Recently, I found myself trudging through the rain towards the Concord Bookstore. Post-new year, everyone is making resolutions and trying to get their lives together in time for 2020. Inspired by this, I skimmed over the few books on the science shelves before picking up Pascoe’s book. This book is impossible to overlook with its neon yellow cover featuring Pascoe in a black suit holding a banana. I mean, really. I read the title, chuckled, and flipped through the first pages.
This past summer, I read a nonfiction novel titled Aroused – The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything by Randi Hutter Epstein, so Pascoe’s Sex Power Money was not out of my wheelhouse. I did, however, suppress a laugh when the woman at the counter asked me if I wanted a bag (I did bag the book on account that the word “sex” seems to draw judgemental looks from elderly people).
First, let me tell you this woman is FUNNY. As well as having a successful career in comedy, Sara Pascoe is also an actress. I snapped a picture of the table of contents to my friend for a laugh (to name a few: Invention of Daddy, Sex and Chickens, An Internet History You Don’t Need to Delete, Men Should Pay) before curiously turning to the foreword.
Pascoe’s ability to utilize humor in discussion of highly charged material is impressive. She defines her project in the opening pages as; “people talk about ‘rape culture’ and ‘a culture of sexism,’ but I’m going to argue these things are not created by societies, but remnants of forces going much further back. This book is my attempt to persuade you that an evolutionary approach can occasionally make the most baffling human behaviours less mysterious.” Through this biological lens, Pascoe offers another view of our current society without excusing and/or promoting behaviours.
One of my favorite topics Pascoe writes about is in a chapter titled “Sex and Danger.” She describes a 1989 study conducted by Russell Clark and Elaine Hatfield in which college students were asked a series of questions by “stand in” students. One of the questions was “will you go to bed with me tonight?” Not surprisingly, 75 percent of male students agreed, while zero female students agreed. Pascoe explains that the results of this study go beyond supporting the steryeotype that men have a huge sex drive while women don’t. For example, imagine men are driving strong, reinforced cars around while females are driving unstable cars lacking seat belts. The men are obviously going to be driving faster than the females because they are not worried about their livelihood, right?
Interestingly enough, Pascoe believes it is not a fear of male violence that causes women to behave in ways that society labels as prudish. Rather, she believes it is due to the fact that “our bodies cannot forget the connection between sex and babies… our bodies canot un-know the toll of parental investment.”
In a society that is riddled with heated debates attempting to point fingers at the opposite sex, Sex Power Money is a refreshing reminder that we are both products of our evolution and are controlled by our hormones. This book is educational, witty, and did I mention it’s hilarious?