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A review by kelz31
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships by Christopher Ryan
5.0
Loved this. I love the thought and methodology behind these claims that we as Homo sapiens are not hard-wired for monogamy.
Favorite quotes:
"One can choose what to do, but not what to want."
"Where most men can and do hunger for sex in the abstract, women report wanting narrative, character, a reason for sex."
"Sex for pleasure with various partners is therefore more 'human' than animal. Strictly reproductive, once-in-a-blue-moon sex is more 'animal' than human. In other words, an excessively horny monkey is acting 'human', while a man or woman uninterested in sex more than once or twice a year would be, strictly speaking, 'acting like an animal.'"
"No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature."
"One wonders, in fact, why marriage is a legal issue at all - apart from its relevance to immigration and property laws. Why would something so integral to human nature require such vigilant legal protection?"
"Why is it so easy to believe that a mother's love isn't a zero-sum proposition, but that sexual love is a finite resource?"
"It's not like you want to rip your clothes off with somebody that you're sleeping with for the thousandth time. We should know going into it that the nature of love and sex changes from what it begins as, and that a great love affair doesn't necessarily make a great marriage."
Favorite quotes:
"One can choose what to do, but not what to want."
"Where most men can and do hunger for sex in the abstract, women report wanting narrative, character, a reason for sex."
"Sex for pleasure with various partners is therefore more 'human' than animal. Strictly reproductive, once-in-a-blue-moon sex is more 'animal' than human. In other words, an excessively horny monkey is acting 'human', while a man or woman uninterested in sex more than once or twice a year would be, strictly speaking, 'acting like an animal.'"
"No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature."
"One wonders, in fact, why marriage is a legal issue at all - apart from its relevance to immigration and property laws. Why would something so integral to human nature require such vigilant legal protection?"
"Why is it so easy to believe that a mother's love isn't a zero-sum proposition, but that sexual love is a finite resource?"
"It's not like you want to rip your clothes off with somebody that you're sleeping with for the thousandth time. We should know going into it that the nature of love and sex changes from what it begins as, and that a great love affair doesn't necessarily make a great marriage."