Published in 2020
336 pages
Emily Willingham is a journalist and science writer who earned a PhD in biology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in urology, both after taking a bachelor’s degree in English literature. She is coauthor of The Informed Parent: A Science-Based Resource for Your Child’s First Four Years, and her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Aeon, Undark, San Francisco Chronicle, and many other outlets. She is a regular contributor to Scientific American.
What is this book about?
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,.
Emphasizing our human capacities for impulse control, Phallacy ultimately challenges the 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 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.