Reddit mentions of The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness

I'm pretty leery of studies that conclude biological facts from things that are clearly (even explicitly) influenced by culture.

> "Men want sex more often than women at the start of a relationship, in the middle of it, and after many years of it," Baumeister concludes after reviewing several surveys of men and women. This isn't just true of heterosexuals, he reports: gay men also have higher frequency of sex than lesbians at all stages of the relationship. Men also say they want more sex partners in their lifetime, and are more interested in casual sex.

I remember reading somewhere that women are probably less interested in casual because the probability of orgasm is so low for them, and if the question is rephrased to include orgasm, the rates of interest in casual sex are close to equal between the sexes (can't find reference for this, sorry). Is that a difference in sex drive between the sexes or just common sense for women?

Historically, evolutionary biological theories of human sexuality are so gendered they are practically useless. They start by only considering reproductive sex as important, therefore anything other than vaginal intercourse is discarded. Researchers universally assumed competition between the sexes, rather than thinking of sex as a social feature that evolved alongside the development of cooperation, altruism, and living in communities. They also start by assuming male heterosexual sexual desire as the norm, and then try to explain anyone who doesn't fit that model.

New thinking has emerged in this field recently, and (surprise) it is revealing that human sexuality is complicated and nuanced and not easily broken down into a listicle on a pop-sci website. While we wait for more meaningful theories to migrate from academia into popular culture, we can expect more "men are like this, women are like that" articles.

tl;dr: This article is based on outdated theories, superficial, and useless.