Sex: A User's Guide

Chapter One

BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT

Sex in the Animal Kingdom

Sex is often thought of as an animal activity ("You're a tiger!"), and the animal kingdom is as good a place as any to start a comparative sex education. Evolution has thrown up innumerable sexual variations in the living world. Some creatures, like aphids, manage to do without sex at all and reproduce using a cloning process, while others can't seem to get enough of it, the humble single-celled paramecium evolving (somewhat extravagantly) eight sexes rather than the more usual two. Some creatures (many species of reef-living fish, for example) have distinctly shaky sexual identities and will change gender at the drop of a hat. Others like spiders and bristle worms combine sex with cannibalism. Indeed, compared to many animals, the sex lives of the most infamous human libertines seem positively lackluster.

The Naked Ape

As might be expected, when compared with animals, human sex lives most closely resemble those of our nearest relatives-the chimpanzees-rather than gorillas and our more distant cousins the monkeys. Gorillas have tiny penises compared to body size; on avera ... read full excerpt from: Sex: A User's Guide ebook