Customer Reviews

Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

A somewhat amazing book on how women can collection sperm from different partners and how the collections of sperm will duke it out within her body in the chase to fertilize the egg, among many other amazing things, including the fact that some sperm serve not to swim after the egg, but to block another man's sperm from the chase. Written from an evolutionary point of view, Robin Baker's text is very readable and certain to make many people uncomfortable. It has had a remarkable effect on me. I suddenly realized how insignificant our consciousness is even in something like reproduction. So much goes on beneath our consciousness, and many things within our consciousness are done for reasons we don't understand or are mistaken about. For example, according to Robin Baker, masturbation serves a reproductive purpose! I won't try to explain here, but he convinced me. Also group sex may actually help a husband to get his wife to bear his child! Read it. I kid you not.

Women come off pretty much as unconscious instruments of the process, men to a slightly lesser degree. All this is as I have always thought, but I had no idea about the details, and I mistakenly thought people, as conscious beings, had a greater effect on reproduction than we actually do. Incidentally at least ten percent of our children are not fathered by the husband, and close to twenty percent of conceptions are from sperm other than that of the husband (revelations not unique to this book). "Nowhere is there a woman true and fair," spake the poet. The duplicity of sex is required according to Baker because the woman needs to simultaneously mate with the champion (which is what she is always trying to do) while at the same time keep a man around to help take care of the offspring. Implicit in the book is the idea that people naturally cheat on their spouses as a strategy, a strategy that has consequences, both positive and negative. Sexually speaking, as in everything else, we are instruments of the process more than we think.

This is an excellent, if somewhat creepy, book with the tales of sex and infidelity and scheming by both sexes ringing entirely true. But strange to say I feel like a Victorian, wanting to have a nice cup of tea and talk about something else.

While on the autobiographical website of my favorite role model, Tucker Max (TuckerMax.com), this book was recommended. In his own words Tucker said "Quite simply, this book completely changed the entire way I looked at life, at women, and at relationships. I am the person I am today because of this book and the world it opened me up too. The application and digestion of the knowledge is this book revolutionized my life."

Those are some powerful statements, so I decided to go ahead and order this book off of Amazon. When I received it, I read all 319 pages within a span of 5 days. Needless to say, I was pretty much amazed by how enlightening this book is.

Robin Baker describes 37 sexually-oriented scenarios in the 37 sections and within each section, after a description of the scenario, describes the science behind what is going on in the scenario. Each scenario is different and covers subjects such as monogamy, polygamy, fidelity, infidelity, women's menstrual cycles, both male and female masturbation, the role of orgasms (all types), the effect of different sexual positions, group sex, homosexuality, bisexuality, rape, rough-and-tumble sex, prostitution, and of course pregnancy.

Each different topic is explained in a way that is suitable for the average person (not too sciency, but still sciency enough) and even the scenarios are written extremely well. While reading this book, I suggest reading with an open mind, it will become apparent to the reader how our bodies are often manipulating our minds as means to an end. More often than not, that end is successful reproduction. In a nutshell, this book gives an explanation for every seemingly random action that has to do with reproduction. After reading just a few sections of this book it should become apparent to you that there exists pretty much no completely random action dealing with sex. Everything is done for a reason.

As for myself, I am a male (age 18) and found this book extremely enlightening, especially considering my circumstance and the circumstances of most of my peers. As young and fertile males (not that it's very different for females), we are often looking for mates, our mind is frequently thinking about mating, and this book can help in just about every field of sexual reproduction. To be quite frank, this book has completely fine-tuned the way that I think about sex and reproduction... and I mean in a good way. With all the reading that students have to do during their early lifetime (ie middle school, high school, and college) it almost seems a fluke that our conservative society (I live in California, but I am referring to the U.S. in general) has never made a book like this a mandatory read. Sure we are nearly forced to take sex-ed during our childhood, but that class is useless and only barely scratches the surface... whereas this book delves deep into just about every topic dealing with sex.

I will give a word of warning though; those people who are strongly religioius, don't believe in evolution, close-minded, believe in true love, OR think that the field of sex and reproduction are incredibly simple and one-dimensional will either find this book extremely enlightening, very hedonistic, or unbelievable. While I will state that in my opinion some of the later readings in the book, especially the ones dealing with prostitution, homosexuality and bisexuality, and rape might ignore the effects of one's environment during childhood way too much(Especially PTSD) as the author is a evolutionary scientist (there's that whole conflict over nature vs. nurture and the author is definitely on the nature side of the argument), I will admit that the large majority of the book's explanations are very believable and extremely well-supported.

