(Ecco, $26)
Warning: The research that this book lays out “threatens to disrupt all the modern stereotypes of female sexuality,” said Amanda Hess in Slate.com. No matter how much power women wield today in public life, in the bedroom they’re still presumed to want sex less than men do, to be far more inclined to monogamy, and to value emotional connection more than physical pleasure. But in a “fascinating survey” that mines cultural history, evolutionary psychology, and current sex research, journalist Daniel Bergner has reduced those ideas to rubble. A woman’s sex drive is limited not by biology, he tells us, but by social taboos.
What Do Women Want? “will surely be one of the summer’s hottest reads,” said Lizzie Crocker in TheDailyBeast.com. Bergner’s close study of female sexuality can at times be “more than a little voyeuristic,” but his research proves compelling. Female rhesus monkeys, we learn, often assume the role of sexual aggressors. Female rats not only mount males when they’re impatient but also seek clitoral stimulation from researchers studying them. Females of our own species generally deny being so lusty, but studies suggest they’re dissembling. One university researcher had heterosexual women view a variety of pornographic video clips while wearing sensors that measured genital arousal. Though participants generally denied being turned on by images of gay sex, bonobo sex, and sex between strangers, the sensors showed otherwise. And Bergner “seems to be on to something when he comes to the conclusion that women crave sexual novelty—and that they struggle with monogamy just as much as their male counterparts.”
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But in trying to address big questions, Bergner focuses too narrowly on biology, said Virginia Vitzthum in Elle. He thinks that primal urges should determine what women want, forgetting that psychology and culture inevitably shape desire. And are we women really “on board with the idea, which Bergner unmistakably implies, that to have more ‘masculine’ sex is progress—that we’ll be happier if we all embrace stranger-sex and exult in the hunt?” In the real world of relationships, such “expert’’ opinion is not very useful. After all, it’s absurd to think there could be a single answer to the question “What do women want?” Merely asking it distracts “from the only two questions that really matter in sex: ‘What do I want, and what do you want?’”
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August 31 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include FEMA's new scheme, Gavin Newsom's antics, and a clue in the Epstein files
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Disarming Hezbollah: Lebanon's risky missionTalking Point Iran-backed militia has brought 'nothing but war, division and misery', but rooting them out for good is a daunting and dangerous task
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”