When I saw the press release for this book, it had the title "Men Are Scum" or something along those lines. I thought it would be a humorous book, full of exaggerated stories of how men are foolish and inept, etc. I'd looked forward to mocking it relentlessly. Also, it had something about sex in the title. In my vanity, I figured this would be a great traffic generator. The internet and sex are inseparable, after all. So, writing the word "sex" throughout my article and in the title would surely arouse interest.
I still get to write "sex", though; I was just off about this being an anti-men book. The title of the book is actually The Score: How the Quest for Sex Has Shaped the Modern Man and it's not referring to just intercourse. No, this book means sex as in "check the box, male or female". It's primarily about the development of the male of the species.
Faye Flam has been the general science writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1995, delving into the genetics of cancer, nuclear proliferation and politics effect on science. In 2005 she started a column called "Carnal Knowledge" and that seems to have been the starting point for this book. Flam has spent a few years now examining sex and she has become adept at writing about it. Her prose is riddled with scientific jargon and sarcastic asides and it flows together extremely well.
For The Score, she's focusing on the development of males. Of course, it approaches sexual behavior and the development of the sexes from an evolutionary standpoint. She starts, usually, with vignettes of pick-up artist classes or a bizarre case of sexual development; i.e., transsexuals or genetic mutation. Flam then tries to explain these events based on the examples of various animals that exhibit similar actions or developments.
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