If you are interested in biology, sociology, or any life science but don’t have the wherewithal to take on a dry scientific text, Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation is the book for you.
Dr. Tatiana, aka Olivia Hudson, holds a doctorate from Oxford and is a research fellow at the Imperial College of London. But don’t let that scare you. Hudson’s approach to teaching biology, specifically sexual biology, is to have various members of the animal kingdom write “Dear Abby” type letters to her Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
Here’s an example:
”Dear Dr. Tatiana,
I am a male shiner perch, and I’ve heard that loose women are taking over my species because they have more children than anyone else. How can I stop this dreadful fraying of the moral fiber of tomorrow’s perches?
–Outraged in Baja
Dr. Tatiana outlines for “Outraged” the possibilities for the females’ behavior: that the women are “hedging against male sterility,” but also that they may just be good-time girls.
Hudson’s wit is infused with real information about the history of science, from Darwin to modern theories of sexual behavior. Some of it is shocking: as her explanation about why necrophilia is sometimes acceptable in a humorous parody called The Deviant Lifestyle Show! or the advice to a female insect in which she tells the lovelorn bug “when it is acceptable to eat your lover.” Sometimes Hudson is tongue-in-cheek, for example when she advises a fish on “How to Have a Virgin Birth.” Although her “advice” is directed largely at the insect and piscine world, one cannot help but see the parallels to human sexual behavior.
—Jfwheeler 05:22, 21 March 2008 (PDT)
: Summaries
: Non-fiction
: Natural History