Sperm Wars: The Evolutionary Logic of Love and Lust

	Sperm Wars: The Evolutionary Logic of Love and Lust
	Baker, Robin Ph.D.           (1944 -)
	New York, New York USA : Basic Books, © 1997
Book 352 pp	ISBN-13: 9780465081806    ISBN: 0465081800
Synopsis In a book as revolutionary as the original Kinsey Report  or the work of Masters and Johnson, Robin Baker, an evolutionary biologist, demonstrates that our sexual behavior — in all its love-enhancing, relationship-destroying, exquisitely pleasurable, risky, exotic and erotic forms — is driven neither by our psyches nor our conscious minds, but by biological imperatives evolution programmed into us millions of years ago. These imperatives create a competition the author calls “sperm warfare.” For more than a decade, Baker did groundbreaking research, observing human sperm and female cervical mucus in every possible type of sexual encounter, from routine sex to masturbation to group sex, in search for answers to questions such as: Why do we crave sex so regularly when most of the time we are not interested in procreating? Why is the female orgasm so unpredictable and what is its role in conception? Why do we get such strong urges to masturbate, and why do we yield to these urges only in secrecy? Baker found that sperm warfare answered all these questions, by showing that the male’s sexual behavior is predicated on the expectation that during sex — or soon afterward — his sperm will find itself in competition with other men’s sperm to fertilize the descending egg. Even more surprising, Baker found that women are hardwired to promote this competition. For a male a victory in any one battle of this war means that his genes will survive him. For the female, sperm warfare assures that any sperm that fertilizes her egg will have earned its right to do so, giving her offspring a better chance at survival. And so, no matter our sex, no matter our morals, we are biologically driven by this old programming to engage in sexual behavior that is often in conflict with the rational plans we make for our love relationships. Using a series of fictional scenes involving some form of sexual contact, followed by an interpretation of the behavior from the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, Sperm Wars gives you a window into sexual behavior — your own and that of others — unlike any you’ve seen before.