Authors Recommend

True Blood
HBO Series

HBO’s series, soon to enter its fourth season, is ostensibly about supernatural beasties, but is really about the very natural sexuality of human beings, and all the politics, hang-ups, and crimes that sex inspires.

The Evolution of Human Sexuality
by Donald Symons

Before this book, the study of human desire was almost entirely observational. With this wide-ranging and commanding book, Symons introduced the first theory of human sexuality that was able to explain a diverse range of sexual behaviors. Witty, interdisciplinary, ambitious, the book remains a core reading for anyone interested in the science of sex.

Blank Slate
by Steven Pinker

Perhaps the most important science book of the 2000s, this book only grows in stature and importance as the fundamental divide this book describes in the study of human behavior—cultural theory vs. the hard sciences—grows ever fiercer and more trenchant. This dense but richly rewarding book makes a persuasive case for the value of evolutionary theory and cognitive neuroscience when studying the mind.

Bonk
by Mary Roach

Roach is indisputably the wittiest science writer publishing these days. In Bonk, she explores some of the more peripheral—and more entertaining—examples of contemporary research in the science of sex.

Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why
by Simon LeVay

The most comprehensive and clear-eyed work so far on the neuroscience of the gay brain.

Is there Anything Good About Men?
by Roy Baumeister

If one wanted to name the most influential working social psychologist, Baumeister would have to be in the argument. In this provocative book, he examines how culture tends to devalue and exploit men, even as a lucky few men manage to fight their way to the top.

Vision and Art
by Margaret Livingstone

One of the most accessible, informative, and downright fascinating examples of practical cognitive neuroscience. Livingstone shows how great works of Western art affect us by tracing the neural processes underlying human vision

Kinsey
by Bill Condon

A look at the life and work of a remarkable person and scientist. Kinsey was the first to construct a detailed, scientific portrait of human sexuality while battling a conservative milieu and a hostile scientific establishment. The movie brilliantly captures why the objective study of human sexuality is so susceptible to the intrusions of emotion and morality.

Belle du Jour
by Luis Buñuel

This 1967 movie by Spanish-born director Luis Buñuel explores one of the most puzzling sexual cues that arouse the human brain: the forbidden.

Blog: Fetishes I don't get
by Alice Dreger

Alice Dreger trained in History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University (aka the Land of Kinsey), but she hasn’t let her Ph.D. in those disciplines stop her from wandering far afield. Her blog addresses hot topics in the science and politics of sexuality.

Blog: Savage Love
by Dan Savage

Dan Savage started his career as a sex-advice columnist with the satirical newsparer The Onion. No longer satirical, but still edgy and humorous, his syndicated relationship and sex-advice column Savage Love has been dispensing advice for two decades and is easily the most popular and recognizable one on the Internet.