Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Finally, a how-to guide, in the guise of a Q&A advice column, for marching, flying, or slithering into the battle of the sexes, whatever your species. In this entertaining and informative book, evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson presents "letters" from sexually frustrated animals, birds, and insects who ask "Dr. Tatiana" to explain some sexual oddity. For example, "Don't Wanna Be Butch in Botswana" writes, "I'm a spotted hyena, a girl. The only trouble is, I've got a large phallus. I can't help feeling that this is unladylike. What's wrong with me?" Each question leads Dr. T. into a fascinating explanation about the sex life of this species, sprinkled with sprightly stories about other species with similar attributes or behavior.

You'll learn why one stick-insect copulation lasts for 10 weeks (to prevent other males from gaining access to the fertile female) and why the black-winged damselfly's penis has bristles (to scrape out his rival's sperm). You'll learn that male and female orangutans masturbate with sex toys fashioned from leaves and twigs, that slugs are hermaphrodites with penises on their heads, and that females in more than 80 species eat their lovers before, during, or after sex. You'll also ponder human sexuality when you learn that "monogamy is one of the most deviant behaviors in biology" (although jackdaws, chinstrap penguins, California mice, and some termites swear by it) and "natural selection, it seems, often smiles on strumpets."

Highly recommended--you'll read this through just for the fun of it and have plenty of odd facts with which to dazzle your dinner companions. --Joan Price --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Those looking for prurient prose may be better off browsing their local adult bookstore, but readers intrigued by the bizarre facts surrounding animal whoopee (and really, who isn't?) should pay a visit to Dr. Tatiana, the alter ego of evolutionary biologist and journalist Judson. While her wryly salacious tone makes animal mating habits and evolutionary biology pretty racy, the book still reads more like a textbook than the Kama Sutra. Judson uses a tongue-in-cheek advice column format through much of the book, forging letters from dung flies, iguanas, sagebrush crickets and rodents ("Like, what's the deal? I'm a sleek young California mouse and am so in heat.") to explore reproductive biology. The device can be grating, and purists appalled by anthropomorphism may find themselves cringing as Judson chastises a male splendid fairy wren for philandering, while pronouncing his paddle crab counterpart a "gentleman." Still, Judson gets high marks for her copiously researched data. Perhaps most compelling is her chapter entitled "Aphrodisiacs, Love Potions, and Other Recipes From Cupid's Kitchen," in which the roots of animal homosexuality are examined. The reader will undoubtedly come away with reams of fascinating factoids, such as the nauseating dining habits of tropical cockroaches during copulation, and the pregnancies of the male seahorse and his cousin, the pipefish.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Birds do it, bees do it, but the question is how. To answer, journalist and evolutionary biologist Judson crafts an alter ego named Dr. Tatiana, who passes out sex advice to all the creatures in the universe.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
“Darwin titillated 18th-century London with his poem ‘The Loves of Plants.’ He never knew the half of it. Dr. Tatiana knows how the other half loves, and it’s much kinkier than anybody imagined. Never has science seemed more like daytime TV.” —Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen

“Perhaps the most original advice manual ever written . . . Judson has pulled off the rarest coup: a science book that’s actually fun to read.” —The New Republic

“Funny and blissfully original . . . Dr. Tatiana’s science is first-rate.” —The Economist

“Whimsical, irreverent and illuminating . . . A most amusing and educative book on animal sex.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Judson’s witty, well-researched vignettes are a guilty pleasure, natural history that goes down as sweet as a trashy tell-all.” —Outside

“Captivating . . . An evolutionary biologist with interesting and amusing things to tell us. —The Wall Street Journal

“Wonderfully entertaining and authoritative . . . A stimulating feast of extraordinary sexual practices.” —Nature
-- Review
Review
“Darwin titillated 18th-century London with his poem ‘The Loves of Plants.’ He never knew the half of it. Dr. Tatiana knows how the other half loves, and it’s much kinkier than anybody imagined. Never has science seemed more like daytime TV.” —Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen

“Perhaps the most original advice manual ever written . . . Judson has pulled off the rarest coup: a science book that’s actually fun to read.” —The New Republic

“Funny and blissfully original . . . Dr. Tatiana’s science is first-rate.” —The Economist

“Whimsical, irreverent and illuminating . . . A most amusing and educative book on animal sex.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Judson’s witty, well-researched vignettes are a guilty pleasure, natural history that goes down as sweet as a trashy tell-all.” —Outside

“Captivating . . . An evolutionary biologist with interesting and amusing things to tell us. —The Wall Street Journal

“Wonderfully entertaining and authoritative . . . A stimulating feast of extraordinary sexual practices.” —Nature


Product Description
“Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it’s sex education at its prime—accurate, comprehensive, and hilarious.” —Newsweek

An uproarious and authoritative natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation, this bestselling guidebook to sex reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters—such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.

At once entertaining and wise, Dr. Tatiana (a.k.a. Olivia Judson) fuses natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blends wit and rigor, and reassures her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal—so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin’s theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. By applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.


About the Author
With a bachelor of science from Stanford and a doctorate from Oxford, Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist and award-winning science journalist who has been published in The Economist, Nature, Science, and The Guardian, among other publications. She is currently a research fellow at Imperial College in London.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation:

Dear Dr. Tatiana, I'm a European praying mantis, and I've noticed I enjoy sex more if I bite my lovers' heads off first. Somehow they then seem less inhibited, more urgent-it's fabulous. Do you find this too? -- I Like 'Em Headless in Lisbon

Some of my best friends are man-eaters, but between you and me, cannibalism isn't my bag. I can see why you like it, though. Males of your species are boring lovers. Beheading them works wonders: whereas a headless chicken rushes wildly about, a headless mantis thrashes in a sexual frenzy. Why can't he be that way when he's whole?