Customer Reviews

The Human Sexes: A Natural History of Man and Woman

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book truly distinguishes the fact from fiction of the human sexes.It is multifaceted in its exploration of the sexes.I highly recommend it to those who desire such noble truths.

Desmond Morris does a wonderful job guessing WHY certain traits are favored by evolution. His work is strictly his observations and should not be taken for scientific fact. He uses parts of fact to establish his entertaining theories. Science answers WHAT, people like Morris theorize WHY.

This book has been a great eye opener for me. It described so many things that we always take for granted in the woman-man relationship. At sertain points it had helped me to better understand those men I meet.

But the book raises the eternal question of the fidelity of the sexes and how to keep a relationship together. D. Morris suggests that the bond between a woman and a man has to be strong but should be able to break in times of emegency. Morris explains this in terms of the sad loss of a reproductive individual if his partner dies. But I believe that this explanation is not complete.

As Morris often compares human behaviour to animal behaviour, I wonder why this problem of 'bond -breaking' does not excist in certain animal species? (They make life long pairs and still do not look for new partners even after the death of their own. Hence these animals 'loose' their genes.)

Desmond Morris is by far the premier observer of the human species. The Human Sexes is another step forward in helping to bring the sexes to a mutual understanding.

There's more science to Desmond's observations than people think. First, "guessing why" is an everyday scientific phenomenon--it's called hypothesizing. If no one ever guesses why something is the way it is, experimentation would have nothing to guide it and little would come from tests and trials. Second, all science is theory, not fact. It's just the best guess at how and why things work. For what it's worth, I think Morris is theorizing pretty well. Third, science *does* answer "what," but "why" is just as important question to ask if we ever want science to progress. That very question--"why"-- has driven almost all of the great scientists throughout history! Without it, science would know a whole lot, but wouldn't be able to explain any of it...to anyone.

What a mysoginistic, narrow perspective. Some of his "observations" are [very] loosely based in science, but I was offended by his sweeping observational generalizations and gross stereotypes being presented in such an authoritative manner. The uncritical reader might accept his musings as a scholarly,scientific discussion of the current body of sex and gender knowledge. However, his writing is actually a loose interpretation of others' scholarly work (whose, we don't know as the references are uncited) viewed through a very male-dominant culture-status-quo lens.