Wednesday 21 December 2011

A Billion Wicked Thoughts

My book of the year. 
Two bold young neuroscientists have initiated a revolution in the scientific study of sexual attraction. Before Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, the only researcher to systematically investigate sexual desires was Alfred Kinsey, who surveyed 18,000 middle-class Caucasians in the 1950s. But Ogas and Gaddam have studied the secret sexual behavior of more than a hundred million men and women around the world. Their method?  They observed what people do within the anonymity of the Internet.

There is so much in this book I want to say to the world that it makes it impossible to give a decent synopsis: you really do have to read it all. It speaks to both sexes equally, is extremely funny, & there are no dull bits - every chapter is a highpoint. I only wish I had a crate of them so I could hand them out to everyone i met. I may post more about this in the future but for now just a tiny (& woefully inadequate) sample:

4 comments:

  1. B-but, but...I thought we were all blank slates, and our reactions to stimuli as well as our tastes were all artificially imposed on us by a big, bad evil patriarchy and its cultural norms.

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    1. Tabula Rasa? But that was a thought experiment that philosophers used to paint thought-pictures with back before Immanuel Kant.

      I mean, haven't these sort of people even read things like Chomsky's wholesale slaughter of Behaviorism, that shows that we DO have innate thoughts.

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  2. Oh my God, you're right!

    I suppose I'd best take this down then..

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  3. I really enjoyed reading this book. At first I was turned off by the writing style. It is written with a sense of humor.
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