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A review by daphnesayshi
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships by Cacilda Jetha, Christopher Ryan
1.0
Some thoughts in no particular order:
- most interesting takeaway: confirmation bias is everpresent and evil. We understand things insofar as our experiences help us explain it, which become a problem when we are positing theories that become axioms on which other people build on. But how can we do it properly of arguably everybody does it? Tricky. Existential.
- the standard narrative is flawed because we shoehorn circumstantial and physiological evidence to suit a narrative that's old and moreover, extremely difficult to maintain
- post agricultural patriarchal societies: the beginning of the end?
- white men are The Worst
- the examples are great and invitation for more personal research, but honestly reading this book feels like preaching to the converted. Also, maybe a tad bit long and repetitive
- listen, I am all for the arguments posited in this book but, aren't the writers every much as fallible as the ones they try to disprove?
- abject lack of homosexuality in this book. I mean, if you're trying to refute the standard narrative wouldn't actually bringing in non standard narrative sexual behaviour be pretty much duh?
- I mean. The end was a massive let down. After trudging through too many examples of why the standard narrative of sexual monogamy is not legit, many of those spotlighting on the many misconceptions about a woman's sexuality and drive, you round off the book with talking ONLY about how men should be given the freedom to engage in sexual novelty (with younger women)??? WHERE RHE WOMEN AT? this enrages me so much I can't even. It makes me even more mad because here the writers spend so much time establishing that contrary to popular belief and insistence, women experience healthy sexual desire and appetite too, and then to have NOTHING about us at the end? What is our role then in your utopian vision of sexual freedom??? To be supportive partner? You reveal your own patriarchal attitudes by presenting all of these facts about us, ONLY TO IGNORE US AT THE END. THIS MAKES IT INFINITELY WORSE. So your author's note at the end tries to tie it up nicely in a neat package. BUT STILL. UNACCEPTABLE
- most interesting takeaway: confirmation bias is everpresent and evil. We understand things insofar as our experiences help us explain it, which become a problem when we are positing theories that become axioms on which other people build on. But how can we do it properly of arguably everybody does it? Tricky. Existential.
- the standard narrative is flawed because we shoehorn circumstantial and physiological evidence to suit a narrative that's old and moreover, extremely difficult to maintain
- post agricultural patriarchal societies: the beginning of the end?
- white men are The Worst
- the examples are great and invitation for more personal research, but honestly reading this book feels like preaching to the converted. Also, maybe a tad bit long and repetitive
- listen, I am all for the arguments posited in this book but, aren't the writers every much as fallible as the ones they try to disprove?
- abject lack of homosexuality in this book. I mean, if you're trying to refute the standard narrative wouldn't actually bringing in non standard narrative sexual behaviour be pretty much duh?
- I mean. The end was a massive let down. After trudging through too many examples of why the standard narrative of sexual monogamy is not legit, many of those spotlighting on the many misconceptions about a woman's sexuality and drive, you round off the book with talking ONLY about how men should be given the freedom to engage in sexual novelty (with younger women)??? WHERE RHE WOMEN AT? this enrages me so much I can't even. It makes me even more mad because here the writers spend so much time establishing that contrary to popular belief and insistence, women experience healthy sexual desire and appetite too, and then to have NOTHING about us at the end? What is our role then in your utopian vision of sexual freedom??? To be supportive partner? You reveal your own patriarchal attitudes by presenting all of these facts about us, ONLY TO IGNORE US AT THE END. THIS MAKES IT INFINITELY WORSE. So your author's note at the end tries to tie it up nicely in a neat package. BUT STILL. UNACCEPTABLE