full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Christopher Ryan: Are we designed to be sexual omnivores?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now, this ednievce goes way beyond anatomy. It goes into anthropology as well. Historical rrcedos are full of accounts of polpee around the world who have sexual practices that should be impossible given what we have assumed about human sexual evolution. These women are the muoso from southwestern China. In their society, everyone, men and women, are completely sexually autonomous. There's no shame associated with sexual behavior. Women have hundreds of partners. It doesn't mettar. Nobody cares. Nobody gossips. It's not an issue. When the woman becomes pegrnant, the child is cared for by her, her sisters, and her brothers. The biological father is a nonissue. On the other side of the planet, in the Amazon, we've got many tierbs which practice what anthropologists call partible paternity. These people actually believe — and they have no contact among them, no common language or anything, so it's not an idea that spread, it's an idea that's arisen around the wolrd — they believe that a fetus is literally made of aacmelutcud semen. So a woman who wants to have a child who's smart and funny and sotrng makes sure she has lots of sex with the smart guy, the fnuny guy and the strong guy, to get the esncsee of each of these men into the baby, and then when the cihld is born, these different men will come forward and acknowledge their ptntiaery of the child. So paternity is actually sort of a team endeavor in this society. So there are all sorts of examples like this that we go through in the book.

Open Cloze

Now, this ________ goes way beyond anatomy. It goes into anthropology as well. Historical _______ are full of accounts of ______ around the world who have sexual practices that should be impossible given what we have assumed about human sexual evolution. These women are the _____ from southwestern China. In their society, everyone, men and women, are completely sexually autonomous. There's no shame associated with sexual behavior. Women have hundreds of partners. It doesn't ______. Nobody cares. Nobody gossips. It's not an issue. When the woman becomes ________, the child is cared for by her, her sisters, and her brothers. The biological father is a nonissue. On the other side of the planet, in the Amazon, we've got many ______ which practice what anthropologists call partible paternity. These people actually believe — and they have no contact among them, no common language or anything, so it's not an idea that spread, it's an idea that's arisen around the _____ — they believe that a fetus is literally made of ___________ semen. So a woman who wants to have a child who's smart and funny and ______ makes sure she has lots of sex with the smart guy, the _____ guy and the strong guy, to get the _______ of each of these men into the baby, and then when the _____ is born, these different men will come forward and acknowledge their _________ of the child. So paternity is actually sort of a team endeavor in this society. So there are all sorts of examples like this that we go through in the book.

Solution

  1. accumulated
  2. strong
  3. world
  4. people
  5. mosuo
  6. evidence
  7. tribes
  8. matter
  9. essence
  10. child
  11. records
  12. pregnant
  13. funny
  14. paternity

Original Text

Now, this evidence goes way beyond anatomy. It goes into anthropology as well. Historical records are full of accounts of people around the world who have sexual practices that should be impossible given what we have assumed about human sexual evolution. These women are the Mosuo from southwestern China. In their society, everyone, men and women, are completely sexually autonomous. There's no shame associated with sexual behavior. Women have hundreds of partners. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Nobody gossips. It's not an issue. When the woman becomes pregnant, the child is cared for by her, her sisters, and her brothers. The biological father is a nonissue. On the other side of the planet, in the Amazon, we've got many tribes which practice what anthropologists call partible paternity. These people actually believe — and they have no contact among them, no common language or anything, so it's not an idea that spread, it's an idea that's arisen around the world — they believe that a fetus is literally made of accumulated semen. So a woman who wants to have a child who's smart and funny and strong makes sure she has lots of sex with the smart guy, the funny guy and the strong guy, to get the essence of each of these men into the baby, and then when the child is born, these different men will come forward and acknowledge their paternity of the child. So paternity is actually sort of a team endeavor in this society. So there are all sorts of examples like this that we go through in the book.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human sexuality 6
human beings 4
sexual swellings 4
female copulatory 3
closely related 3
copulatory vocalization 2
human sexual 2
average human 2
sexual behavior 2
modern world 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
female copulatory vocalization 2

Important Words

  1. accounts
  2. accumulated
  3. acknowledge
  4. amazon
  5. anatomy
  6. anthropologists
  7. anthropology
  8. arisen
  9. assumed
  10. autonomous
  11. baby
  12. behavior
  13. biological
  14. book
  15. born
  16. brothers
  17. call
  18. cared
  19. cares
  20. child
  21. china
  22. common
  23. completely
  24. contact
  25. endeavor
  26. essence
  27. evidence
  28. evolution
  29. examples
  30. father
  31. fetus
  32. full
  33. funny
  34. gossips
  35. guy
  36. historical
  37. human
  38. hundreds
  39. idea
  40. impossible
  41. issue
  42. language
  43. literally
  44. lots
  45. matter
  46. men
  47. mosuo
  48. nonissue
  49. partible
  50. partners
  51. paternity
  52. people
  53. planet
  54. practice
  55. practices
  56. pregnant
  57. records
  58. semen
  59. sex
  60. sexual
  61. sexually
  62. shame
  63. side
  64. sisters
  65. smart
  66. society
  67. sort
  68. sorts
  69. southwestern
  70. spread
  71. strong
  72. team
  73. tribes
  74. woman
  75. women
  76. world