Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People, by Joan Roughgarden
If you've ever read stories about “gay dolphins” and the like, you can thank the work of evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden.
Roughgarden's book Evolution's Rainbow has caused huge amounts of controversy since it was first published in 2004, depicting a natural world in which animals' lives are teeming with the same variety in their sex lives and behaviors as any human being— but without the moral outrage.
Alfred Kinsey supposedly once said that "The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform." Roughgarden takes that sentiment and runs with it, giving example after example of just how broad the spectrum of "natural" sex and gender really is in the animal world.
For instance, meet the bighorn sheep: macho males live apart from the females and have lots of anal sex to keep them occupied during the mating off-season. Then they rely on feminine males to broker sex between them and the ladies.
Same-sex swan couples happen to be far better parents than their hetero counterparts. Fish bros work together to get laid. Those doves aren’t actually monogamous. Through impeccable empirical evidence, Roughgarden opens up a world where humans aren’t the center of the universe, and animals have their own dramas and life cycles to get through.
Roughgarden also explores the world of science itself, shining a light on scientists who have refused to acknowledge that animals engage in homosexual behavior, or any gender roles that deviate from the classic Darwinian model of promiscuous males competing for picky females. Sometimes, it's just the opposite!
Narrated by the delightful Carrington MacDuffie.
--Aretha Bright
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