The Evolutionary Biology of Human Female Sexuality

ISBN-13: 9780195340983 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 424 str.

Randy Thornhill; Steven W. Gangestad

Opis

Research conducted in the last fifteen years has placed in question many of the traditional conclusions scholars have formed about human female sexuality. Though conventional wisdom asserts that womens estrus has been evolutionarily lost, Randy Thornhill and Steven W. Gangestad assert that it is present, though concealed. Women, they propose, therefore exhibit two sexualities each ovulatory cycleestrus and sexuality outside of the estrous phase, extended sexualitythat possess distinct functions. Synthesizing research in behavioral evolution and comparative biology, the authors provide a new theoretical framework for understanding the evolution of human female sexuality, one that is rooted in female sexuality and phylogeny across all vertebrate animals.

O autorze

Randy Thornhill is the Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico. He received his PhD in zoology from the University of Michigan in 1974. His research and teaching are in evolutionary biology, particularly the evolution of animal social life. Steven W. Gangestad is the Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. He received his PhD in 1984 from the University of Minnesota. His primary research is in evolutionary psychology and social/personality psychology. His general interests concern the ways in which humans' current psychological design is a product of evolutionary selection, and current research involves this issue in regard to phenomena that occur within close relationships such as sexual relationships, friendships, and familial relationships. Other research concerns the developmental expressions of adaptations.