The Sexual Matrix : Boy Meets Girl on the Evolutionary Scale

This book contains a highly controversial treatment of a wide variety of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology topics, including behavioral gender differences, the psychodynamics of grooming, non-verbal communication, heredity of traits, mating & population dynamics, monogamy vs. polygamy, age-ism & longevity, beauty, brains, muscles & money, and human evolutionary prospects. Departing from the traditional academic approach of caution, hedging, and narrow focus, the author cuts directly to the chase. Concentrating on clear-cut gender differences in grooming behavior, he asks why, for example, do females grow their hair longer than males, use more cosmetics, and dress more colorfully. Using a combination of his keen observational and analytical skills, lucid writing, and sometimes-irreverent humor, he interweaves well-documented data and many wide-ranging topics into the "minimax principle of gender dynamics," a parsimonious theory of gender differences that has aroused the wrath of the mainstream politically correct academic community.

Why do girls have long hair?

Generally, I agree with the advice that it's best not to respond to one's critics, since it only encourages them. But in this case I fear that many readers who would otherwise enjoy "The Sexual Matrix: Boy Meets Girl on the Evolutionary Scale" will be scared off by some of the accompanying negative reviewer remarks.

It seems that the negative reviewers did not really read the book's title or the preface, to appreciate the unorthodox approach that I've adopted. Here are some more reactions to the book from the mainstream feminist/Marxist academic community: awful... preposterous... mindless...illogical... terrible... unscientific... a joke... ludicrous... ignorant... crackpot... pure crap... irresponsible... the worst... appalling!

Wow! If I'm to believe these critics I must really be stupid, despite the widespread popularity of my textbooks in multivariate statistical analysis. Clearly, I am not preaching to the choir in this book! You know that these critics are mainly hardcore feminists/Marxists because they still dominate much of academic thought and they are the only ones likely to be so rattled by my presentation, which collides head-on with their rigid belief systems.

And, as I have stated in the Preface, "...many of the conclusions presented in the book are so far removed from contemporary thought--including religious, scientific, and governmental doctrines--that most individuals will be initially freaked out by them, especially when certain propositions are considered out of their overall context and logical development...But I am confident that a unique minority of individuals will embrace the ideas presented in the book, and eventually make them more agreeable to all; with the attendant result that many of the major ills of contemporary civilization will become more transparent, and hence more amenable to change, creating a more positive world--the ultimate criterion for the validity of any form of communication."

Yes, I began by asking the child-like question of why girls have longer hair than boys (and display more variation in clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics), and yes, I do conclude that this is due to female competition for a limited number of desirable males to father their children; but most importantly, I conclude that this state of affairs implies that "polygamy" is the natural order among the human species as it is for most other animal species. Furthermore, I demonstrate how institutionalized monogamy can have a negative impact on the evolution of our human species, whether in terms of intelligence, productivity, beauty, longevity, or any other trait involved in mate selection. It is these latter conclusions, I think, that are the unspoken reasons for such negative reactions to the book.

If you have an open mind and are not afraid of confronting controversial issues head-on, you will enjoy this book. You might be outraged, enlightened, indignant, stimulated, amused, or all of the above. You might even scream or laugh out loud, which is all the better. At worse, you'll have learned something to disarm your friends and enemies alike. Enjoy.