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While putting this post together, I realized that the original song this is based on, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” needs very little amending to become horrific: why is someone gifting their lover so many different kinds of birds? That can’t be safe? But we love notching the horror up whenever we can, so in our version of the song...
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Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

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ISBN13: 9780061707810
ISBN10: 0061707813
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science — as well as religious and cultural institutions — has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages.

How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book.

Ryan and Jetha's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.

With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and Jetha show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.

In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn apologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do.

Review

"One of the most original books I've read in years, Sex at Dawn manages to be both enormously erudite and wildly entertaining — even, frequently, hilarious....A must-read for anyone interested in where our sexual impulses come from." Tony Perrottet, author of Napoleon's Privates

Review

"You clearly have an exciting book on your hands, whether people agree with it or not: these are issues that will need debating over and over before we will arrive at a resolution." Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy

Review

"A wonderfully provocative and well-written book which completely re-evaluates human sexual behaviour and gets to the root of many of our social and psychological ills." Steve Taylor, author of The Fall and Waking From Sleep

Review

"This paradigm-shifting book is a thoroughly original discussion of the origins and nature of human sexuality... These authors have a gift for making complex material reader-friendly, filling each chapter with humor and passion as well as dozens of revolutionary insights." Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.

Review

"Funny, witty, and light...Sex at Dawn is a scandal in the best sense, one that will have you reading the best parts aloud and reassessing your ideas about humanity's basic urges well after the book is done." Newsweek

Review

"Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha have written the essential corrective to the evolutionary psychology literature." Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy

Review

"Sex At Dawn challenges conventional wisdom about sex in a big way....This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book. I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly." Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Healthy Aging

Review

"Sex At Dawn is a provocative and engaging synthesis... that has the added benefit of being a joy to read....A book sure to generate discussion, and one likely to produce more than a few difficult conversations with family marriage counselors." Eric Michael Johnson, Seed Magazine

Review

"Sex At Dawn is the single most important book about human sexuality since Alfred Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behavior in the Human Male on the American public in 1948." Dan Savage

About the Author

Christopher Ryan, PhD, is a research psychologist. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Cacilda Jethá, MD, is a practicing psychiatrist. She lives in Barcelona, Spain.


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Average customer rating 5 (5 comments)

`
John Visher , June 13, 2018 (view all comments by John Visher)
This is a well researched book on who we were for the million years that preceded the last five thousand years of farming. The garden of Eden was literally a paradise (a garden), but gardens are nothing more than glorified farm fields, and farm fields are a lot of arduous and dirty work, best done by friendly slaves. Before agriculture, we were always out of work, unemployed, jobless, homeless, propertyless -- completely and totally free. To be sure, some genetic morphing has taken place in this era of agriculture, but even now, most people dread farm work. We really haven't evolved so much in the last five thousand years, and we abhor the sexual rules laid down by the rulers and tax collectors and bankers who want us to toe the line and pay the fines. Read this book if you think the Garden Of Eden would have been a desirable place to live.

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Lucinda Parton , January 02, 2013
This is the most ground breaking book on the topic of humman sexuality in the past half century. An absolute must read for any free thinking adult.

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Teri Ciacchi , January 19, 2012 (view all comments by Teri Ciacchi)
This book is fabulous! A scientific and sociologically sound look at the mythology of human nature regarding sex. The authors systematically expose the biases of Modernity that have skewed the perceptions of scholars and scientists regarding their ability to look at and be with evidence of non monogamy in human evolution. Fascinating and written with a wry sense of humor,Sex at Dawn also pierces the anthropocentric focus of most theories about the evolution of human civilization, to help us see ourselves as the animals we are.

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eroticawriter , January 02, 2012 (view all comments by eroticawriter)
Fascinating, well-written, well researched disclosure of how culturally tainted world views have influenced anthropology.

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Emily Dawson , September 01, 2011 (view all comments by Emily Dawson)
Could also be titled "the history of love." It has changed the way I view humanity in the most compassionate, loving way possible. This book approaches answering the question "what the heck is wrong with everyone?"

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780061707810
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
07/05/2011
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Series info:
P.S.
Pages:
402
Height:
1.04IN
Width:
5.33IN
Thickness:
1.00
Copyright Year:
2011
Author:
Christopher Ryan
Author:
Cacilda Jetha

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$11.95
List Price:$19.99
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