Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation

by Olivia Judson

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Dr. Tatiana was born in Oliver Morton’s kitchen, with Oliver himself, Jonathan Rauch, Anthony Gottlieb, Brian Barry, and Peter David attending as midwives. Without their help, she would never have come into being. She made her debut in The Economist. Many thanks to Bill Emmott for permission to draw on that first column for this book.

  An enormous number of people have contributed to this book, whether by answering queries, helping hunt down obscure scientific papers, catching errors, commenting on parts of the manuscript, or simply letting me talk their ears off as I wrestled with ideas and arguments. For help with particular subjects or organisms, I would like to thank Phil Agnew, Matz Berggren, Philippe Bouchet, Stuart Butchart, Bill Cade, Tracey Chapman, Adam Chippindale, Andrew Cockburn, Bryan Danforth, Anne-Katrin Eggert, David Funk, David Gems, Darryl Gwynne, Peter Henderson, René Hessling, Rolf Hoekstra, Laurence Hurst, David Mark Welch, Nico Michiels, Christine Nalepa, Steve Palumbi, Charlie Paxton, Scott Pitnick, Heather Proctor, Bill Rice, Scott Sakaluk, Janet Shellman, Steve Shuster, Leigh Simmons, Mike Siva-Jothy, Donald Steinkraus, Willie Swanson, David Tarpy, Scott Taylor, Ethan Temeles, Barbara Thorne, Fritz Vollrath, Dave Walter, Stuart West, Martin Wikelski, Kenneth Yeargan, and Larry Young. The staff of several libraries were extremely helpful; but special thanks to the staff in the entomology library of London’s Natural History Museum, who were tireless in helping me dig out information on obscure insects. Thanks, too, to Imperial College for the free run of their facilities. I am grateful to Ursula Mittwoch, who, in a letter responding to my column in The Economist, drew my attention to problems with Bateman’s principle and prompted me to inspect the subject more closely. Thomas Bataillon, Austin Burt, Isabelle Chuine, Elodie Gazave, Philippe Jarne, Nicholas Judson, Thomas Lenormand, Armand Leroi, Yannis Michalakis, Ben Normark, Michel Raymond, François Rousset, and Denis Roze were regular and stimulating sounding boards; their suggestions and good humor were indispensable.

  Peter Barnes, Thomas Bataillon, Bruce Greig, Greg Hurst, Ben Normark, Andrew Pomiankowski, Michel Raymond, Mark Suzman, and Stuart West kindly agreed to be guinea pigs for an early draft of part one; Austin Burt, Barbara Mable, and Da
vid Mark Welch read a draft of the final chapter; Caroline Daniel, Thomas Lenormand, François Rousset, Anthony Shewell, and Mark Suzman read the entire manuscript. Many thanks to all of them for helpful comments and vigorous criticisms. Bill Hamilton was the first to alert me to the problem of the evolution of sex, and to the extraordinary variety of sexual practices out there in nature. This book grew out of the work that I did with him during my doctorate, and I am sorry that he did not live to meet Dr. Tatiana.

  Many thanks to Georges Borchardt and DeAnna Heindel for helping make this project a reality. To Alison Samuel and Penny Hoare at Chatto, and to John Sterling and Sara Bershtel at Metropolitan, for whom waiting for Dr. Tatiana must have sometimes felt like waiting for Godot, I owe particular thanks for encouragement and patience throughout. Many thanks, too, to Penny Hoare, Roslyn Schloss, Shara Kay, and above all to Sara Bershtel and her colleague Riva Hocherman, for comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript.

  Dr. Tatiana was blessed with an array of agony uncles: I am forever indebted to Dan Haydon, Horace Judson, Gideon Lichfield, and Jonathan Swire, all of whom read and reread draft after draft of chapter after chapter, gave suggestions that showed me paths through difficult thickets, and helped me break through bouts of writer’s block, all the while providing boundless encouragement at all hours of the day and night.

  I’ve been lucky to have had inspirational surroundings. I made most of the conceptual breakthroughs while staying at the Hotel de l’Orange, in Sommières, France. Philippe de Frémont and his family welcomed a stranger, and provided a tranquil and beautiful sanctuary (and incidentally, improved my French). Jonathan Swire generously lent me Mosewell, an idyllic setting for writing. Sir John and Lady Swire, and Barnaby and Camilla Swire pampered the hermit who’d landed in their midst and gave me enormous encouragement and enthusiasm (not to mention, offering fabulous distractions that tempted me away from Dr. Tatiana for a few hours here and there). To Philippe and to the Swires, I cannot adequately express my gratitude.

