godfry n. glad
10-17-2004, 06:06 AM
(I posted this in the Sexuality forum, but I thought I'd put it here as well, in case there is minimal overlap of readership....admins, feel free to delete one. - gng)
Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution is a popular science book currently on the bookshelves in bookstores. It claims to be a "national bestseller"...and I can see why.
This book, by surgeon Leonard Shlain, has to be one of the most engaging reads I've enjoyed in quite a long time. Although necessarily filled with a fair amount of speculation about things primeval, it has gone a long way in attempting to explain, in terms of evolutionary development, why human sexuality is so peculiarly at odds with the rest of the sexually reproducing animal world.
Has anyone else here read this book, or this author (The Alphabet Versus the Goddess is another...which I have not read).
From the "Introduction":
Looking back 150,000 years, Shlain writes that the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species; a drastic adaptation was needed to save our ancestors from extinction. Consequently, a new species - Homo sapiens - emerged through natural selection in which the female reproductive system was reconfigured by eliminating seasonal mating and synchronizing menses with the lunar cycles. But this novel system, while allowing women to rise above the primate relatives, robbed them of iron through menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation. Shlain demonstrates that it was this confluence of sex and iron that precipitated the cultural developments to follow.
The author also invites commentary at his website and the book includes a "conversation" with the author and a listing of discussion questions.
Wow...I highly recommend.
godfry
Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution is a popular science book currently on the bookshelves in bookstores. It claims to be a "national bestseller"...and I can see why.
This book, by surgeon Leonard Shlain, has to be one of the most engaging reads I've enjoyed in quite a long time. Although necessarily filled with a fair amount of speculation about things primeval, it has gone a long way in attempting to explain, in terms of evolutionary development, why human sexuality is so peculiarly at odds with the rest of the sexually reproducing animal world.
Has anyone else here read this book, or this author (The Alphabet Versus the Goddess is another...which I have not read).
From the "Introduction":
Looking back 150,000 years, Shlain writes that the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species; a drastic adaptation was needed to save our ancestors from extinction. Consequently, a new species - Homo sapiens - emerged through natural selection in which the female reproductive system was reconfigured by eliminating seasonal mating and synchronizing menses with the lunar cycles. But this novel system, while allowing women to rise above the primate relatives, robbed them of iron through menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation. Shlain demonstrates that it was this confluence of sex and iron that precipitated the cultural developments to follow.
The author also invites commentary at his website and the book includes a "conversation" with the author and a listing of discussion questions.
Wow...I highly recommend.
godfry