The Score: The Science of the Male Sex Drive

WHY ARE MEN WILLING TO WORK, TO PAY, TO SWEAT, AND TO RISK HUMILIATION IN ORDER TO GET SEX, EVEN IF THERE’S NO PROSPECT OF A REAL RELATIONSHIP?

Faye Flam, a science journalist and columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, makes it clear that the quest for sex is more than just driving force behind a man’s day-to-day behaviour.

The desire to ‘score,’ in fact, has shaped men over millions of years.

Sex is literally etched into the male mind and body.

Flam explores a wide range of male behaviours and courtships strategies.

Why do men seem to like pornography so much more than women do?
Are there human alpha males?
Are beta males doomed to life without sex?
Guys who like ‘granny porn’ notwithstanding, why is it that in humans beauty is equated with youth, while in bonobos-our close (and promiscuous) primate relatives-older females are the most sought after?
Where do homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual men fit into the picture?

Flam ultimately shows that males have been profoundly shaped by competing for females and the preferences of the female sex.

But after all this sex-propelled evolution, we’re still struck in a troublesome suspension between monogamy and promiscuity-and it’s this tension that explains the contradictions of the modern man.