Sex at Dawn

How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

By: Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson, Jonathan Davis, Christopher Ryan (Preface)

Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science - as well as religious and cultural institutions - has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages.

How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book.

Ryan and Jetha's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.

BONUS AUDIO: Includes a Preface written and read by author Christopher Ryan.

©2010 Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha (P)2010 Audible, Inc

Critic reviews

"A surprisingly non-titillating book about sex among prehistoric people makes for a terrific audio adaptation...With their straightforward approach, the narrators show professionalism and authority in this anthropological discussion of sex." ( AudioFile)

“ Sex at Dawn is the single most important book about human sexuality since Alfred Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behavior in the Human Male on the American public in 1948.” (Dan Savage)

"My favorite book of 2010...it's the only book I read this year that proved that I was badly mistaken about something." (Peter Sagal, host of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!)

im just a dumb male and i loved this book

this book is fantastic. there are a lot of eye opening, thought provoking topics that have changed things that i thought i knew.
the dual narration was a nice touch. having a woman and a man keeps the book from sounding sexist in either direction.
id have to say the best quality this book has is this-
it builds up women, without bringing down men.

Paradigm Shifting Perspective on Sexuality

The way that I look at the world and the relationship that we have within it has been altered in a way that I can’t even measure yet. I am not sure how this will affect my personal life, but it is guaranteed to do so in a very provocative way. Well worth the read.

Super good info. Listen on 1.5 speed

Narrator sucks. Listen fast and you can absorb a ton of amazing info. Good for history sociology psychology.

Excellent!!

This book explores our cultural assumptions about sex and relationship. If your own knowing has never quite aligned with those ideas, this book will bring scientific, sociological, and historical context which may support what you've always known. It certainly did for me, and in a way that I had not encountered before. I'll be re-reading it for sure!

I'd you're content with the status quo, this may not be the book for you.

Eye opening

Every human being should read this book to get a basic understanding of some of our primitive instincts.

Extraordinary book!

Perfect chronological narrative about sex, it’s evolution and how human ignorance keep pushing for the same mistakes recommended by western virgin white males from all known ages.

Eye opening info. but I'm skeptical

I had never heard about most of the research I'm this book.

The authors make many excellent points about the nature of human sexuality, from a perspective which is wholly unfamiliar to me.

The only major issue I take is that is seems actively biased against marriage and monogamy.

As fascinating as that idea may be, we live in a world that encourages marriage and monogamy... even though both concepts fail miserably in practice.

Great research.

It just wasn't quite the book I thought it would be.

This book has brought clarity to my life

Great listen!
The book really helped solve numerous mysteries about me and how I feel about this almost scripted life. with more intensity I feel that I can be more true to myself due to the refreshing perspective presented here about love sex marriage and pleasure among many other things.

Authors Should Have Been Involved

I love this book and have read it myself before listening to it here. It is written in a very conversational, personalized tone. But when read by professional voice over talent, it sounded more clinical and less interesting to me. Add to that the embarrassingly obvious choice of using tribal music to allude to the fact that ancient human behavior would be discussed, and you can't help rolling your eyes at times as you are listening. I find myself thinking that if the authors had been involved, this audiobook would have had a more engaging and contemporary feel, and less of a wild animals in the bush documentary feel.

excellent

enlightening and entertaining. good to know that the things I feel bad about wanting are evolutionary appropriate.