While the printing quality of my book wasn't that great, I feel that some of the people have exaggerated the state of their books (either that or every book is a bit different in printing quality). Hardly ever did I have problems reading the print (although I have 20/20 vision), the slightly off angle of the printing didn't effect me, and the binding on the book stayed on without a problem throughout my whole read (and I like to manhandle my books).

My bottom line: This book is a great read, I know it has already changed the way I look at reproduction (and I mean that in an incredibly good way); I believe that every man (at least the alpha-males) should read this book, and perhaps every woman, and I can pretty much guarantee that by reading this book you will undoubtedly have a better chance at reproductive success.

P.S. I strongly suggest using a highlighter to highlight some of the major points of the book while reading through. You'll find it helpful when you want to go back and read over a certain part again.

There's a lot of silly stuff in some of the negative reviews below (quotations are paraphrased):

1) "Baker's soft porn examples only deal with seedy, sleazy minority behavior. What about the vast majority who are monogamous?" This is multidimensionally silly. Firstly, statistics show that there is no such vast majority; to the extent that there is, it's a vast majority of people who are socialized into paying lip service to one set of ideals while furtively doing something else as their subconscious constructs rationalizations and excuses for why their bodies didn't follow the socialization to do X and went and did Y instead. Secondly, even if a set of circumstances is somewhat atypical, it can still exert decisive evolutionary pressure on a population, given millions of years to operate. If only 1% of people die in car wrecks, over time this will select against people who are bad drivers for genetic reasons (slow reactions, bad eyesight, weak attention span, etc.), though it may take many generations. Thirdly, if a minority trait or a tendency to a particular reproductive choice exists in a population to any significant degree (e.g., bisexuality, or women conceiving ~10% of children through cuckoldry), there *must* be an evolutionary reason for that trait or tendency to have not been eradicated by natural selection pressure. Baker's "soft porn" examples merely work through some of the concrete reasons and situations for why these traits and tendencies might be preserved. Agree or disagree with them if you will, or suggest your own reasons, but merely dismissing them as minority cases is a cop-out.

2) Several reviewers complained about "no hard data or bibliography." As another reviewer stated, the book written for academics by the same authors (Human Sperm Competition) has tons of hard data and a reference/bibliography section that goes on for twenty pages. "Sperm Wars" is written for the general public, so they (wisely) kept all the academic clutter out of this popularization.

3) "It's partly speculation and/or partly-unproven theories." Yes, the authors included some of their more daring ideas in the book (and it's usually obvious where they do, sometimes because they say so); the authors speculate on the reason bisexuality exists, for example, and every educated reader should know without explicit disclaimers by the authors that there is no unanimity within science as to why it exists. Ditto on the authors' ideas about why semen contains many different sperm types. However, I don't agree with those who think that the layman should be excluded from reading about science that remains unfinished or getting the opinions of the various protagonists. The most interesting parts of science are often those where there is vigorous debate; covering the public's ears while the scientists thrash it out is like sequestering the jury just when the lawyers are getting to the juicy stuff. And in this case, the issues being discussed affect everyone's personal life and aren't merely academic debates about missing dark matter in the cosmos or why dinosaurs became extinct.

4) Finally, something that's just incorrect rather than silly. One reviewer remarked that the math didn't work out right on the authors' theory about bisexuality (namely that bisexuality is not eradicated by natural selection because while bisexuals have fewer children, they have them earlier in life). However, the math does work out. Suppose one has two populations N and N*, and that the individuals of each population have on average M and M* children, respectively. After n generations, population N will grow to be N(n) = N(0)xM^n, where N(0) is the size of the initial population and N(n) is the size after n generations, with M^n denoting "M raised to the power n." Similarly, N*(k) = N*(0) x M*^k for the N* population after k generations (having k not equal to n is crucial; I suspect this was the other reviewer's mistake). Dividing the two equations, one gets N*(k)/N(n) = {N*(0)/N(0)} x {M*^k/M^n} (call this equation I). If the ratio of the two populations remains stationary over time (e.g., bisexuals vs. heterosexuals), then N*(k)/N(n) = N*(0)/N(0) (call this equation II), PROVIDED that generation k of the N* population is alive at the same time that generation n of the N population is alive. If it takes the N population T years to reproduce and the N* population T* years to reproduce, then if t is the total elapsed number of years, n = t/T and k = t/T* (call these equations III & IV). If we apply equations II, III, and IV to equation I, we get that (M*)^(t/T*) = (M)^(t/T). Taking the logarithm of both sides and using the fact that log(a^b) = b x log(a), we get (t/T*) x log(M*) = (t/T) x log(M), and cancelling the t from both sides and rearranging yields the result T*/T = log(M*)/log(M). That's the condition that must be satisfied if the ratio of the two populations is to stay the same over time. So if heterosexuals on average have 4 children and bisexuals on average have 3 children, then log(3)/log(4) = 0.79, so bisexuals must reproduce the next generation on average in a time T* equal to 79% of T if their percentage of the population is to stay the same over time.

