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RR 2015/294 The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality Edited by Patricia Whelehan and Anne Bolin Wiley Blackwell Malden, MA and Oxford 2015 3 vols ISBN 978 1 4051 9006 0 (print); ISBN 978 1 118 89687 7 (online) £350 $495 (print) Available electronically through the Wiley Online Library at: www.encyclopediaofhumansexuality.com
Keywords Encyclopedias, Sexuality
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-07-2015-0176
In various psychological, sociological and anthropological texts, I have come across widely differing calculations as to the number of times an hour the average human adult, male or female, thinks about sex. There is a brief entry on sexual fantasy tucked into these three volumes, but I was surprised not to find any detailed statistics on this topic. To the best of my recollection, however, all the sources I came across agree that thoughts about sex form an important part of human mental activity. This book does have a detailed entry for our biologically nearest relations - the Bonobo apes. Adult Bonobos apparently average four acts of full penetrative heterosexual intercourse a day (eight or nine times a day for females during oestrus) interspersed with numerous homosexual encounters (particularly among females), occasional masturbation, lengthy periods of mutual genital manipulation, etc. There is no way of telling whether Bonobos have sexual fantasies in between all this activity - I wouldn't have thought that they would have the time, but this at least gives us some idea of what our closest relatives think is important in life.
In the absence of any credible evidence for parthenogenesis, sex is the reason why we are all here. Any library catering for readers who wonder how and why people are here and why we think the way we do ought to welcome information sources on the subject of sex.
The first thing that struck me when looking through these volumes was the enormous number of people involved in editing. There are two editors-in-chief. There are 14 "area editors" - not geographical areas but subject areas. There are three advisory editors (one of them actually a librarian, from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, San Francisco). The acknowledgments thank a senior commissioning editor, an assistant commissioning editor, a development editor, a project director, a project manager and a production editor. The "inspiration for...