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A review by aw21594377
Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe about Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free by Wednesday Martin
4.0
I found this book to be fascinating! I learned a ton about other primates' mating habits and how societal constraints on women make it nearly impossible to truly know how sexual desire would develop if we were really free. We've had to learn more about female sexual desire from studying other primates, such as bonobos, macaques, and langurs. I learned various factoids, like how bonobos are primarily female driven, to the point of harassing the males to have sex with them. Or how langurs (or maybe macaques?) are apathetic about sexual advances from the males when caged and when they're free, they act much more proactively interested, even instigate themselves.
I couldn't 100% get behind the theory that switching systems of farming are at the route of the systemic issues women face. I can see how it's a contributing factor, but I would've liked to have seen more about this to make the author convinced enough to make this essentially a sub-thesis.
While there have been studies and data on other species of primates, much of the data for humans were testimonials and anecdotal. I enjoyed reading about the prestigious Skirt Clubs, where women are completely free from the male gaze, free to explore their sexuality without the constraints of heterosexuality. Martin's argument that women have high libidos and seek out sex for their own enjoyment much more than we're told to believe was convincing to me, but probably because it was approached as "we can't truly ascertain hard data like we can for other species" so I was able to be more forgiving of the lack of "hard data". I guess I expected the "hard data" to be a little more substantiated, particularly the plough theory being the basis for an entire shift in how women are treated. At the same time, I enjoyed hearing about cultures where women have more power/say/buy in in society. I found myself feeling envious of the women and the freedom they seemed to feel. Not only was an iteration of poly more accepted, but the women in general seemed much less oppressed/restricted in their ability to feel love and sexual feelings for multiple people. America the great, my ass. I think the most amusing factoid from this book was that the first vibrator was the size of a dining room table.
Overall, I enjoyed slowly plodding through this, soaking up the information. It wasn't a perfect book, but I think questioning ideas should be part of reading non-fiction. This was also predominantly heteronormatively focused, which makes sense, but the intersectionalism with LGBTQ and more racial representation would've helped complicate some of the ideas. I get that the author probably didn't want to bite off more than she could chew, and I respect that. Maybe she'll publish more, or it's explored more in other published work by Martin.
I couldn't 100% get behind the theory that switching systems of farming are at the route of the systemic issues women face. I can see how it's a contributing factor, but I would've liked to have seen more about this to make the author convinced enough to make this essentially a sub-thesis.
While there have been studies and data on other species of primates, much of the data for humans were testimonials and anecdotal. I enjoyed reading about the prestigious Skirt Clubs, where women are completely free from the male gaze, free to explore their sexuality without the constraints of heterosexuality. Martin's argument that women have high libidos and seek out sex for their own enjoyment much more than we're told to believe was convincing to me, but probably because it was approached as "we can't truly ascertain hard data like we can for other species" so I was able to be more forgiving of the lack of "hard data". I guess I expected the "hard data" to be a little more substantiated, particularly the plough theory being the basis for an entire shift in how women are treated. At the same time, I enjoyed hearing about cultures where women have more power/say/buy in in society. I found myself feeling envious of the women and the freedom they seemed to feel. Not only was an iteration of poly more accepted, but the women in general seemed much less oppressed/restricted in their ability to feel love and sexual feelings for multiple people. America the great, my ass. I think the most amusing factoid from this book was that the first vibrator was the size of a dining room table.
Overall, I enjoyed slowly plodding through this, soaking up the information. It wasn't a perfect book, but I think questioning ideas should be part of reading non-fiction. This was also predominantly heteronormatively focused, which makes sense, but the intersectionalism with LGBTQ and more racial representation would've helped complicate some of the ideas. I get that the author probably didn't want to bite off more than she could chew, and I respect that. Maybe she'll publish more, or it's explored more in other published work by Martin.