Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression

by Héctor A. García

The sexual refractory period, normally referring to males, is a period of recovery after intercourse—after ejaculation when the male is unable to achieve an erection. Research shows that this period quickly ends with the presence of a novel female.13 Once a novel female is introduced, the male gets an erection and copulation is on—and on and on, continuing with each novel female. One study of rhesus monkeys found that male arousal continued to decline with familiar females even when the females were made constantly aroused by hormone injections.14 The decline quickly reversed when novel females were introduced, suggesting that male arousal is less tied to female arousal than it is to being an evolutionary “quantity” strategy employed by males.