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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
I'm a big fan of Jared diamonds and hes a great speaker but there's a lot of outdated language and outdated sexist ideas about procreation in this. I couldn't continue.
Read this, and read Mary Roach's Bonk. It will give you a view on why we ought to be a little less Victorian about sexuality.
A fascinating overview of the evolution of sexuality and courtship, with a focus on humans but a lot of amazing information about other animals' mating rituals as well. The one tidbit that really stands out in my mind is the fact that men can (and have) lactate and breastfeed infants, but that social pressures suppressed it; the ability is still there, it just doesn't usually emerge because of the way our current mating habits have altered our hormones.
informative
fast-paced
During the month or so this book was in my house, my husband with his unique sense of humor, kept cheekily asking me if I "knew why it was fun yet". And the book is now done and I still can't answer why.
Pleasure, orgasm, etc. was never addressed and this book is absolutely incorrectly titled. The subtitle "The Evolution of Human Sexuality" is more accurate, and a better format would have been a long article or series of short essays in a larger collection of essays - some of which would actually breach the subject of why sex is FUN, rather than why is sex the way it is.
ALSO, quite disturbingly to me, Diamond very quickly and with no real citation classified humans as monogamous or polygynous. And just kept moving. Which, in the light of his book The Third Chimpanzee and the other recent sexytime read Sex At Dawn, seemed a flippant and dare I say specious argument. Once one of his foundational positions was seemingly made at random, I had a hard time caring about the other arguments he layered on top.
All in all this book was a huge disappointment to me, especially in light of some of Diamond's other incredible works.
Pleasure, orgasm, etc. was never addressed and this book is absolutely incorrectly titled. The subtitle "The Evolution of Human Sexuality" is more accurate, and a better format would have been a long article or series of short essays in a larger collection of essays - some of which would actually breach the subject of why sex is FUN, rather than why is sex the way it is.
ALSO, quite disturbingly to me, Diamond very quickly and with no real citation classified humans as monogamous or polygynous. And just kept moving. Which, in the light of his book The Third Chimpanzee and the other recent sexytime read Sex At Dawn, seemed a flippant and dare I say specious argument. Once one of his foundational positions was seemingly made at random, I had a hard time caring about the other arguments he layered on top.
All in all this book was a huge disappointment to me, especially in light of some of Diamond's other incredible works.
informative
medium-paced
informative
fast-paced
Enjoyable and understandable prose, but not the most thorough.
I went into this book thinking that I could learn about the evolution of sexuality throughout the years, maybe comparing sexuality from a hundred years ago to today. Instead, the author talked little about the human sexuality and a lot about the animals. Still, there was one part that I actually found interesting and have shared with my friends since.
I enjoyed parts of this book. I liked the way Diamond investigated certain areas of human life, such as how males became part of the care of babies and children, and how this is reflected in certain areas of New Guinea. But in saying that, I couldn't really get myself into it. I wanted to- I did, as sexology interests me- but I felt Diamond kept veering into other directions.
However, from an anthropological standpoint, this is a good, interesting book. It doesn't all deal with why humans have sex for fun and enjoyment, but it looks into the development of sex outside of ovulation, and how the idea of family developed.
So a good book, if you're into that sort of thing.
However, from an anthropological standpoint, this is a good, interesting book. It doesn't all deal with why humans have sex for fun and enjoyment, but it looks into the development of sex outside of ovulation, and how the idea of family developed.
So a good book, if you're into that sort of thing.