The Shortest History of Sex: Two Billion Years of Procreation and Recreation

It’s tricky trying to read a book with parallel vocabularies nudging each other all the way. But then it’s tricky to read a book titled The Shortest History of Sexand wonder, for goodness sake, what the longest book on the subject might be. The evolutionary change and developments David Baker describes are intriguing. Readers soon adjust to coping with his energetic style where words like ephebophilia compete for space alongside the more familiar four-letter ones, like F**K. For sure, the juxtaposition draws the ignorant and the informed closer together.

Retrieving two billion years, from when the tiniest twinkle of life managed to survive without the modern apparatus or including today’s practical attachments, allows us to share years of research. For sure, whatever our physical, emotional, or social experience, we realize how little we knew.

The considerable space devoted to primate behavior and our contemporary ways is exceptionally good. Primates are our closest predecessors, a relationship we may not enjoy claiming, recognizing, for example, the bonobos practice of incest and pedophilia, the living style and gender differences among all apes.

The pages are not lurid, not rousing, not crude… well, maybe all of these to a degree, but if read seriously, the book is a wondrous achievement.