"Untrue"

(Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free)
-by wednesday martin
2018
Sometimes, when a subtitle is so spot-on, a review can feel almost superfluous. What else needs be said?
I tend to prefer science books by scientists, but occasionally there's a brilliant exception - step right up, wednesday (author of "Primates of Park Avenue")! She synthesizes the newest research, and offers interviews of both researchers and ordinary (mostly female) people caught up the struggle of trying to be free, self-determined sexual humyn beings. She mines nuggets from her own life, and renders all in beautiful prose. In short, this is THE book to give to anyone eager (or willing) to question the ancient scripts we keep teaching ourselves about wimyn's "natural" sexuality. Wimyn are passive, shy, and highly selective, seeking only that one "perfect" mate to be true to?
Well...
We keep trying to contort ourselves into that model...an easier task for men, for whom it grants infinitely more sexual freedom and variety. Wimyn who would claim their own sexual autonomy face enormous censure at best - and at worst, unending economic obstacles or punishments plus violent, even fatal retribution.
Martin shows how wimyn have always embraced the opportunity to pursue sexual variety when cultural conditions shift to give them more freedom. She shows the wild worlds of female "promiscuity" which can be found in pre-agricultural (or pre-plow) cultures. She rolls out a parade of statistics which have been glacial in surfacing, because few secrets are more destructive than sexual truth...but new studies show that men and wimyn cheat at roughly the same rates. She explores the realities of non-binary people, and people of color. She offers the latest research on the sex lives of other primates. She describes cultures where monogamy is an option, but considered "stingy". She investigates the ever-increasing numbers of polyandrous families and consensually non-mongamous couples. She attends a Skirt Club party, where wimyn go to socialize, network, and have casual canoodlings. She explores the flourishing online worlds where wimyn seek sexual satisfaction outside their mated unions, plus cuckoldry sites where men encourage, facilitate, and participate in their wives being "untrue". She invokes MHC studies, which show that sex is all about smell, and smell is about perceiving which mate would be best for offspring. She shows studies which show that wimyn may have greater sex drives than men. And she ultimately offers the largest truth, that we all basically want the same things - great sex and deep connection. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we step out of the shadows of hypocrisy, double standards, and life-crushing repression.
A fantastic book for awkward teens, exhausted geriatrics, and everyone in between.