Sex at Dawn

By Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha 

Guns, Germs and Steel meets The Kinsey Report in this idea-driven, controversial book that challenges everything we know about sex, marriage, family, and society

Mainstream science presents a dismal view of human sexuality based on mutual exploitation: women use sex to get men’s resources, while men accrue wealth to “buy” a mate. Yet the true prehistory of our species presents a less conniving, if more ribald, story of human sexual nature. Rather than nuclear families built around monogamous couples, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá argue that humans evolved in interdependent, promiscuous groups. Based on their paradigm-busting interdisciplinary approach, Sex at Dawn weaves together compelling evidence from anthropology, primatology, anatomy, psychology, and psycho-sexuality to reframe our understanding of lust, monogamy and family.

Shocking, enlightening, and ultimately inspiring, Sex at Dawn features anecdotes that illuminate “normal” sexuality in obscure societies from the African bush to the jungles of the Amazon to the foothills of the Himalayas. Ryan and Jethá show how human beings everywhere confront familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways.