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Town Hall Seattle and Dent the Future present

Nathan H. Lents

Sexuality Then, Now, and Always

Date:
Sunday, April 13
Time:
7:30 pm PDT
Cost:
$10 – $35 Sliding Scale
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Venue

The Wyncote NW Forum
1119 8th Ave (Entrance off Seneca St.)
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Event Format

In-Person

Note: Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

Book cover for The Sexual Evolution by Nathan H. Lents. The title is in large, bold, red-orange letters, with the subtitle in black: How 500 million years of sex, gender, and mating shape modern relationships. Below, an illustration of a chimpanzee walking on all fours has a pixelated censor bar over its rear. The author's name appears in blue at the bottom, with a note that he is the author of Human Errors.
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The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships

Elliott Bay Book Company

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Headshot of Nathan H. Lents (with fair skin, short brown hair, and beard). He is wearing a navy sweater with an orange checked button down underneath.
Science

Are we animals? There is still considerable debate surrounding human nature and how much we have in common with other species. Evolutionary biologist and professor Nathan Lents asserts that many of our supposedly modern ideas about gender and human sexuality are, in fact, deeply rooted in our animal ancestors.

In The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships, Lents researches creatures throughout the animal kingdom from insects to apes, and offers a variety of examples showing gender and sexual diversity and what those things can teach us about ourselves.

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The book presents counterarguments against binary behavior, binary identity, and binary thinking. It also challenges the idea that diverse sexual behavior is something new or even uniquely human; Lents argues that it is billions of years in the making and deeply woven into the fabric of nature. Though The Sexual Evolution seeks to ground its central thesis in biology rather than ideology, the book’s cultural implications may be difficult to ignore given the context of our increasingly polarized sphere.

Nathan H. Lents is a professor of biology at John Jay College and author of two recent books: Not So Different and Errors. With degrees in molecular biology and human physiology, and a postdoctoral fellowship in computational genomics, Lents tackles the evolution of human biology from a broad interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to his research and teaching, he can be found defending sound evolutionary science in the pages of Science, Skeptic Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and others.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Dent the Future.

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