Not only are the other comments on the printing quality correct, but the EXACT SAME BOOK EXISTS in a 2006 EDITION!! The "Science of Sex" is the original(?) 1996 edition. The 2006 edition of the VERY SAME BOOK is titled, "Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles". Explain to me why the author would reprint his original book under a new title? Anyway, I'm returning this one, since I bought both books at the same time, thinking they had entirely different content. Furthermore the new edition is of much better printed quality, with none of the problems mentioned about this edition. One more thing of note...the new edition is HALF THE PRICE of this crappy version!!! Can't wait to actually read it!

Before picking up Sperm Wars, I had eyed it as a source of answers for some of the most difficult questions I had about myself and the romantic relationships I've been involved in. To its credit it has, in most regards, met and even surpassed this objective. It provides an unbiased scientific look at the biological programming evolution has laid upon us; how it functions, how it malfunctions, and the biological safeguards it sets inside our physical bodies and subconscious mind.

The book is divided into broad sections covering a number of general topics, and within these are individual chapters split into two parts. The first section tells a fictional story about a sexual situation, how the parties react to the situation and to eachother, and what the outcome is. The second section explains each step of the process and why the characters made the unconscious decisions they did which resulted in the conclusion. As the book demonstrates, when reproductive success is the game, there are invariably winners and losers. Our ancestors were the winners, and their lesser contemporaries were the losers.

That said, the attempted demystification of mating and the creation of families is a controversial topic, and I don't think that this is information that everyone wants or needs to know. A girl I'm dating read selected portions of the book for 30 minutes and became depressed after being exposed to such a cold and logical explanation of a force which in her mind has always been an intangible and not-quantifiable force of God.

Some other reviews questioned the manufacturing quality of the book, and I can't disagree with them, hence the one star deducted from my review. Certain pages weren't printed with full contrast and were difficult to read, others printed slightly off center in relation to the page. The book isn't binded very well, but mine didn't fall apart. The content of the text is the main focus of my interest and of this review.

I've first heard about the research behind this book in a local newspaper that covered a TV show that discussed it. The claim that 10% of children were not the offsprings of their presumed fathers stuck in my mind.

I bought this book in order to get the details from the "horse's mouth".

Some reviewers have written that this book brings unbased theories. They probably got this impression because this is a "popular science" book - it brings the research's results in a way readable & accessable, rather than the research details and analysis (which are available in a seperate volume, which is prohibitively expensive - well over $100. I think it's price should be significantly reduced to make it a reasonable buy for the average person).

The book presents the material in a very clear way - 37 short scenes describing various sexual behaviours are told, followed by explanations of the whys and mechanisms behind the scenes. The scenes build one on top of the other - the first scenes are used to explain the basic & simple principles, while later scenes are used to explain the finer cases.

The explanations might be shocking to some people, but are actually logical. Every person wants to have as many descendents (children, as well as grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc.) as possible (the less descendents one has, the less influence one has on the human population / gene pool at any future time).

So a woman, who have to invest a lot of time, effort, money, etc to raise each child (at least for the time of pregnancy) naturally want an "ideal man" by their side to help her raise each child - a man who has a long life expectency (= healthy), has a lot of resources (= wealthy), loyal (= wouldnt disappear and leave her with her childs), stable (= doesnt take risks), has good genes (= his genes would help her have more descendents), etc.

A man would like to find the same characterstics in a woman (healthy, wealthy, loyal, has good genes, etc), but has the option to 'launch & forget' - impregnate a woman and leave her during pregnancy, letting her raise a child in which she has an interest while going on to the next woman.

The crucial point is that women have to make compromises on their partners, while men want to excercise their special option.

This leads to infidelity - a woman may choose to live / marry a man who is wealthy, stable, and loyal (= so that he wouldnt spend his resources on children he has by other women) but get the genes from another man (who is judged by health, beuty, etc).

A man would like to help his kids, and would therefore want his woman/women to be loyal and prevent them from getting impregnated by other men, but still use the Cuckoo's trick of having other men raise his children by other women.

And those two paragraphs summarize the motives behind loyalty & monogamy vs. infidelity, as explained by the book.

This book has explicit sex descriptions, which makes it somewhat pornographical and inappropriate for kids without being too explicit for the average adult.

University of Manchester biologist Robin Baker describes results of his own (and partner's) clinical experiments in the physiology of human reproductive behavior, then speculates widely on how the observed phenomena illustrate a variety of intuitive sexual strategies that have been naturally selected for. Each strategy is introduced with a detailed (and vivid) narrative example of fictional individuals who employed that strategy, along with a "score" reflecting how well that strategy increased the reproductive success of those individuals.

