Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation : The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex

by Olivia Judson

• ISBN13: 9780805063318
• ISBN10: 0805063315
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2002-08-14
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Summary

Dr. Tatianas Sex Advice to All Creation is a unique guidebook to sex. It reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable and who should commit bestiality with whom. It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matterssuch as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.Entertaining, funny, and marvelously illuminating, the book comprises letters from all creatures worried about their bizarre sex lives to the wise Dr. Tatiana, the only sex columnist in creation with a prodigious knowledge of evolutionary biology. Fusing natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blending wit and rigor, she is able to reassure her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normalso long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwins theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. Applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.

Author Biography

An alumna of Stanford with a doctorate from Oxford, Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist and award-winning journalist who has published in The Economist, Nature, Science, and The Times Higher Education Supplement. She is presently a research fellow at Imperial College in London. Visit her on the web at www.drtatiana.com.

Table of Contents

Agony and Ecstasy: A Note from Dr. Tatiana	1	(6)
PART I: LET SLIP THE WHORES OF WAR!	7	(160)
A Sketch of the Battlefield	9	(12)
The Expense Is Damnable	21	(19)
Fruits of Knowledge	40	(20)
Swords or Pistols	60	(16)
How to Win Even If You're a Loser	76	(19)
PART II: THE EVOLUTION OF DEPRAVITY
How to Make Love to a Cannibal	95	(10)
Crimes of Passion	105	(17)
Hall Hath No Fury	122	(10)
Aphrodisiacs, Love Potions, and Other Recipes from Cupid's Kitchen	132	(20)
Till Death Do Us Part	152	(15)
PART III: ARE MEN NECESSARY? USUALLY, BUT NOT ALWAYS.	167	(66)
The Fornications of Kings	169	(18)
Eve's Testicle	187	(25)
Wholly Virgin	212	(21)
Postscript	233	(2)
Notes	235	(25)
Bibliography	260	(38)
Acknowledgments	298	(3)
Index	301

Excerpts

Dear Dr. Tatiana,

My name's Twiggy; I'm a stick insect. I've been copulating with my mate for 10 weeks now and I'm bored out of my skull, yet he shows no sign of giving up. He says he does it because he's madly in love with me, but I think he's just mad. Could he really mean it?

Sick of Sex, Bombay

Who'd have thought a stick insect would be one of the world's most tireless lovers? After 10 weeks, I can see why you've had enough. But think of it from this point of view: by turning himself into a living chastity belt he can guarantee that no one else has a chance to get near you. At least he's evolved to be merely half your length, so he's not too heavy to carry about.

But Twiggy, I'm afraid your suspicions were half right. Your paramour is not mad with love, he's mad with jealousy. His long copulations are the ultimate form of mate guarding. Scoundrels who love and leave may annoy the female so much that she throws their genes away. With the cricket, for example, as soon as her lover vanishes, she reaches round and removes the sperm he deposited. Instead of using it to fertilize her eggs, she has it for lunch. To have any chance at siring children, the male has to linger for at least half an hour to mumble sweet nothings and stroke her with his antennae.

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Excerpted from Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex by Olivia Judson
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