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Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles [Paperback]

Robin Baker
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 3, 2006
Published to acclaim and controversy a decade ago, Sperm Wars is a revolutionary thesis about sex that turned centuries-old biological assumptions on their head. Evolution has programmed men to conquer and monopolize women while women, without ever knowing they are doing it, seek the best genetic input on offer from potential sexual partners. In this book, best-selling author Robin Baker reveals these new facts of life: ten percent of children are not fathered by their "fathers;" less than one percent of a man's sperm is capable of fertilizing anything (the rest is there to fight off all other men's sperm); "smart" vaginal mucus encourages some sperm but blocks others; and a woman is far more likely to conceive through a casual fling than through sex with her regular partner. It's no wonder that Sperm Wars is a classic of popular science writing that will surprise, entertain, and even shock.

Frequently Bought Together

Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles + The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature + The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author
Price for all three: $38.55

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robin Baker is a bestselling author in the field of sexual biology whose books include SPERM WARS (Basic, 1996), BABY WARS (Ecco, 1999), and SEX IN THE FUTURE (Arcade, 2000). From 1980-96 he was Reader in Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester, and he has over a hundred scientific papers and magazine articles to his name. His work and ideas on the evolution of human behavior have been featured in many television and radio programs around the world.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books; Revised edition (January 3, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1560258489
  • ISBN-13: 978-1560258483
  • Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For video interviews and a wider-ranging biography, to read both praise for and criticism of his books, and to see the controversies they have triggered, visit www.robin-baker.com.

Dr Robin Baker was born in Wiltshire, England in 1944, and grew up in the small village of Manningford Bruce in the Vale of Pewsey. The tiny 2-room school he attended had fewer than 30 pupils, with all the under 7s taught in one room and all the 7-11 year olds in the other. Between the ages of 11 and 18 he attended the nearby Marlborough Grammar School where coincidentally, 30 years earlier, the author William Golding had also been educated; all later pupils were expected to be very familiar with Golding's classic book LORD OF THE FLIES.

After obtaining a First Class Honours degree in Zoology, then a PhD, at the University of Bristol, Robin Baker lectured in Zoology at the Universities of first Newcastle-upon-Tyne and then Manchester where, in 1981, he became Reader in Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences. In 1996 he left academic life to concentrate on his career in writing and broadcasting.

He has published over one hundred scientific papers and many books. These include the international bestseller SPERM WARS which was based on his own lab's original research on human sexuality and which has so far been translated into 23 languages. His work and ideas on the evolution of human behaviour have been featured in many television programmes around the world.

His first novel PRIMAL - described by many as an adult LORD OF THE FLIES - was published in the UK and USA in 2009. In 2010-11 it will also be published in translation in Holland, Israel, France, Brazil and the Czech Republic.

Since 2002 he has lived in the foothills of the Spanish Sierras with his partner, the writer Elizabeth Oram, and their family. He has six children.

