| Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex | 
 enlarge | Author: Olivia Judson
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (34 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2335
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0805063323
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.7
EAN: 9780805063325
ASIN: 0805063323
Publication Date: May 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
?Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it?s sex education at its prime?accurate, comprehensive, and hilarious.? ?Newsweek
An uproarious and authoritative natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation, this bestselling guidebook to sex reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters?such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.
At once entertaining and wise, Dr. Tatiana (a.k.a. Olivia Judson) fuses natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blends wit and rigor, and reassures her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal?so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin?s theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. By applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.
Amazon.com Review
Finally, a how-to guide, in the guise of a Q&A advice column, for marching, flying, or slithering into the battle of the sexes, whatever your species. In this entertaining and informative book, evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson presents "letters" from sexually frustrated animals, birds, and insects who ask "Dr. Tatiana" to explain some sexual oddity. For example, "Don't Wanna Be Butch in Botswana" writes, "I'm a spotted hyena, a girl. The only trouble is, I've got a large phallus. I can't help feeling that this is unladylike. What's wrong with me?" Each question leads Dr. T. into a fascinating explanation about the sex life of this species, sprinkled with sprightly stories about other species with similar attributes or behavior.You'll learn why one stick-insect copulation lasts for 10 weeks (to prevent other males from gaining access to the fertile female) and why the black-winged damselfly's penis has bristles (to scrape out his rival's sperm). You'll learn that male and female orangutans masturbate with sex toys fashioned from leaves and twigs, that slugs are hermaphrodites with penises on their heads, and that females in more than 80 species eat their lovers before, during, or after sex. You'll also ponder human sexuality when you learn that "monogamy is one of the most deviant behaviors in biology" (although jackdaws, chinstrap penguins, California mice, and some termites swear by it) and "natural selection, it seems, often smiles on strumpets." Highly recommended--you'll read this through just for the fun of it and have plenty of odd facts with which to dazzle your dinner companions. --Joan Price
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 insulting to the reader and without intellectual depth November 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
that book is a beautiful example for todays mass media: eyecatching but without any deeper content. the style is awful in its forced funnyness. for example the "letters" to the imaginary doctor are signed with `Too Much Heavy Breathing near Malta` or similar brainless synonyms instead of the name of the species. the last chapter is written in form of a talkshow for heavens sake! still worse are the constant thematic jumps. not one chapter takes the sexual strategies of nature serious. buyers are cheated: it is not "the definitive guide" it proclaims to be but a comedyshow that leaves the bad aftertaste of an absurd freakshow. dont mistake me, there are many interesting facts revealed but the presentation robs the reader of any enjoyment. without the useless junk in between that book would be not even half its size. i have the feeling the autor has no inkling that her writing style could be viewed as an insult to the intelligence of the average reader. anybody with a higher education will be thoroughly disgusted with this shoddy pamphlet. i seriously doubt the autor has really read all the works mentioned in the thirty pages long postscript. the aknowledgement at the end is a trivial biography that wallows in personal anecdotes which are of no interest at all. it was a waste of time for me...
 Very amusing and informative July 7, 2008
Dr. Tatiana writes an advice column for members of all species and organisms that wish to write to her. She specializes in answering their questions about sex and dispensing sound advice.
For example, a yellow dung fly wants to know how to make its sperm more attractive; a fig wasp wonders why all the males she knows bite each other in half; an elephant is worried because its penis has turned green; a mother manatee frets because her son appears to prefer other males.
It turns out that homosexuality is common in the animal world, that femals are mostly promiscuous and that monogomy is exceedingly rare in nature, (she calls it one of the most deviant behaviors in biology) and that the battle of the sexes is real and can be brutal (and the females often win).
This book is a breezy read. Tatiana is a witty raconteur with an apparently inexhaustible font of knowledge about the weird and wonderful world of sex. The point of existence, she maintains, is to survive and reproduce. Genetic mutations and behavioral modifications that confer an advantage in pursuing these goals will flourish. Species that do not adapt will die out.
