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This classic work on the rules of sex – originally published in 1997 and updated for a new generation with a new preface and afterword by the author – is still as provocative as the day it was published, providing simple explanations for any and all questions about what happens in the bedroom.
Sex isn't as complicated as we make it. In Sperm Wars, evolutionary biologist Robin Baker argues that every question about human sexuality can be explained by one simple thing: sperm warfare. In the interest of promoting competition between sperm to fertilize the same egg, evolution has built men to conquer and monopolize women while women are built to seek the best genetic input on offer from potential sexual partners.
Baker reveals, through a series of provocative fictional scenes, the far-reaching implications of sperm competition. 10% of children are not fathered by their "fathers"; over 99% of a man's sperm exists simply to fight off all other men's sperm; and a woman is far more likely to conceive through a casual fling than through sex with her regular partner.
From infidelity, to homosexuality, to the female orgasm, Sperm Wars turns on every light in the bedroom. Now with new material reflecting the latest research on sperm warfare, this milestone of popular science will still surprise, entertain, and even shock.
Dr Robin Baker was born in Wiltshire, England in 1944, and grew up in the small village of Manningford Bruce in the Vale of Pewsey. After obtaining a First Class Honours degree in Zoology, then a PhD, at the University of Bristol, Robin Baker lectured in Zoology at the Universities of first Newcastle-upon-Tyne and then Manchester where, in 1981, he became Reader in Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences. In 1996 he left academic life to concentrate on his career in writing and broadcasting.
He has published over one hundred scientific papers and many books. These include the international bestseller Sperm Wars which was based on his own lab's original research on human sexuality and which has so far been translated into 23 languages. His work and ideas on the evolution of human behaviour have been featured in many television programmes around the world.