  Finally, I must thank Horace, for always being encouraging; Nicholas, for always laughing, and for plundering distant libraries for obscure papers on my behalf; my late mother, who taught me to play practical jokes (though she would’ve pretended to find Dr. Tatiana shocking); Mark, who rashly suggested I write a book about sex in the first place and had the misfortune to bear the brunt of the consequences; and Jonathan, for everything.

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages of your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  For specific species see the notes section.

  abalone

  abortion

  abstinence

  accidents

  aggression

  dominance relationships mediated by

  female phallus evolved for

  monogamy and

  alligators

  altruistic behavior

  amoebae

  androecium (“small man room”)

  androgens

  see also testosterone

  anhydrobiosis

  ants

  aphids

  aphrodisiacs

  armadillo

  asexual reproduction

  see also cloning

  asexuality

  benefits of

  and extinction

  success of

  asexuals

  ancient

  evolutionarily short-lived

  and harmful mutations

  and parasites

  see also clones

  bacteria

  Bateman, A. J.

  Bateman’s principle

  bats

  battle of the sexes

  experiments changing

  and origin of species

  outcomes of

  bees

  beetles

  bestiality

  big balls

  bindin

  birds

  bison

  blood drinking

  bodyguards

  bonellin

  brothers, lekking with

  bugs

  butterflies and moths

  Caenorbabditis elegans

  see worms, round

  Caesar, Julius

  cannabalism

  escape from

  intrauterine

  and origin of sex

  platonic

  sexual

  on sighting a sexy female

  cats (lions, cheetahs, etc.)

  chastity belt

  chemicals

  in seminal fluid

  Chesterfield, Lord

  child care

  evolution of

  males help with

  children

  inbred

  more and healthier produced by promiscuous females

  murdered and eaten

  of siblings

  chloroplasts

  ciliates

  clitoris

  copulating and giving birth through

  enlarged

  clones

  vulnerability to disease

  see also asexuals

  cloning

  see also asexual reproduction, asexuality

  coalitions

  cockroaches

  comb jellies/ctenophores

  competition

  being judged in

  females

  see also sperm competition

  concerted evolution

  conflict between the sexes

  genes for homosexuality in

  see also battle of the sexes

  convenience polyandry

  copulation

  cannibalism and

  gifts and

  in hermaphrodites

  crabs(horseshoe)

  crickets, katydids, and grasshoppers

  crimes of passion

  crocodiles

  cultural pressures, and monogamy

  cytoplasm

  damselflies

  Danger Theory of Monogamy

  Darwin, Charles

  death

  in sex

  deer

  defense of territories

  males helping females in

  size and

  deselection

  dik-dik

  diseases

  genetic

  infectious

  recessive genes and

  susceptibility to

  dismemberment

  dolphins

  dominance relationships

  mediated by aggression

  dominant genes

  Drosophilia, see flies, fruit

  dueling

  dugongs

  eggs

  female size and

  fertilization

  genetic basis of abiity to fertilize

  sperm size and fertilization of

  food for sex and

  hermaphrodites

  selecting sperm

  stimulation to release

  stolen

  Egypt

  elephants

  environment

  and hermaphroditism

  and outbreeding depression

  in sex determination

  Escherichia coli

  Escovopsis

  evolution

  of asexuality

  in battle of the sexes

  of child care

  cloning and

  of close incest

  concerted

  of countermeasures to cannibalism

  of countermeasures to violence

  of female promiscuity

  of hermaphrodites

  of males and females

  of mechanisms to avoid inbreeding

  of monogamy

  mutation in

  of ornaments

  of penis

  sex central to

  of sexes

  of sexu
al pleasure

  extinction

  abstinence leads to

  asexuality and

  F plasmid

  female promiscuity

  for food

  genetic incompatibilities in

  to get male help

  hedge against sterility theory of

  more and healthier children from

  obfuscation theory of

  in sex mania

  sperm competition theory of

  sperm shape and size and

  female reproductive tract

  blocking

  hostile to sperm

  females

  attracted to groups

  evolution of

  factors limiting reproduction in

  fighting

  homosexuality

  hostility toward other females

  leks

  males disguised as

  males helping

  man-eaters

  and mate’s mistress(es)

  phallus on

  prefer to mate with virgins

  preference for ornaments

  promiscuity of

  provoke fighting

  rejecting sperm

  resistance by

  sex mania

  shortage of

  supposed chastity

  ferret

  fertilization

  genetic basis of ability

  internal

  sperm attaching to egg in

  see also eggs, fertilization; self-fertilization/selfing

  fighting

  to the death

  among females

  among males

  among hermaphrodites

  importance of size in

  figs

  fish

  Fisher, Ronald

  Fisher’s runaway process

  flies

  balloon

  dance

  flies (cont’d)

  flesh

  fruit

  house

  moth

  parasitic

  seaweed

  stalk-eyed

  yellow dung

  see also midges