Book Review: Dual Sexual Strategy in Females — Is the Mysterious Nature of Women Explained?

Abstract

Reviews the book, The evolutionary biology of human female sexuality by Randy Thornhill & Steven W. Gangestad (see record 2008-14697-000). Although some of the ideas presented in this book are already known, it seems to me that this work is complete; it synthesizes many different strands of research and places human sexuality in a broad context of reproductive biology. The book could be the manifesto of a new forth wave. There has been continuous and growing scientific interest in female sexuality and our knowledge has continued to expand since theoretical works on human and non-human primate female sexuality started to appear. This book is not only about human female sexuality; at least a third is dedicated to vertebrate reproductive biology and to male sexuality, including many examples of sexual strategies in non-human primates, other mammals, and birds. This book also functions as a bibliographic record of papers on the evolution of sexuality and reproduction, with over 60 pages of references. My own reading of this book inspired a few new hypotheses, good evidence that in addition to being a valuable repository of current knowledge, it is also thought provoking and potentially inseminating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)