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Sex at Dawn

Stephen Lang and Henriette Klauser were incredibly generous in helping us put together a convincing book proposal. Our agent, Melissa Flashman, spent countless hours guiding us through the transition from proposal to manuscript. Unlike most agents, she kept reading and offering wise counsel throughout the entire publishing process, for which we are sincerely grateful. Many thanks to Ben Loehnen, our editor at HarperCollins, who believed in the book from the get-go (even while no doubt discreetly disagreeing with some of its content), and assistant editor Matthew Inman, for his rapid-response professionalism. Lisa Wolff did a first-class copyedit, catching more than a few potentially embarrassing mistakes. Those that snuck through or that we slipped in later are nobody’s fault but our own.

Frank Ryan (WBE), Stanton Peele, Stanley Krippner, Julie Holland, Britt Winston, and Steve Mason masochistically read and re-read early drafts of the entire messy manuscript. Their comments were sadistically honest, which is exactly what we needed. In addition to their crucial scholarship, Robert Sapolsky, Todd Shackelford, Helen Fisher, Daniel

Moses, and Frans de Waal contributed scarce free time to review parts of the manuscript.

Finally, we thank the following people (in random order) for the many kinds of support and encouragement they’ve given us: Michael and Mireille Lang, Brian O’Hare, Marta Cervera, Dorothianne Henne, Octavi de Daniel, Adam Mendelson, Richard Schweid, David Darnell, Senor Manolo Reyes, Matt Dondet, Mark Plummer, Cybele Tom, Sean Doyle, Santiago Suso, Victoria Ribera, Antonio Berruezo, Eric Patterson, Don Cooper, Martijn van Duivendijk, Peggy and Raul Rossel, Nacho and Leo Valls-Jove, Celine Salvans, Carmen Palomar Lopez, Anamargarita Otero-Robertson, Viram, Voodoo, Maria da Luz Venancio Guerreiro, Joao Alves Falcato, Mario Simoes, and Steve Taylor.

“Turns everything you thought you knew about sex on its head. A bold and unashamed assessment of the plentiful scientific data that illuminate the true origins and nature of human sexuality. Funny, engaging, and superbly written, Sex at Dawn explores the science behind what many of us suspected all along: human beings are not naturally monogamous.”

-Julie Holland, MD

author of Weekends at Bellevue

Since Darwin’s day, we’ve been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science—as well as religious and cultural institutions—has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man’s possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman’s fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages.

How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can’t be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. While debunking almost everything we “know” about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book.

Ryan and Jetha’s central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.

With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and Jetha show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.

In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do.