somewhat surprised that they were able to show it on TV (without even a warning for those with delicate sensibilities!). Still, Desmond Morris is pretty dope.
Anyway, while I think it may be a bit of an elision to conflate/equate coolness with mate-seeking (though it definitely plays apart), I think, as your third possibility points towards, that sunglasses partake in the same eroticized mystery as the trope of the veiled lady.
sterlinglynch
April 8, 2010
I agree I may be a little too quick to conflate coolness with mate selection. Arguably, it could be about peer group selection but, in my mind and I may be wrong, that quickly reduces to mate selection as well.
Again, this throws up the unanswered question: why is mystery sexy?
isaacbickerstaff
April 8, 2010
Because the mind fills in the gaps in ways more interesting than mundane reality, making hidden things as good as you can imagine them to be. Sort of like how The Beach Boys’ “SMiLE” record was considered one of the greatest albums (n)ever made, largely on account of it being unfinished and unreleased, and therefore unheard in its complete form.
isaacbickerstaff
April 8, 2010
I’ve also been thinking about the concept of “coolness” and how it can be defined. Tentatively, I might say it’s the aestheticization of the social (coolness is a social indicator, but it’s also one which is admired almost like an art object). While this would account for the mate selection aspect, it also allows for more general conceptualizations of coolness (for example, my thinking that Bob Dylan circa 1966 is the epitome of coolness hasn’t got anything to do with sexuality (I don’t think)). Similarly, one can see how coolness governs social interactions (particularly amongst males) – “he’s a cool guy”.
sterlinglynch
April 9, 2010
I like your characterization of cool: “aestheticization of the social.”
And yes, because I think much of the social is reducible to the games we play around mate selection, your characterizations also captures what I was alluding to. And I agree, I can look at another man as cool without it meaning I think he is sexually desirable. I also think that what a straight man admires in another man’s coolness is an aesthetic that ultimately leads to getting more mates. I want his cool because I want his mates (I wish I had Jessie’s girl!). Even male trophies of status amongst males are trophies, I think, only because they are proof of his status and desirability to other females.
Given the fact that Cate Blanchet got to play the Dylan of which you speak in that film, I’m pretty sure that director thinks being the height of cool will always generate sexual desire whatever a person’s sexuality (cuz Blanchet is smoking!). And there is a measure of plausibility to that claim. Perhaps, there is a level of social status that is so great, it creates desire that bursts conventional heterosexual norms.
Wayne C.
April 8, 2010
There is definitely some overlap between acceptance into a social community and status within that community. Social acceptance “being cool” does not invariably lead to sex/mates. Though without this acceptance any possibility is shot completely.
For males, high social status always leads to more options for mates or more mates literally (oh to be a rock star). This status (also described as cool) is very different from social acceptance. For example, Leonard Cohen is cool.
Fashion, sunglasses, etc. can definitely lead to “coolness” in the first sense but the second has more to do with the meta narrative surrounding the individual. Robert Zimmerman may not have been cool but Bob Dylan was (is?)
sterlinglynch
April 9, 2010
I agree being cool does not always equal social acceptance because coolness is relative to different groups. Being cool for a bunch of outsiders doesn’t mean one will be widely accepted. Dylan crica 1966 hit the sweet spot of being cool to just about everyone who mattered. Leonard Cohen has, at different points in his career, found this g-spot of cool.