Customer Reviews

A book I have re-read several times. Maeve  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
His theories are not supported by any credible experimental evidence. AronH  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Dubious science - buyer beware September 8, 2011
Format:Paperback
Just a warning to readers of this book. The favorable ratings and reviews fooled me into thinking this was established science and well respected in academia. It is not. While the hypotheses and stories are intriguing and entertaining, the science behind it has not held up in the past decade. People have not been able to replicate many of Robin Baker's findings, and the whole notion of "sperm wars" in humans seems to be false. For instance, under the microscope, the "kamikaze" sperm and "egg-getters" don't seem to exist. Combining two men's sperm doesn't increase mortality of the sperm either, dispelling the notion of "killer" sperm that don't attempt to find the egg. The fact that Robin Baker has left academia and now labels himself an "author" not a biologist should be telling. More recent work has provided a far more nuanced and less hyped version of sperm competition.
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27 of 34 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Humans as just another animal June 26, 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Among animals, humans seem unusually obsessed with sex and thus a bit separated from the rest of the animal biology, which seems to feature a preponderance of 10-second sex acts. Robin Baker uses a lifetime of university study to try to explain human behavior objectively through case studies and discussions at at rate of one per chapter. It is a mixture of illumination, rationalization and sadly some repetition as the explanations seem to cycle through in the ~33 chapters. Most of the time, he hits his points, but sometimes he seems to miss obvious ones; for instance in the "rough sex" chapter, the woman's reproductive advantage in marrying a mate is discussed but the male perspective in such mate exploration is not. Mate selection by physical endowment is essentially entirely neglected, yet in human societies it is the norm that most people have multiple partners over a lifetime. In fact, in this book sperm wars really alludes to instances in which multiple matings occur in a short enough time span that sperm of different mates are selected in the woman's reproductive tract--a topic of a number of chapters. Practically every sexual combination is presented and explained, even when it is a bit stretched, as for instance the explanation as to why homo- or bisexuality, lesbian or gay behavior may contribute to reproductive success. In his role, the author is largely amoral--an observing biologist trying to explain a role for behavior in reproductive success rather than judging its societal context--though sometimes outcome of the occasional case study seem to bear moral shadings. For those who want to learn about the biology underlying human sexual behavior, this book has some interesting ideas. As a biologist, I found the absence of direct citation of experimental evidence was distracting, as I would prefer seeing whether conjectures withstand scientific analysis, but that is not what this book is about. The current book looks and feels a lot like a second edition of his best-selling book "Sperm Wars" of a decade before, but I do not know that to be the case; I am looking forward to seeing what readers of both volumes say on that point.
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening revelations April 1, 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I like to pride myself of having a good understanding of male-female sexual behavior and of sexual biology, but this book blew my mind! I had no idea sperm behaved in this way and the degree to which our urges are control by our biology. I usually find science-based books detailing studies and statistics to be a big bore. But the combination of fictional dramatization of scenes of people in specific sexual situations followed by the real-world scientific explanations behind such behaviors, made the book irresistable. I couldn't put it down!!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read!
It is simply a good read for anyone interested in why humans and the societies we live in behave in certain ways. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ben Crouch
5.0 out of 5 stars Evolutionary biology made approachable
A book I have re-read several times. A very readable book based on the scientific theories of evolutionary biology that explains a whole variety of human behaviour.
Published 3 months ago by Maeve
4.0 out of 5 stars Physiology, biology and culture stirred together
A well-organized and thoughtfully researched commentary on the dynamics and implications of sexual appetites and behavior in the contemporary Western world. Read more
Published 3 months ago by amprof8
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!
If I could, I would give this book six or seven stars. I have to admit some of the passages are rather spicy, but the book puts man's behaviour into evolutionary view without... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Dr. Michael J. Storek
1.0 out of 5 stars AUTHOR (ROBIN BAKER) DELETED THIS REVIEW
May 4, 2012: I am re-posting this review after logging in and finding that my review of "Sperm Wars" had been deleted by the author (ROBIN BAKER). Read more
Published 15 months ago by AronH
2.0 out of 5 stars Second-Rate Erotica, Interspersed with Second-Rate Science Fiction: A...
'Sperm Wars' is the type of book to give sociobiology a bad name. Of course, to many social scientists, rightly or wrongly, sociobiology already has a bad name. Read more
Published 15 months ago by VEL
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating.
This is a fascinating book. There's a lot of great science in there and many educated guesses and hypothesis that are fodder for thought. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Jennifer Bowhey
3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but still leaves me with unanswered questions
In my pursuit to understand infidelity and relationships, I promised myself to read this book with an open mind. Read more
Published on May 4, 2011 by Judy Lee
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
I found this book very interesting although I did not agree with every conclusion the author comes to. Read more
Published on April 2, 2011 by busymonkeys
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Book!
I absolutely adore this book, it changed how I though about sexual behavior between males and females. Read more
Published on December 29, 2010 by C. Watts
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