Phallacy
Life Lessons from the Animal Penis
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Narrated by:
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Emily Willingham
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By:
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Emily Willingham
About this listen
A wry look at what the astonishing world of animal penises can tell us about how we use our own.
The fallacy sold to many of us is that the penis signals dominance and power. But this wry and penetrating audiobook reveals that in fact nature did not shape the penis - or the human attached to it - to have the upper...hand.
Phallacy looks closely at some of nature's more remarkable examples of penises and the many lessons to learn from them. In tracing how we ended up positioning our nondescript penis as a pulsing, awe-inspiring shaft of all masculinity and human dominance, Phallacy also shows what can we do to put that penis back where it belongs.
Emphasizing our human capacities for impulse control, Phallacy ultimately challenges the toxic message that the penis makes the man and the man can't control himself. With instructive illustrations of unusual genitalia and tales of animal mating rituals that will make you particularly happy you are not a bedbug, Phallacy shows where humans fit on the continuum from fun to fatal phalli and why the human penis is an implement for intimacy, not intimidation.
This program includes a downloadable PDF that contains illustrations from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Emily Willingham (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"This is a hilarious tour through a menagerie of dicks, and a ferocious guide to not being a dick yourself.” (Ed Yong, New York Times best-selling author of I Contain Multitudes)
“Phallacy is Dr. Emily Willingham's detailed, insightful, and funny cross-species biography of the penis. It's an entertaining romp that is as much about evolution as it is about emotion and egos. It shines a light on how we became so penis-centric and the resulting repercussions for science, society, and sex.” (Jen Gunter, MD, New York Times best-selling author of The Vagina Bible)
“Exuberantly witty and scathingly subversive, Willingham’s Phallacy takes a long-overdue look at the myriad ways that putting the penis, and maleness in general, at center stage have skewed many fields of scientific inquiry, from the study of evolution to Freud’s fulminations on psychoanalysis. An important and timely book.” (Steve Silberman, New York Times best-selling author of NeuroTribes)
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Story
It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin explains, it's also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be.
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Just a bunch of random animal behaviors.
- By Goddess on 05-18-23
By: Dan Riskin
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Vagina Obscura
- An Anatomical Voyage
- By: Rachel E. Gross
- Narrated by: Siho Ellsmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means “parts for which you should be ashamed”. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a man. Named, claimed, and shamed: Welcome to the story of the female body, as penned by men. Today, a new generation of (mostly) women scientists is finally redrawing the map. With modern tools and fresh perspectives, they’re looking at the organs traditionally bound up in reproduction—the uterus, ovaries, vagina—and seeing within them a new biology of change and resilience.
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poor narration
- By Jane on 08-23-22
By: Rachel E. Gross
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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Sex in the Sea
- Our Intimate Connection with Kinky Crustaceans, Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep
- By: Marah J. Hardt
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Forget the Kama Sutra. When it comes to inventive sex acts, just look to the sea. There we find the elaborate mating rituals of armored lobsters; giant right whales engaging in a lively threesome while holding their breath; full-moon sex parties of groupers; and daily mating blitzes by blueheaded wrasse. Deep-sea squid perform inverted 69s while hermaphrodite sea slugs link up in giant sex loops.
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How to laugh while learning/ learn while laughing
- By Miamigrrl on 07-27-16
By: Marah J. Hardt
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The Most Perfect Thing
- By: Tim Birkhead
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shapes they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of eggshells created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first - the blunt end or the pointy end?
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Great book about eggs!!
- By Timothy on 03-24-21
By: Tim Birkhead
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The Ancestor's Tale
- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.
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Please do an unabridged version!
- By MovieExpertise on 09-29-16
By: Richard Dawkins
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Our Inner Ape
- A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we?
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I loved this book
- By Ruth on 06-22-07
By: Frans de Waal
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The Blind Watchmaker
- Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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The Bonobo and the Atheist
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In this lively and illuminating discussion of his landmark research, esteemed primatologist Frans de Waal argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution. For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness.
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Great research on apes, bad research on humans
- By Christian Bonnell on 07-18-14
By: Frans de Waal
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What a Fish Knows
- The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
- By: Jonathan Balcombe
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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An underwater exploration that overturns myths about fishes and reveals their complex lives, from tool use to social behavior. There are more than 30,000 species of fish - more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But for all their breathtaking diversity and beauty, we rarely consider how fish think, feel, and behave.
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Title misled me
- By Margaret Weidemann on 08-12-17
What listeners say about Phallacy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rawrianna
- 03-25-22
Lots of bookmarks!
First book I’ve listened to that I made it a point to save bookmarks for hilarious moments I wanted to remember to tel people about later. So great and entertaining!
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- Jerri
- 10-02-20
Seminal stuff. Buy this book - you won't get shaft
Brilliant author and scientist takes on a hard topic and creates an interesting read that won't go over your head. Seriously, it was very interesting. Dr. Emily Willingham has written what should be the go-to book on animal di**s. I listened to the audiobook and found the author's voice pleasant and thoroughly enjoyed her wit.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Graybrick
- 01-23-21
Hard to listen to. Good science. Too much bias.
Voice is hard to listen to. Science part in middle is good. Beginning and end are not about science - more authors opinion and bashing.
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- Jim Huss
- 01-13-24
Science isn't fair sometimes
At first, the occasional biases presented by the author are a little annoying. But after some quick introspection realizing the title of the book is a play on words and that science by its very nature is incredibly biased, especially in terms of male and female differences, such quick diversions by the author become a welcome and enjoyable aspect of the book. As well as it is an incredibly informative book and a fun read.
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- Jason van Niekerk
- 10-26-23
Fascinating, skewering, snarkastic
This book is exactly what I needed: for years I’ve been the specific type of dude both genuinely fascinated by what animal penises illustrate about evolution, and likely to bring up examples at parties.
Emily Willingham provides an encyclopaedia’s worth of such examples, which is fun, but she also methodically anatomises the gaps and blind spots that have persisted in the literature because dudes were focused on dude questions, and shows how much more we can learn by broadening perspectives and research questions.
So I have far more examples for parties, but much more perspective on how much of what I used to say has to be revised and unlearned, which is truly useful.
Best of all, Willingham approaches all of this with an entertaining, merited, sarcasm, which really comes across where she inserts what are footnotes in the text as snarky asides. I generally enjoy author-read work, but this on in particular has a nuance of tone I’m glad to have heard her perform.
The concluding bit of cultural analysis seems a bit more rushed than the more detailed bulk of the book, but I genuinely appreciate having enough context to recognise “kind of dude who talks about animal penises at parties” to be something that emerged in the wake of the publication of one amateur comparative anatomy poster (which Willingham doesn’t think too highly of, and she has proved her standing as a judge of these things).
There are many, many things I won’t be able to think of the same way because of this book, including many of my previous assumptions.
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- jb
- 11-07-20
Feminist Cry
I bought this book because I thought it was going to be an interesting book about human and animal penises and evolution from a biological standpoint. However, it is clear that the author is a staunch feminist and has allowed her view to influence her writing. At many times, it feels like she is insulting the male gender.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Samantha
- 07-28-22
Not what I was expecting
I bought this book thinking it would be an insightful look into the world of animal physiology & behavior.
Instead the author frequently bashs men and includes her own opinion way too frequently for my liking.
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1 person found this helpful