And other reflections on being human
Jesse Bering takes readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior.
Jesse Bering takes readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior.
Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does “free will” really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway?
In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering features more than thirty of his most popular essays from Scientific American and Slate, as well as two new pieces, that take readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality, and serious questions about life and death, Bering astutely covers a generous expanse of our kaleidoscope of quirks and origins.
With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you’re interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current mystique and phallic physique, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come.
Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
July 3, 2012
9780374532925
5.5 × 8.2 in / 320 pages
“This book could fuel a score of dinner-party conversations…this is more than some scientific stocking-filler: it uses science to unsettle our most embedded assumptions. It is deeply thought-provoking.”
Sunday Times
“Anyone familiar with [Bering’s] columns knows the goofy, self-deprecatory way he has of digesting lofty concepts. This book . . . is a prime specimen.”
Newcity Lit
"Excellent in its entirety, woven of Bering’s rare tapestry of scientific rigor and a powerful, articulate social point of view.”
Brain Pickings
“Bering has an uncanny way with words, an incisive capacity for logical thinking, and a stunning talent for breathing new life and enthusiasm into science.”
Gordon Gallup
“If David Sedaris were an experimental psychologist, he’d be writing essays very much like these. Bering’s unique blend of scientific knowledge, sense of humor, intellectual courage, and pure literary skill is immediately recognizable; no one writes quite the way Bering does. Read this book. You’ll learn, laugh, and then learn some more.”
Christopher Ryan, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Sex at Dawn
“Jesse Bering is the intellectual spawn of Helen Fisher and Oliver Sacks, and Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is brainy, informative, compassionate—and hilariously naughty.”
Amy Dickinson, New York Times bestselling author and NPR personality
If you’d like to follow along with Jesse’s writings – he finally has a new book in development! – just add your email address below.
Jesse is Head of the Department of Science Communication at the University of Otago.
