Customer Reviews

Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

Sperm wars dives into many fascinating aspects of our sexuality and how these inherent drives have evolved over time and still control us to a much greater extent than most of us believe.

The book describes concepts using realistic situations and stories, making the book educational as well as exciting to read.

He reveals:
-Why a woman often feels a strong drive for finding the best genes as well as the best provider, and how she will optimize her sexual strategy if she cannot find a man that satisfies both.
-Why gays and bisexuals are actually the result of specific evolutionary survival strategies.
-How rape plays out in humans and other species.
-How most of a man's sperm is actually created to battle other sperm.
-10% of children are have different fathers than they believe.
-A women is far more likely to conceive through an affair rather than with her boyfriend or husband.

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!!

To those who are rather desperately clinging on to their world view despite this book (and it's 1996 earlier version) by criticizing it for lack of scientific rigor, you should realize that this is the popular press version of Baker and Bellis' research and not the academic text. The subject matter is only contoversial by its socially explosive conclusions and not by any questions of its science.

If you really want the solid data to convince you that virtually everything you want to believe is wrong, you should get a copy of Human Sperm Competition: Copulation, Masturbation and Infidelity which is the academic text of their groundbreaking research.

The proper scientific documentation really is there. Our physiology is wildly more complex than most people had believed and clearly did not develop in a sexually pair bonded environment.

This updated version of Baker's landmark book has provided readers with updated statistics, new research that further proves that attraction and passion has less to do with flowers and more to do with chemical reactions actually taking place within the body.

Baker's research and analysis will give men pause, and realize how important it is to integrate the best of the 'bad boy' into the terrific, redeeming qualities of a great, confident man!

I wish these books were out 10 years ago!

- GiddyupGuy.com

I had high hopes for this book after hearing so many of my friends rave about it. However, I was a little let down. First of all, there are no foot-notes or citations for any of the claims/statistics that Baker writes about. I understand that the book reads easier without them, but it takes a lot of the credibility away from the message. Also, the constant referral to previous/future "scenes" (37 small stories) throughout the book really made it difficult to follow.

I read in a couple other reviews for this book that a lot of the "science" Baker writes about has been proved wrong. One of the reviewers actually posted a link to a scientific article which conducted some experiments contradictory to Baker's research, so if you feel inclined it's on this website somewhere.

Anyway, the book did have a couple (valid) discoveries that were new to me, so all was not lost. Just wish Baker had done a better job of backing up his research!

In my pursuit to understand infidelity and relationships, I promised myself to read this book with an open mind. Being a conservative person in nature, many of the concepts in the book are very new to me. I used to be a firm believer of monogamy. As I grow older and hear more stories from my friends about infidelity, I feel the marriage system is really not working. Conflicts in day-to-day life erode the initial romance, leading to boredom or change of hearts. The book did not discuss sexual conflicts in this light. Rather, it explains that it is the human primary urge to increase "reproductive success" that drives all the infidelity. Instead of seeing it as a reactive behavior, the author comes to the table with a very different angle. Being a biologist, the author attempts to use science to explain why people cheat or have multiple partners simultaneously. In fact, the book openly discusses the active role a woman plays in infidelity. In many of the episodes, it is the women who took the initiatives.

The book explores the two extremes: swings and orgies, in which the spouses (or lovers) are aware of who is doing what to who, and cheating, in which all the actions are done with deception. He uses various episodes to tell vivid stories and backs up with some analytical argument. The stories are often times explicit, going into details of the actions in the bedroom or outside. Perhaps the book is meant to be an easy and entertaining read; the author did not attempt to support his argument with scientific research results. Many times, the author is repetitive in his theory of sperm wars. Nonetheless, the stories are interesting.
In the beginning, I was shocked at the various episodes. Deception is such a big part of the theme. In a few of the episodes, the women bear children who do not come from the husband. This is interesting. I wonder with today's technology in DNA validation, if this is going to be a diminishing phenomenon. I ask myself how prevalent it is to have an extra-marital affair in today's world. I also wonder if I should even be astonished when I hear about a friend's affair. If marriage does not work, then, why do we(as a society) put so much emphasis on it and why do people still go into marriages? It is as if human (and other animals) are trying to "game" the system by finding loopholes and going underground.

Another puzzle I have is the "love" factor. The book did not touch on the subject of love and what people do when they fall in love. I, for one, stay loyal to one partner when in love. (Sorry, it does sound cliché). The reason is that I want to keep the wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling for as long as possible. Having a sexual relationship with more than one person will diffuse this feeling and confuse me. To me, being in love is like a drug addiction. I don't want to let it go, until I can no longer hold on to it. So, are loyal partners just a small representation of the population? Is romance transient? Are we scheduled to fall out of love at some point and time? Or, can someone be in love and still have sex with multiple people? I wish I can get some detailed answers about human behave when in love?

The book is interesting, and certainly some parts of it are true, like the shape of the penis and use of thrusting. But other parts are definitely false, like the idea of sperm literally fighting each other, which has been disproved. He doesn't provide references for anything, so it's difficult to tell which parts are based in fact and which are just his unjustified speculation.

You have to be rather mature to be able to read this book without freaking out. It is so full of brutal honesty with regard to human sexual behaviour. It would be more than easy to just get insecure and try to push it all under the carpet. Only a very strong person can come to terms with the reality of his or her own biological nature. If you read this at face value, it would be a temptation to lose all fatih in human beings. You could spend your life hiding behind hollywood fantasies as to to human nature and the myth of "being in love" as the only truth about sex and love but that would be delusional. Remember that human beings are biology, and this book makes that startingly clear... and that we are also a heart. At the end of the day we are free and we choose our actions. Read with care. This book is scary. VM

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.