Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality

Malcolm Potts, Roger Short

CUP Archive, Feb 14, 1999 - Psychology - 358 pages

Eminent scientists Malcolm Potts and Roger Short view the broad panorama of human sexual and reproductive behaviour to reveal an inextricable mixture of nature and nurture - a combination of innate actions which have evolved over the millennia to adapt us to a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle, overlain by more recent cultural constraints imposed by civilization. For each of life's milestones - sexual intercourse, conception, pregnancy, birth, puberty, love, marriage, parenting, menopause and death - they describe the biology behind our actions and consider how pressures imposed by various historical and contemporary cultures have further influenced our behaviour. By looking back at the past they attempt to make sense of the present, to see how and why these cultural modifications arose, how they have contributed to the richness of human sexual behaviour, and what our biological and cultural inheritance can teach us about safeguarding the continuation of our species.

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Ever since Adam and Eve: the evolution of human sexuality

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Potts (public health, Univ. of California, Berkeley) and Short (perinatal medicine, Univ. of Melbourne) "hope to show that there is little in the natural world that cannot be explained by biological ...

Ever since Adam and Eve: the evolution of human sexuality

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Potts (public health, Univ. of California, Berkeley) and Short (perinatal medicine, Univ. of Melbourne) "hope to show that there is little in the natural world that cannot be explained by biological ...

Contents

• The polygynous primate: 24
• Sex and gender: 50
• Love and marriage: 81
• Sex and pregnancy: 104
• Birth and breastfeeding: 131
• Growing up: 161
• The civilization of sex: 186
• Sex and power: 210
• Dying for love: 236
• Sex and mortality: 256
• Too many people: 283
• The animal within us: 310
• Bibliography: 335

Bibliographic information

• Title: Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality; Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality, Roger Valentine Short
• Authors: Malcolm Potts, Roger Short
• Contributor: Cambridge University Press
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: CUP Archive, 1999
• Length: 358 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / Human Sexuality; Social Science / Anthropology / Physical; Social Science / Sociology / Marriage & Family