An example is the finding that the sperm level in a man's ejaculate is much lower during masturbation than during copulation. Speculating on this research finding, Baker begins that a male is obviously not "fooling his body" into believing that he is copulating when he masturbates, or else his body would not know to reduce the sperm count, and therefore male masturbation per se must have been selected for due to some reproductive usefulness. Speculating further, he suggests that masturbation is useful because it flushes the aging sperm that is queued into the vas deferens, allowing younger sperm to queue up to better do battle with another man's sperm in the womb (which is another story...). The narrative example features a man having a mysterious urge to masturbate shortly (but not too shortly) before an expected sexual encounter. (Other examples are much "juicier".)

I must attempt to clear up a common source of confusion for readers of books on evolutionary psychology, especially this one: When Baker mentions the "reason" that one person decides to pursue sex with another, he's not claiming that the person has that reason in mind. The person is simply doing whatever they feel inclined to do in that situation. (This intuitive judgement is the "proximate" cause of the behavior.) Baker instead is dealing with the reason that natural selection has resulted in people who have such an inclination in the first place. This is the "ultimate" reason for the behavior, where people who were similarly inclined in the past had more offspring than people who were not so inclined, and so after a number of generations the inclination became widespread in the population. A person acting on the inclination today is not aware (even unconsciously) of this ultimate reason unless they bother to analyze things afterwards and do so accurately. Unfortunately Baker doesn't emphasize this distinction between proximate and ultimate causes adequately, especially given that this source of confusion often results in people rejecting evolutionary psychology outright.

A common complaint is that Baker's examples resemble soft porn (he admits this), but given that he is presenting narrative examples of sexual behavior, where the emotions, the intuitive decision-making, and the physiological details are all central to the arguments being port forth, I'm not sure how this resemblance could be avoided except by not employing narrative examples at all, which would make the arguments much less clear.

Baker's reasoning based on his research results is speculative to widely varying degrees (though I think he admits that), but the arguments do appear consistent even with the fair degree of detail that he goes into, and the book offers the first plausible explanations that I've encountered for such puzzling questions as why a male would expend the energy to generate 500 million sperm for a single ejaculate, and why masturbation was selected for. The implications are far-reaching, such as questioning whether humans are truly a "naturally monogamous species", and so the arguments deserve wide discussion.

I wish Baker had discussed how certain alledged research results were observed, such as a sperm driving its pointy head into the side of another man's sperm in the womb to kill it --- perhaps that's in the earlier $75 academic version of the book, and maybe I'll have to spring for that (ugh). At any rate, I wouldn't put much confidence into the research claims (and therefore the speculation based on them) until there's plenty of independent documented verification, but I certainly hope that other biologists attempt it!

P.S. I read the original UK version of the book, which I assume is the same as the one coming out now in the states.

The content of this book is fascinating but the presentation is awful. I don't hold this against Baker: I suspect some editor or agent pressured Baker to adopt the style he did. The level of popular science books range from the very simple(mostly self-help books) to the very sophisticated works of Pinker, Dawkins and others. The latter do not assume any knowledge of science but are aimed at a thoughtful reader who wants to hear how the author reached conclusions based on specific studies. Such books invariably have bibliograpies and if not footnotes, at least end notes. I would have thought that the audience for these books is the audience for Sperm Wars, but instead the book is written at the level of a self help best seller, without footnotes. I'm sure that the author, a prominent researcher, has good reasons for his conclusions but can't figure out what they are from this work. I don't have time or money to buy the multivolume $229 scholarly version. I didn't find the examples so much pornographic as tiresome and a bit patronizing. From the other reviews as well as my own reaction this approach totally backfired. The more sophisticated readers were frustrated by the lack of documentation, the less sophisticated offended.
Please Mr Baker: Get yourself a new editor or agent and try again. I won't hold this one against you and promise to buy a copy.

Although the author has a vast knowledge of animal husbandry, I believe he makes some leaps across the boundaries of genus and species to prove his theories with that knowledge. Overall the book was great on many levels. It gives us a good insight to the behavioral imprinting of sexual habits that most people do in fact make. I am in agreement with the author on a lot of his assumptions, but the hard facts are not presented in this book, at least not for human subjects. I'm glad I bought it because it gives us a lot to think about in the realm of human sexuality.
I highly reccomend it.

Although I absolutely LOVE this book, don't waste your money on this version. This version is poor quality (apart from the cover), and an obvious photocopy of the original work. The lack of copyright page is unsettling, and the cost of this book is almost DOUBLE that of the newer 2006 version.