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

by Judson, Olivia

• ISBN13: 9780805063325
• ISBN10: 0805063323
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Summary

"Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it's sex education at its primeaccurate, comprehensive, and hilarious." Newsweek An uproarious and authoritative natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation, this bestselling guidebook to sex reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable, 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. At once entertaining and wise, Dr. Tatiana (a.k.a. Olivia Judson) fuses natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blends wit and rigor, and reassures 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 Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. By applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both. An alumna of Stanford with a doctorate from Oxford,Olivia Judsonis an evolutionary biologist and award-winning journalist who has published inThe Economist,Nature,Science, andThe Guardian.She is currently a research fellow at Imperial College in London. Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creationis 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. Quirky, entertaining, and informative, 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 Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists in the first place, and, applying standards of the human world to the mating habits of the natural one, in the end she reveals the wonders of both. "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creationis a thoroughly engaging and exhaustively researched account of the numerous different kinds of sexual behavior that biologists have observed in the natural world. By human standards, much of this behavior is quite kinky (my favorite is the description of blow hole sex among Amazon River dolphins). However, as Olivia Judson explains, it is quite natural within its own context."Richard Morris, author ofThe Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul "A funny and original and blissfully original new book, which purports to be sex advice offered to the animal kingdom by a universal agony aunt called Dr. Tatiana, and amply demonstrates the sheer unyielding ruthlessness of the business of procreation . . . her science is first-rate."The Economist "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creationis a thoroughly engaging and exhaustively researched account of the numerous different kinds of sexual behavior that biologists have observed in the natural world. By human standards, much of this behavior is quite kinky (my favorite is the description of blow hole sex among Amazon River dolphins). However, as Olivia Judson expl

Author Biography

With a bachelor of science from Stanford and a doctorate from Oxford, Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist and award-winning science journalist who has been published in The Economist, Nature, Science, and The Guardian, among other publications. She is currently a research fellow at Imperial College in London.

Table of Contents

Agony and Ecstasy: A Note from Dr. Tatiana	1	(6)
PART I: LET SLIP THE WHORES OF WAR!	7	(86)
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	(17)
PART II: THE EVOLUTION OF DEPRAVITY	93	(74)
How to Make Love to a Cannibal	95	(10)
Crimes of Passion	105	(17)
Hell 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

From Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation:

Dear Dr. Tatiana,
I’m a European praying mantis, and I’ve noticed I enjoy sex more if I bite my lovers’ heads off first. Somehow they then seem less inhibited, more urgent—it’s fabulous. Do you find this too? -- I Like ’Em Headless in Lisbon

Some of my best friends are man-eaters, but between you and me, cannibalism isn’t my bag. I can see why you like it, though. Males of your species are boring lovers. Beheading them works wonders: whereas a headless chicken rushes wildly about, a headless mantis thrashes in a sexual frenzy. Why can’t he be that way when he’s whole?

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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
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.