Impulse: The Science of Sex and Desire

“Sexual behavior can be the most important aspect of life and simultaneously the most distressing,” contend psychiatry professors Grant and Chamberlain (Clinical Guide to Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders) in this lackluster take on sexuality. Sexual desire has complex social and biological components, the authors posit, noting that while some people have sex for the social reward of feeling wanted, on the biological side, research suggests that people with more activity in areas of the brain associated with sexual desire have higher sex drives. Grant and Chamberlain struggle to cover the broad scope of their subject and sometimes provide cursory glances at topics without weighing in, as when they mention a “concern that has been widely raised” about online pornography creating unrealistic expectations for sex but refrain from discussing if such concern is warranted. Material on LGBTQ sexuality is largely shunted to the penultimate chapter, “Diverse Aspects of Sex,” and the authors’ uncritical consideration of hypoactive sexual desire disorder ignores criticism of the diagnosis among the asexual community, compounding the authors’ overall silence on asexuality. There’s some stimulating research, but Grant and Chamberlain’s abbreviated treatment of sexual desire outside of normative heterosexual pairings fails to address the complexity and breadth of contemporary sexuality. This doesn’t deliver. (Feb.)