Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free

Martin (Primates of Park Avenue) brings an energetic and scientific curiosity to female infidelity in this chatty, thoughtful work. Combining first-person introspection, interviews with both experts and ordinary women, and research, Martin interrogates social assumptions about this taboo. She speaks with experts, including biophysicist Meredith Chivers, psychologist Marta Meana, and sociologist Alicia Walker, who have contributed to contemporary discourse challenging the preconception that women’s sex drives are biologically lower than men’s. Primatologists such as Sarah Blaffer Hrdy challenge the idea that female biology enforces monogamy in human as well as animal society. Martin reviews societal shaming of female sexual desire in multiple cultures and time periods; investigates how infidelity overlaps with and differs from polyamory and other types of consensual nonmonogamy; discusses how black women’s sexuality is influenced by racism; and illuminates how the male partners of unfaithful women react (often, not as one might expect). She concludes that financial independence seems to most directly predict whether women have, and exercise, autonomy over their sex lives. Martin’s thoroughly researched reconsideration of female sexual desire and infidelity will broaden readers’ understanding of women, sex, and monogamy. [em](Sept.) [/em]