I recently read this book, and thought that I would do a short review for everyone. So why is this book being reviewed on a blog that is supposed to be getting back to how our ancestors lived? Because it is basically about getting back to the sex of our ancestors. (What? that doesn't make sense. Please explain more). Okay I will. I think I'm going to continue to ask myself questions that you may be asking in parenthetical statements and then answer them. This is kind of like the comedian Jim Gaffigan, and also a lot like Sigmund Freud. They both seem pretty smart to me.
The book is a basic guide to increasing the sex life of married men everywhere. It focuses on evolutionary biology and how we as humans simply want to procreate. Therefore, women are looking for a suitable mate to impregnate them, and men are looking for a suitable woman to bear their offspring. The book states that in earlier times women simply wanted an Alpha male, which is basically the biggest bad ass available who could protect them and be a leader, but that things have now shifted. Women biologically still want a bad ass, but they also want someone caring. The trick is that we have to be both. (That doesn't sound fair to the guy, they have to be both???) Yeah I know that's what I thought. It makes perfect sense if you think about it though. Growing up, I was the nice guy, the girl's friend, the guy that treated all the women the way they wanted to be treated. Except none of the women were with me, they were with the "player." The guy that would make them feel horrible about themselves, but ultimately the guy that really just turned him on because he was an Alpha male.
Mr. Kay does a somewhat decent job explaining to the reader different ways to increase your sexual appeal towards your wife. These are tips on becoming more Alpha if you are primarily Beta (good guy) and more Beta if you are primarily Alpha (Bad ass). I found the tips to be somewhat lacking, and would have liked to see like a step by step process of becoming the most bad ass I can be while still maintaining the Beta. Although the vagueness of the process may be so that it is more suitable for many readers and gives an overall view of what should be happening. The book also talks about game theory somewhat, which is interesting, but seems really non useful at this point in my life, unless I want to get beat up by my wife (there I go being Beta again).
The book also goes into sex tips for increasing your sex life as well, which also seem to be pretty helpful. The book is sold in a PDF online, or you can order a copy. I chose the PDF because I didn't want my wife to see me reading it. I wanted to surprise her and see if she started responding to me differently because I was acting more Alpha. However, I thought it was really interesting how some of the stuff correlated with us and so I ended up telling her about it anyway. She will now joke and say "quit trying to be Alpha, you know you're a Beta." (ouch!)
I have implemented some of the book, and at this point it does seem to be working. While I am very interested in the adaptation of the human species, I still am not a complete naturalist and that is my major qualm with this book. It turns love and marriage into a biological union. Love is seen as a set of chemicals, the mystery or supernatural forces of it are basically taken away. Now some people may like that, but for me, I like to think of there being something more, some force greater than myself that moved me to marry my wife (He does mention this X factor that a man may just be more attracted to a woman just "because"). I believe that emotions play a strong role in a happy marriage, and while we definitely are genetically inclined to behave a certain way, those emotions are so strong and powerful that if we do not work on those emotions our marriage will not last.
I should note that I am a doctoral student in counseling psychology, so that has probably biased my view. I am also very into Emotion Focused Therapy, so I am into learning more about the emotional side of relationships. For more information on this book, check out Mr. Kay's blog www.marriedsexlife.com He updates rather frequently and talks about many of the concepts in the book. So you can basically learn it all for free. The book is just a more concise, version of the blog.
