The Evolution of Desire - Revised Edition 4: Strategies of Human Mating (Taschenbuch)

This is a science book which builds the data platform for rather conventional (if often true) ideas. A minor gripe is that it relies too much on questionnaires and self-reporting (subject to lying and self-deception), though it also uses observed behavior (which is much more reliable). It's not nearly as interesting as the Bottings' book "Sex Appeal" -- in fact it's drained of much of the fascination we associate with this subject. And it's not extremely daring, so it doesn't probe to the depths like Ridley's "The Red Queen". It's less broad than Batten's "Sexual Strategies", with which it probably overlaps the most (though Batten has a distinctly feminist slant).

Still, it does a good job of making its case and laying things out clearly without pushing the idea too much farther than the data allow, though in some cases the lack of intelligent extrapolation seemed too conservative. The book is written at a level to be both readable by the neophyte in this area while also being informative to someone who's familiar with the topic. It might be a disappointment to those who want to believe in the "essential mystery" of love and attraction rather than that it's just biology. I agree with the reviewer who said we'd all probably be better off if the ideas presented in the book (or similar ones) had wider currency.

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First -- the world over, men and women valued kindness and intelligence in their mates. This book however focuses on the differences between men and women -- the values they desire after kindness and intelligence, but then is rather light-handed in discussing how even these sex differences were highly influenced by culture.

Second -- I thought his discussion of men, women and sexual fantasies had some wrongheaded conclusions. Between 41-49% of women focus on only one partner per fantasy, fantasize about someone they know, and think about feelings rather than visuals, yet he declares that "women emphasize tenderness and romance." It seems odd to me that less than half of women should count as "women"; the only reason he comes to this conclusion is because more women than men report these details about their fantasies. Are we going to define women by how the majority of women actually behave, or by how women compare to men? Also, how does he know the "feelings" women report relate to "emotion" rather than to sensation? Obnoxiously, while only 33% of men report fantasies of group sex, he goes on to provide us with descriptions of group sex fantasies, referring to them as "typical."

I also disliked how his chapter on Casual Sex lumped a one-night-stand between strangers, a one friendly one nighter, a fling, a short term relationship and an affair in the same category, which he referred to as a "dark and shrouded region of human sexuality." This chapter was not nearly as bad as it could be, considering how strangely conservative other authors on the topic of evo-psycho are, in fact it was far more thoughtful and grounded in reality than other discussions I've read.

But, all in all Buss presents some interesting data which reflects our evolution as human animals. I agree that it's a good intro to the field.

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