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Sex,
Time, and Power
How Women's Sexuality
Shaped Evolution
By Leonard Shlain Why did the
big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000
years ago? In this provocative new book, Leonard Shlain, author
of the bestselling Art & Physics and
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess, argues that profound alterations in
female sexuality hold the key to this mystery.
Long ago, due to
the narrowness of her bipedal pelvis and the increasing size of
her infants' heads, the human female began to experience high
childbirth death rates, precipitating a crisis for the species.
Women, facing the grave threat of dying during childbirth,
needed to grasp the link between sex and painful labor nine
months later. But, first, they had to learn how to to maneuver
in the dimensions of the future.
Natural selection
adapted her to this unique environmental stress by drastically
reconfiguring her hormonal cycles. Her estrus (heat) disappeared
and women acquired a menses (accompanied by heavy bleeding and
painful cramps, and began to experience orgasms), mysteriously
entrained with the periodicity of the moon. Women formulated the
concept of a month, which in turn allowed them to make the
connection between sex and pregnancy. Upon learning the majestic
secret of time, these ancestral females then gained the power to
refuse sex when they were ovulating. men were forced to confront
women who possessed a mind of their own.
Women taught men
about time, and men used this knowledge to become the planet's
most fearsome predator. Unfortunately, they also discovered that
they were mortal. Men then invented religions to soften the
certainty of death. Subsequently, they belatedly grasped the
function of sex. the possibility of achieving a kind of
immortality through heirs drove men to construct patriarchal
cultures whose purpose was to control women's reproductive
choices.
Leonard Shlain
explores how these archaic insights about sex, time, and power
dramatically altered all subsequent human culture, from the
nature of courtship to the origin of marriage to the evolution
of language, creating the conditions for two people to love each
other more deeply and longer than any other animal. Sex,
Time, and Power is a compelling book that challenges
accepted views of human sexuality and is sure to stimulate new
thinking about old matters.
--Publisher,
Viking (2003)
Another
compelling, scholarly, and thought-provoking contribution by
someone who thinks outside the box. Leonard Shlain's Sex,
Time, and Power brings a stimulating new perspective to the
question of what it means to be human.
--Donald Johnson, author of
Lucy: The Beginning of Mankind
Beautifully
written and rich in ideas, this boldly speculative work has
considerable explanatory power regarding the sweet mysteries of
love and life.
--Ann Druyan, coauthor with
Carl Sagan of Cosmos, Contact, and Shadows of Forgotten
Ancestors
Sex, Time, and
Power is a fascinating account that ranges over the entire
history of evolution in an effort to explain the mystery of
human sexuality. If Shlain sometimes goes too far in the right
direction--toward sociobiology--he always stretches your mind so
radically it will never return to its original shape.
--Sam Keen, author of Fire
in the Belly
Sometimes
incendiary, often hilarious, always, profound, Shlain offers a
masterpiece of ideas, and with it, a unique contribution to our
understanding of gender and history, sexuality, and evolution.
--Jean Houston, Ph.D.,
author of Jump Time and A Passion for the Possible
Here is another
masterful work by Leonard Shlain. the book is filled with
marvelous lore extending back to the origin of our species, and
with astute observations on intimate behavior.
--Richard Selzer, author of Mortal
Lessons
Sex,
Time, and Power
How Women's Sexuality
Shaped Evolution
By Leonard Shlain
Contents
| Preface: Iron/ Sex |
vii |
| Acknowledgements |
xix |
| Part I Iron, Sex, and Women |
|
| 1 Unknown Mother/African Eve |
3 |
| 2 Big Brain/Narrow Pelvis |
11 |
| 3 RedBlood/White Milk |
23 |
| 4 Plant Iron/Meat Iron |
39 |
| 5 Gyna Sapiens/Gyna All-the-Others |
45 |
| 6 Periods/Pelvis |
57 |
| 7 Her Climax/His Climax |
69 |
| 8 Grandmothers/Circumcision |
85 |
|
|
| Part II Iron, Sex, and Men |
|
| 9 Prey/Predator |
101 |
| 10 Carnivory/Vegetarianism |
117 |
| 11 Menarche/Mustaches |
137 |
| 12 Premenstrual Tension/Masturbatory Tension |
149 |
|
|
| Part III Sex and Time |
|
| 13 Moon/Menses |
165 |
| 14 Woo/I Do |
187 |
| 15 Anima/Animus |
209 |
| 16 Gay/Lesbian |
227 |
| 17 Same Sex/Hermaphrodite |
241 |
|
|
| Part IV Death and Paternity |
|
| 18 Mortality/Angst |
261 |
| 19 Superstition/Laughter |
275 |
| 20 Father/Mother |
289 |
| 21 Incest/Dowries |
307 |
| 22 Wife/Husband |
321 |
|
|
| Part V Men and Women |
|
| 23 Misogyny/Patriarchy |
355 |
| 24 Unknown Mother/African Eve/Modern Woman |
351 |
| |
|
| Epilogue |
367 |
| Notes |
371 |
| Bibliography |
387 |
| Illustration Credits |
403 |
| Index |
405 |
Contact: Yen Cheong, Senior Publicist, 212-366-2275 / yen.cheong@us.penguingroup.com |