Comment on Why is prostitution called sometimes world's oldest profession?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Because courtship rituals show up before money and across species usually involve the male providing food to the female to demonstrate the males fitness.
Long before language, money, and lots of other shit had been invented, males have traded resources for sex.
In some species the female stays with the young and is unable to get food for herself, she has to rely on her mate providing food or her and the baby die.
raef@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There was an experiment where the researchers introduced “money” to chimps that they could exchange for fruit treats. Some females almost immediately began trading sex for money
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well, yeah.
Food only lasts so long. Money could be stored and used later.
So the exchange became a much better deal. In effect the females were always hungry. Because they could exchange money for fresh food later.
Makes as well could save up money so they didn’t have to get food whenever they were horny.
It really streamlined the process, but long term I’d be interested to see what happened to fitness of the population. Like 4-4 generations down the line, would that population be significantly less fit than a control group?
Although that would likely have to be done in the wild where threats are and not in a safe enclosure.
raef@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It really didn’t play out like that. They were not saving anything.