There are tales of cultures with a variety of bizarre sexual practices (bizarre, at least, by the standards prevalent today in the industrialized world.)
My question is: do you think these claims are overblown?
Let me give you some examples in a moment.
It's not up for huge debate that it wasn't until relatively recently than anthropology began to (re)focus on the universal. Before that, anthropologists were exhorted to be "merchants of astonishment", to purvey a world of the anomalous and the strange, eschewing universal patterns where possible.
To me, the notion that sexual jealousy (in response to cuckoldry) is a western construct cannot be true, simply because it makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. It sounds like an anthropological canard to me.
Ok, some examples, if you'll allow me:
"Every culture has its cuckolds and treats them in peculiar ways. In some contexts, cuckoldry is a proper and even honourable estate. ... many cultures will not allow a newly wed husband to pollute himself with the blood of his wife's defloration: he has to get in someone else to do it. In ancient Mesopotamia, it was the job of a dedicated professional. Among the Arawaks of the Caribbean, it was the responsibility of priests. In some south-east Asian kingdoms in antiquity, kings had to forego their first opportunity of intercourse with their wives in favour of strangers kind enough to take responsibility for the nasty, messy business of the night. Some sources attribute the same custom to the Samorins of Calicut and other taboo-haunted rulers. The Finnish sociologist Edvard Westermarck, who collected intriguing tales about idiosyncratic sexual customs, recorded many similar cases, stories that have gone into legend, from India, Africa, Australasia and the Americas"
[link: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...-1891430.html]
Now, I ask you: do you think these are examples of cultures that subvert immutable psychological propensities (jealousy etc) in an attempt to, say, consolidate power. Or do you think the idea of universal jealousy is simply wrong? Or are these more than likely poorly documented myths?
[This is my first post; thank you for reading]