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Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation mimics a write-in advice column, in which anthropomorphised animals of all kinds ask for help with their sex lives. That is just the framework, however, for an entertaining tour of the natural history and evolutionary biology of sex. Pretty much every aspect of animal sex is at least touched on, though the "all creation" of the title is an exaggeration -- there's only the occasional reference to plants and bacteria, with nothing (for example) on the fascinating topic of pollination.
The columns are grouped thematically in thirteen chapters, divided into three parts. Part one covers the "expenses" involved in sex, female promiscuity, conflicts between males, and alternative strategies for those who are poor and small. Part two covers sex and cannibalism, sex and violence (male and female), love potions and homosexuality, and monogamy. And part three looks at incest, at hermaphroditism, facultative sex and other variants, and at asexuality and theories for the evolution and persistence of sex.
Each column typically runs to four or five pages, beginning with a question.
Dr. Tatiana never answers directly, but looks around first at other species with similar or related problemsDear Dr. Tatiana,
I'm an Australian redback spider, and I'm a failure. I said to my darling, "Take, eat, this is my body," and I vaulted into her jaws. But she spat me out and told me to get lost. Why did she spurn the ultimate sacrifice?
and sets the question in a broader context"... most guys prefer not to be eaten at all. ... In the scorpion Paruroctonus mesaensis, the male whacks his partner several times before racing off; in the wolf spider Lycosa rabida, the male tosses his lover in the air, leaving her in a crumpled heap as he hurries away.
... In the bristle worm Nereis caudata, something similar goes on but for once it's the man who eats his wife.
... Do other males eat their mates? I have never heard of it. But note: this is not to say males don't eat females. They do. Just not during sex. Platonic cannibalism is a problem for creatures from apes to amoebae. It's depraved out there."
before finishing with the answer, if there is one."... It goes without saying that such a death wish can evolve only in special circumstances. That is, being eaten must mean you leave more offspring than if you are spared. So far, your species is the only one known to meet this criterion. A male redback who gets himself munched fertilizes more eggs than a male who survives. Why? ... it turns out that sex takes longer when she's chewing away on you, which gives you the chance to deliver more sperm and thus fertilize more eggs. So your challenge is to make yourself more appetizing."
Links to many different areas of biology are explored."The secret is picking your moment. Female redbacks aren't greedy; when they're not hungry, they don't eat. If you offer yourself right after she's feasted, forget it. You've got to wait until she gets that mean and hungry look in all eight of her beady little eyes. And then, for what you are about to receive, may your kiddies be truly thankful."
And for those who want to follow up specific topics in the technical literature, there are thirty pages of notes, giving annotated references for each column, with pointers into a forty page bibliography. (Though a short recommended reading list of non-technical popular works on evolution would have been a more useful inclusion for most readers.)"Lysin, the protein that determines whether an abalone sperm can enter an abalone egg, is evolving at record speed. Tantalizingly, abalone are also splitting into new species at a startling rate."
Sex Advice to All Creation assumes no background in biology, and there's the occasional wordy or repetitive explanation. But even scientists for whom the evolutionary biology is old hat are likely to find some new details in the natural history. The chatty tone and the framing conceit of an advice column -- extended in the last chapter to a mock television show -- remain entertaining and decorative, never pushed so far they become annoying or distort the science.
"If you are not a hermaphrodite, incest is best if you come from a species where males have only one set of genes. If you're not a member of such a species, I urge you to avoid sex with your nearest and dearest."
You can purchase Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
This is Slashdot, the only problems with people's sex life here is that they don't have one.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Next thing we are going to see penis enlargement stories.
There's nothing in the review that justifies the one point deduction!
Referral: Amazon has this book for $1.40 cheaper than bn
Spend $13.80 more to get free shipping.
It said that this book won't get me laid, and guess what. It didn't. 4 stars.
I was dissapointed when two thirds of the way through the book ended (it was a small paer back to start with) the last third was notes etc. ;)
But regardless it was a fun read, turned a few heads on the train
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
...should not have 'creation' in the title.
Funniest thing... I typed slashdot.org, but It looks like I got www.salon.com. Where the hell did this review come from?
sig: sauer
... not all of us are fat and pasty, with spit coming out of the corners of our mouth when we talk, which so happens to always be about computerth. I get laid on a *very* regular basis (no, I'm not married), AND I've been posting on /. for a while now. So there.
"We apologize for the inconvenience"
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
.... when you can get better advice for free:
http://www.sosuave.com/ - this one is my favorite for content, but the interface sucks
I haven't looked at this one much, but it has potential.
http://fastseduction.com/guide/
and a couple more:
http://www.blowmeuptom.com/index2.html
http://askmen.com/
No, I wouldn't consider myself a player - far from it, but yes I do read these websites. You can always learn from others even if you don't agree with their philosophies. If you'd consider yourself more of a "niceguy" than a "player", you should still read this stuff and figure out what you need to do differently to start scoring.
"The secret is picking your moment. Female redbacks aren't greedy; when they're not hungry, they don't eat. If you offer yourself right after she's feasted, forget it. You've got to wait until she gets that mean and hungry look in all eight of her beady little eyes. And then, for what you are about to receive, may your kiddies be truly thankful."
This is some good advice. The best way to get laid is not to pursue, and not to give a shit. If she's interested, let her chase you down. Hell, make her wait. Then when the time is right, BAM! Crazy, hot, dirty monkey sex.
THAT was the nuttiest(no pun intended) thing ive seen in a while on CSI last night... that dude crying about finding out who he really was was WHACKED. id never even heard of all that before...
to stay on topic, uh... beowulf clusters of something or others... or how about SCO sux?
i sell illegal drugs
No. But I should say that's the most original first line from a /. book review in a loooooong time......
