If you are one of the half-dozen readers of this blog (dream on, David!) the title will have caught your attention, as it caught mine on the new book display at Loutit Library in Grand Haven. (Side comment: Loutit does a remarkably good job ordering, and then highlighting, many of the books that come to my attention from reviews in the New York Times, Christian Century, and other sources--far better than I would have expected from a small-town Michigan public library. Granted, three-fourths of its book purchase budget is devoted to crime fiction, chick lit, weight loss, and other ephemera, but serious books are not neglected. Indeed, I've found several times that an important book of social science was available at Loutit but not in Calvin's library.)
And here's the subtitle, which induced me to check the book out and read it one evening in Florida: " . . . and other reflections on being human."
The book lives up to its title, to a limited extent. It is a breezily written review of biological and sociological data on sexuality, with a focus on human sexual biology. If I tell you the first chapter title that may be enough for you to decide definitely to seek the book out, or to put it entirely out of mind: "Darwinizing what dangles," which recounts the unique way in which the human species (unlike most of its primate relatives) protects the family jewels from excesses of temperature. Bering speculates (it's only speculation) that the extraordinary sensitivity of the testicles to physical injury is an evolutionary trick that induces men to be less cavalier about injury to their bodies in that critical and highly vulnerable zone, for the benefit of future generations.
"Breezy" sometimes shades over into "annoyingly jokey," and the author can't seem to resist a pun or a lame joke. There is lots of information here worth pondering, but I'm not sure it's worth the time spent reading the book. (Granted, that need not take long -- it took me maybe 3 hours to read it quickly.) Here's a later chapter title that may win you back: "The Bitch evolved: why are girls so cruel to each other?" And there is an answer based on a number of observationsl studies: "Findings indicated a clear difference in aggressive responses, with women overwhelmingly compelled to retaliate by attacking the offender's reputation, mostly through gossip" (p. 165). Boys hit; girls gossip. Evidently this is a well-established pattern, at least in modern Western societies.
There is a sort of answer to the book's title question, by the way, having to do with competition among partners in a species that is neither reliably monogamous (as the great apes tend to be) or ceaselessly promiscuous (like chimpanzees). But it's sort of complicated, and icky, so I won't reveal it here.
And here's the subtitle, which induced me to check the book out and read it one evening in Florida: " . . . and other reflections on being human."
The book lives up to its title, to a limited extent. It is a breezily written review of biological and sociological data on sexuality, with a focus on human sexual biology. If I tell you the first chapter title that may be enough for you to decide definitely to seek the book out, or to put it entirely out of mind: "Darwinizing what dangles," which recounts the unique way in which the human species (unlike most of its primate relatives) protects the family jewels from excesses of temperature. Bering speculates (it's only speculation) that the extraordinary sensitivity of the testicles to physical injury is an evolutionary trick that induces men to be less cavalier about injury to their bodies in that critical and highly vulnerable zone, for the benefit of future generations.
"Breezy" sometimes shades over into "annoyingly jokey," and the author can't seem to resist a pun or a lame joke. There is lots of information here worth pondering, but I'm not sure it's worth the time spent reading the book. (Granted, that need not take long -- it took me maybe 3 hours to read it quickly.) Here's a later chapter title that may win you back: "The Bitch evolved: why are girls so cruel to each other?" And there is an answer based on a number of observationsl studies: "Findings indicated a clear difference in aggressive responses, with women overwhelmingly compelled to retaliate by attacking the offender's reputation, mostly through gossip" (p. 165). Boys hit; girls gossip. Evidently this is a well-established pattern, at least in modern Western societies.
There is a sort of answer to the book's title question, by the way, having to do with competition among partners in a species that is neither reliably monogamous (as the great apes tend to be) or ceaselessly promiscuous (like chimpanzees). But it's sort of complicated, and icky, so I won't reveal it here.
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