Mythili Rao in The Guardian:
This book isn’t a directly political text, but its colourful tales from the animal world do have a point of view: biology, Lents argues here, comes down strongly against rigid categories. The story of sexual evolution is one of experimentation and constant improvisation, and that, he says, goes a long way to explaining why human sexual norms seem to be undergoing a transformation: “I assert that this moment of sexual turmoil is actually a rediscovery of the much more expansive relationship with sex that our ancestors once had and that other animals enjoy,” he writes.
What follows is an entertaining and informative romp through mating strategies in nature. From Komodo dragons’ virgin births to the bilateral sperm transfer of hermaphroditic slugs, The Sexual Evolution chronicles a “wondrous variety” of behaviour in the animal world. Garter snake orgies, gender-masking hyenas, lusty bonobos and the lesbian Laysan albatrosses of Hawaii – this book has it all.
All that diversity is fascinating, and frequently funny.
More here.
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