Wild Sex

Birds do it, bees do it — every member of the animal kingdom does it, from fruit flies to blue whales. But if you think humans have a tough time dating, try having to do it while being hunted down by predators, against a backdrop of unpredictable and life-threatening conditions. The animal kingdom is a wild place – and it’s got mating habits to match. The sex lives of our animal cousins are fiendishly difficult, infinitely varied, often incredibly violent — and absolutely fascinating.In Wild Sex, Dr. Carin Bondar takes readers on an enthralling tour of the animal kingdom as she explores the diverse world of sex in the wild. She looks at the evolution of sexual organs (and how they’ve shaped social hierarchies), tactics of seduction, and the mechanics of sex. She investigates a wide range of topics, from whether animals experience pleasure from sex to what happens when females hold the reproductive power. Along the way, she encounters razor-sharp penises, murderous carnal cannibals, and spontaneous chemical warfare in an epic battle between the sexes.The resulting book is titillating, exhilarating, amusing, petrifying, alluring — and absolutely guaranteed to make you think about sex in a whole new way.

Dr. Carin Bondar received a PhD in population ecology from the University of British Columbia and has since hosted a variety of online and television programs, working with Scientific American, PBS Digital Studios and the Science Channel. She is currently the lead presenter on Discovery World's "Brave New World with Stephen Hawking." Her independent web series "Wild Sex" has engaged over 14 million viewers and was the subject of a presentation given at TED Global in Edinburgh in 2013 which received over 1.5 million views. She lives in British Columbia, Canada.