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
I suggested this in my journal back in june. I guess I shoulda written a review.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Step 1) Move out of your parents house and into your own apartment/house/townhouse/condo.
Step 2) Invite female friend for dinner.
Step 3) ????
Step 4) uh, profit? More like score!
Ok MODS, I'm ready for you!
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
Here's an interview with Dr. Tatiana herself, available online in real and ogg courtesy of the Canadian Brodcasting Corp.:r chives/0 2-03/jan18.html
http://www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks/a
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
This has nothing to do with anything remotely Slashdot related, but I need to do something before my head explodes:
As I type this, my roomate and my best friend/recent lover are fucking in the next room over. WHAT THE FUCK. After 10 years of friendship and built-up sexual tension, we finally hooked up and now less than a week later she's banging my roomate. I am so fucking incensed right now I can't think straight. I wouldn't mind if they went to a hotel or otherwise didn't make it known, but she just FUCKING WALKED PAST MY ROOM TOPLESS AND SHUT THE DOOR IN MY FUCKING FACE. How fucking insensitive can you be?!
This sucks. It's 3AM and I'm telling strangers (GEEK strangers, no less) about my personal problems. I am a big pussy and will most likely not say anything to either one of them so I expect this to go on for a while. Fuck.
Feeling low? There's someone else out there that's having a worse day than you. Trust me.
If you can think of a better way to exchange long protein strands, we'd like to hear about it.
I first heard about this book when the author was interviewed on NPR. It was just like a normal interview with callers and everything, but the callers were actors pretending to be slime molds, or wasps, or birds or whatever asking her for advice. Really hilarious.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
"Why do they still teach 19th century thinking in schools?"
You mean like genetics, theromodynamics, electromagnetism, quantitative chemistry, and all that unreliable jazz?
You didn't read the book, did you?
You didn't even read the review.
The cover of the book shows two bright blue weevils making little weevils. This should clue you in.
This is not a book about how a man can have a good time bumping nasties with a woman. It's a book about how rotifers, hyenas, stick insects and bee-eaters do the deed with other rotifers, hyenas, stick insects and bee-eaters. It's evolutionary biology case studies styled like an advice column so that people will enjoy reading it.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
But when it comes to humans, I don't get it. I could understand if we, as humans, had to constantly struggle for survival (as a species), but this clearly isn't the case. With 6.5 billion and counting, does continued proliferation ever stop making sense?
A friend tells that a common acquaintance is expecting a fourth. I'm supposed to get excited? I guess families can be nice (though often fraught with dysfunction of one sort or another), but what about the big picture? Is there still something to proving one's verility? What have you proven exactly? And does the mere fact that someone can add to the 6.5 billion already in place, really mean anything?
It's all a "been there done that" proposition in my eyes. I'd rather focus on tending to what we already have, than continue to pile more and more onto the heap.
This book review does not do this book justice. The book is much better than the reviewer seems to give it credit for. The book teaches you a vast amount natural history and biology in a way that is in such stark contrast to the typical dry and often times unrefined and boring presentation of scientific literature that you find yourself quite eager to delve into the next chapter. In particular, the book is actually funny and you find yourself laughing at the subtlety of the setups that the author puts the creatures in. You get the feeling like she spent literally days watching shows like Jerry Springer and contriving these scenarios. All the broached taboos that make shows like Jerry Springer so facinating to some people are represented in this book through the sex lives of various animals. It is almost unsettling at times how, things that are so universally verboten in our species are normal in other species. The book continues to surprise you with the extremely deviant sexual behavior and breaks down your aversion to it by explaining how it fits into the context of the lives of the creatures that practice it.
The breaking down of taboos surrounding sexuality is the slightly hidden agenda of the book. By presenting, the wide breadth of sexual behavior in the animal kingdom, in such a matter of fact way you become increasingly aware of how limited your own sexual repitoir truly is. The universal truths that you unquestioningly accept such as incest is bad, and females are chaste while men are promiscious are not quite as universal as you have been led to believe and that opens you up to a new way of thinking about the world.
Toward the beginning of the book and near the end Judson lifts her skirt just a little bit and hints at the book's hidden agenda and her personal feelings about sex after writing this whole book about on the topic. What she revealed and what she kept hidden reminded me of that old quote about bikinis, "What it reveals is suggestive, what it conceals is vital". This few paragraphs very effectively communicated to me that Ms Judson was not just a well lettered academic; the very pretty Ms. Judson also understands human sexuality and in particular the art being a seductress. She did this so well that after I finished the book, I had a serious crush on her for several weeks.
How is the interspecies sex covered in the book? I really wonder what approach does the author take on that. True, Incest is fun for whole family, being a bi doubles your chances, and being a herm gives you at least twice as much positions, but still in means of pleasure nothing beats old-fashioned bucket and cuddly fluffy mare rump.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
And if all you want is to get your sex kicks semi-regularly, then well, you're set. I don't think I'd be happy with that. Sure, your average stereotypical slashdotter would say "I'd be happy with any sex!" but I think in reality, most of uswant more than that.
Many of us prefer meaningful relationships with our sex. I treat my girl with respect and dignity, and I get a loving, happy relationship. AND regular, good sex. The great thing is, the loving relationship makes the sex more meaningful, and the good sex makes our relationship closer.
Sure, it's not a new woman every week, but I'll take a meaningful relationship and a close friend over variety. I think most people, if they really admit it to themselves, would agree.
Hey all I am cute 17f blonde. I want you! I will sleep with all those who moderate this post plus one!
:)
--Karma Whore