August 19, 2006
Pursuing pleasure:
Dr Lionel Tiger, an anthropologist who investigates the interaction between the biological basis of pleasure and how it is experienced in different cultures, is interviewed on ABC Radio's In Conversation.
He talks about the numerous ways in which pleasure can be sought (including food, art and sex) and how it is regarded and experienced in animals and humans.
But as for the extended pleasure, I think here we see something that nature has given females as an opportunity to evaluate the care and thoughtfulness of a male, and it provides some sense of the decency of a mate, to be able to provide pleasure as well as to receive it. And I think we underestimate the skill with which, if we look at the Karma Sutra and all the Japanese stuff, the skill with which both men and women have been more than happy to spend as much time in the sack as they possibly could. It happens to be one of the exhilarating features of the species and we're just better at a lot of things than other animals.
Link to webpage (with audio and transcript) of In Conversation.
