Reproductive Behavior

Sexual compatibility between male and female partners is in­ dispensable to normal and successful fertilization in mammals. Thus, the genes from males and females whose sexual behavior is characterized by awkwardness, ineptness, and miscues are elimi­ nated from the gene pool of the species. In human societies, this compatibility is not always evident; and the behavior that precedes and accompanies copulation and fertilization is exceed­ ingly complex and affected by many variables. As in most other species of animals, the entire repertoire of reproductive behavior of man is not well understood by man. When viewed, discussed, or reported, the topic is too often and most unfortunately regarded as an amalgam of emotion, mysticism, and biology. In the past, such emotion-charged approaches to the biologi­ cal fact of reproduction did much to obfuscate the subject; and as a result, much of the array of hormonal, neural, psychological, and social variables that control and insure the successful repro­ duction of the human species remains even now in Victorian ignor­ ance. But with the recent rash of books and scientific treatises on the subject, some progress has been made in elucidating human reproduction and associated sexual behavior. However, so entrench­ ed are some of our social taboos that the danger still lurks of equating social acceptance of the words with an understandin- all too lacking--of the process to which they refer.

Inhalt

The Central Nervous System and Sexual Behavior.- Neural Control of Gonadotropin Secretion.- Neurohormonal Control of Male Sexual Behavior.- Relationships between the Central Regulation of Gonadotropins and Mating Behavior in Female Rats.- Some Mechanisms Governing the Induction, Maintenance, and Synchrony of Maternal Behavior in the Laboratory Rat.- Neural and Hormonal Interactions in the Reproductive Behavior of Female Rats.- Pheromones and Hormones in Reproductive Behavior.- Pheromones in Primate Reproduction and Social Behavior.- Relationships between Scent Marking by Male Mice and the Pheromone-Induced Secretion of the Gonadotropic and Ovarian Hormones that Accompany Puberty in Female Mice.- Effects of Progesterone on Female Reproductive Behavior in Rats: Possible Modes of Action and Role in Behavioral Sex Differences.- The Relationship between Fetal Hormones and the Differentiation of the Central Nervous System in Primates.- Social Factors Affecting the Development of Mounting Behavior in Male Rhesus Monkeys.- The Role of Androgens in the Sexual Behavior of Adult Male Rhesus Monkeys.- Behavioral and Social Determinants of Reproductive Behavior.- The Behavioral Control of Reproductive Physiology.- Male Dominance and Aggression in Japanese Macaque Reproduction.- The Reproductive Behavior of Minority Groups in the U.S.A..- Fertility Behavior of American Women.- Special Lecture.- Human Sexuality and Evolution.- Contributors.