Sexual Landscapes: Why We Are What We Are, Why We Love Whom We Love

In SEXUAL LANDSCAPES, sociobiologist and sexologist James Weinrich provides the reader with more detail about sexual orientation (especially comparing heterosexual and homosexual patterns) than almost any other work on sex. Often humorous, Weinrich combats what he calls the general "sexual taboo" with assertions such as "sex and love are spectacular...how curious that everyone goes around pretending that they are not spectacular at all." In the first chapter, he cites the universality, addictive properties, and adaptive aspects of sex and love-and devotes another chapter to "The S*x Taboo." And in a note about possible funding for studying orgasms in female rhesus monkeys, he writes, "if the Kinsey and Hite statistics are to be believed, the committees judging such a proposal can be presumed to have many male members who don't even care if their wives have orgasms, not to mention whether female monkeys do." Weinrich analyzes studies on "sissies" and "tomboys"-and particularly the gender crossing of berdaches (men who take the role of women in Native American tribes). He asks what role such people played in the overall reproductive strategy of human groups. From a sociobiological and evolutionary point of view, he wants to know what is "right," adaptive, or positive about such people because they are much too numerous to be mere genetic mutations (as perhaps transsexuals may be). He asks and tries to answer a series of puzzles including "The Erotica Puzzle"; "What Is Bi About Bisexuals?"; "Pseudolesbian Porn"; "The Little-Girls/Teenaged-Male-Buttocks Puzzle"; and "The Exhibitionism Puzzle." In the course of this wide-ranging review and series of studies, he provides a preliminary periodic table or taxonomy of love. He sets up a matrix that places the major categories of sexual orientation according to a two-factor biological model (embryonic development) of defeminization and masculinization-and a behavioral continuum of mounting and mount-receiving. He also proposes a theory of lust (sexual impulse for a certain type of person or love object) and limerence (erotic-love response to a particular person, perhaps developed over time), which explains some male-female differences. He quips, "if your love is blind, then it's limerence. If your love is blond, then it's lust." Weinrich's support for this model is impressive. He draws on research from anthropology, psychology, animal research, and biology and sexology in general. Occasionally, Weinrich gets too detailed and esoteric for the average reader-but those who wade through such rough parts will be rewarded with some thought-provoking insights or a good laugh. Anyone interested in the sociobiological basis of sexual orientation will be richly rewarded by reading SEXUAL LANDSCAPES.