And people of strong religious and moral bent were very distressed with what they perceived as encouraging marital infidelity. Others, however, felt relieved as the book made sense of worrisome behavior in themselves. His most difficult task in Wars , Dr. Baker concedes, has been making sense of rape. But one of the criteria a woman can add to her list when selecting a mate is the ability to overcome physical resistance. To test this, she has to resist first verbally, then physically.
Chromosomes have no conscience.
Oxford anthropologist Desmond Morris, whose book The Naked Ape did for the late 1960s what Sperm Wars does for the '90s, admires Dr. Baker's provocative work and bold thinking. He stirred up a hornet's nest in some quarters. He's challenging, but like all pioneers he's not necessarily right. For one thing, Morris feels Dr. Baker's book may give readers the impression multimating is much more frequent than it really is - that every family has at least one product of a rogue seed. Morris believes Dr. Baker's academic critics, e.g., Dr. Harcourt, are outraged for proprietary reasons, that a biologist has trespassed on zoological turf.