Though written in a jokey way, this is a serious book. It provides a wonderful picture of the sheer vast variation of the natural world and the dynamic pace of evolution.
Perfect for the teen interested in science (and sex) and for all curious adults.
For more about me and my book The Nazi Hunter: A Novel, (where the sex is tastefully done) go to www.alanelsner.com.
 Sex? I don't need no stinking sex. June 30, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Interesting tidbits about rare and weird creatures. However, after about 50 pages, enough is enough. The "advice to the lovelorn" format is a little too cutesy.
Ray
 A fun look at evolutionary biology January 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fun, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, look at the evolutionary biology of how many different organisms developed their genders and their reproduction methods.
Sex Advice September 26, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What do you get when you cross a biology textbook, a Dr. Ruth show, a Dear Abby column, and a "Far Side" cartoon? Well, the offspring might be a brilliantly original book named Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation. This collection answers the desperate questions from species as varied as the Australian redback spider to the Louisiana black vulture with Dr. Tatiana's practical, reassuring, detailed explanations. It seems the worry on everyone's mind is, "Am I normal?"
Move over, Dr. Phil. Author Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist, award-winning science journalist, graduate of Stanford, and doctorate of Oxford University. Writing as Dr. Tatiana, Judson transforms both difficult scientific ideas and the sometimes-awkward discussion of the (ah-hem!) birds and the bees into accessible, often hilarious reading material. Evidently, virgin births, homosexuality, variety in size and shape of genitalia, elaborate courtship rituals, and cannibalism are not so unusual in nature as one may think. Dr. Tatiana gives her readers - be they insect, animal or human - a sigh of relief along with a much-needed chuckle at our own foibles as she explains, from her expert but kind perspective, why we do the things we do.
And herein lies the rub. While I see Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice ...as a clever way to teach a wealth of knowledge about natural science, biology, animal behavior, and genetics, I know there are many folks who would balk. The first time I read this book, I wished it could have been included in my high school science class, and fondly remembered time spent in the classrooms of Mr. and Mrs. Puskar, where quirky often served as mnemonic. But I know, especially now, that eyebrows would go way up, and corners of mouths would go way down, at the words "SEX ADVICE", let alone that the subtitle, which announces this little volume as "The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex." If "sex advice" in any classroom context is murky ground, then "evolutionary" anything these days is a cause for all-out war.
At the end of September of each year, the American Library Association reminds us to celebrate our freedom to read by marking "Banned Book Week." If Dr. Tatiana isn't on the list of banned books, I'm sure it easily could be. That makes me sad, because I don't like that learning details about the stunning array of life on earth could be seen as bad, harmful, or sinful. Whether you believe it's God's creation or just critters, they still do the things so deliciously described here. Few people have a problem with their kids watching a Discovery channel special about the Lamprologus ocellatus, a fish that lives in one of the Great Lakes of tropical Africa? Somehow, this is different. I guess the real debate comes when Dr. Tatiana (or any biology professor) starts explaining the WHY behind behavior in terms of evolution. Then, the main "worry" of living beings is not, as the cute letters of bugs and fish may suggest, about being normal, but about reproducing and spreading your genes. That does shoot a big hole in the theories espoused in Rick Warren's best-selling book, "The Purpose Driven Life". Not to mention some religious texts, like the best-selling book of all time.
I'm not going to provide a neat little resolution to this debate, not that I could even if I wrote a dissertation instead of a book review. I'm just going to recommend that you grab a copy of Dr. Tatiana and take yourself, the whimsical and weird of nature, and the evolutionary debate on the light side for a few hours. Learn a lot, laugh a lot, and celebrate the fact that in the United States, you can read about a subject from all different angles.
Author of "Hobo Finds A Home" and editor of "Of A Predatory Heart"
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