Does Love Always Come Before Marriage?
Thousands of couples were wed in a mass ceremony in South Korea on February 7, 2020. Some of them had only met a few weeks earlier, after being…
Tag: sex
Is Love a Biological Reality?
Helen Fisher knows more about love than most. As a biological anthropologist who studies the topic, she has been a chief scientific adviser to the internet dating site…
Women at the Hearth and on the Hunt
In an artistic rendition of an ancient scene in the Andes, a focused huntress with a spear thrower and a spear in hand hunts her prey. Matthew Verdolivo…
Is the Pandemic Slowing Down Love?
[no-caption] Angus Krieg SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about her research on love, sex, and everything in between. Fisher is the author of…
What Scars Say About Sex and Stereotypes
[no-caption] Dean Krakel/Getty Images I recently noticed a curious phenomenon playing out on various television series. In Outlander, Scottish heartthrob Jamie Fraser’s back is seared wit…
What Milk-Sharing Communities Reveal
[no-caption] Getty Images Heather Wascak was devastated. In 2014, within days of giving birth to a baby girl, Lucia, she was aching to be with her child. “She’s…
Were Women the True Artisans Behind Ancient Greek Ceramics?
This amphora comes from a period in ancient Greek history called the Early Iron Age. Zde/Wikimedia Commons Painted over the enormous midsection of the Dipylon amphora—a nearly 2,800-year-…
When Sex Becomes a Matter of the State: Peciagraphy as a Qualitative Method for Examining Legal Cases
For the past ten years, I have been conducting ethnographic research on the Federal Supreme Court’s (STF) decisions on sexual identities in the Brazilian legal system. Despite the…
Tea Fit for a Queen
Tea sipping has a distinctly queer pedigree. To serve tea properly, one must be skilled in the art of verbal delivery. During last summer’s Women’s World Cup, Alex…
The Life and Meaning of Margaret Mead
Anthropologist Margaret Mead immerses herself in the community on a field trip to Bali, Indonesia, in 1957. AP Photo This article was originally published at Aeon. In 1978, after…
Neanderthal Bones: Signs of Their Sex Lives
In a cave tucked into the limestone hills of the Asturias region of Spain, there lie the remains of a group of 13 Neanderthals that date to between…
Dos veces víctimas: mujeres negras agredidas no se les reconoce como víctimas
Mujeres activistas, incluida la autora (derecha), marchan en contra de la violencia de género y feminicidios en Lima, Perú, en noviembre de 2016. Fotoholica Press/Getty Images Clara* colg…
The Anthropologists Who Undid Sex, Race, and Gender
Anthropologist Margaret Mead—a museum curator, a professor, a popular commentator, and an author, among other roles—was perhaps the most famous student of Franz Boas. Bettmann /Getty Images …
Is Gender Unique to Humans?
[no-caption] Anup Shah/Getty Images This summer, in the introductory course I teach on the evolution and biology of human and animal behavior, I showed my students a website…
What Our Skeletons Say About the Sex Binary
Stanislawa Walasiewicz won the gold for Poland in the women’s 100-meter dash at the 1932 Olympic Games. Upon her death, an autopsy revealed that she had intersex traits.…
The Myth of Badass Sperm
This scanning electron micrograph (SEM) shows healthy spermatozoa emerging from a cavity within the testis. Innerspace Imaging/Getty Images This article was originally published at Aeon. …
Wizards, Vampires, Klingons, and Other Alternative Cultures
On the last day of my introduction to anthropology class, we watch scenes from the documentary Trekkies. Students grin at the sincere folks dressed as Starfleet officers and…
Can Child Sex Offenders Be Rehabilitated?
Dexter, the protagonist of a TV series by the same name, commits horrific acts of murder—but he does not sexually abuse children, which seems to make him less…
Secrets of a Brothel Privy
For Jade Luiz, a graduate student in archaeology at Boston University, historical archaeology is all about detective work. Through piecing together historical documents and archaeological finds from t…
When It Comes to Love, Is Three (or More) a Crowd?
Even today, performances of Romeo and Juliet move audiences for how the couple’s ardent love imperiled them. Robbie Jack/Getty Images Passionate love is a dangerous thing, or so…
Watching Ancient Hominins Giving Birth
The movies that Natalie Laudicina makes use the same software that helped create some of the biggest blockbuster hits of the last decade, but her movies won’t be…
The Moral Code of Chinese Sex Workers
The risks of earning a living in the sex industry are lessened by workers protecting one another’s safety and best interests. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images One hot afternoon…
The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatter Syllabus, Week 29: Courtney Morris For Black Boys Who Look Blue
The editors of Anthropoliteia are happy to continue an ongoing series The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, which will mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogical exercise addressin…
Nature’s Most Creative Copulators
For humans, sex is risky, socially complicated, and culturally loaded—but it’s almost always fun. David Williams Googling “sex” in 2016 yields approximately 3.34 billion results in 0.29 s…