Follow These Women

One woman has come from the world of fashion and filmmaking, the other from science and advanced degrees. Both have famous parents, courage, and bright, creative intellects. The also share a love of the natural world, especially invertebrates, and a rich fascination with the sexual proclivities, parts, and processes of these animals. Each woman has created a world that explores and celebrate the intimate lives of the spineless and other little-known animals.

Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist, has a current blog at http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/. Her 2002 book, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex, is not to be missed. Written like a Dear Abby column, it purports to give sex advice to confused critters with complicated and mysterious reproductive strategies. The result is a factual, funny, and very detailed account of much more than just what part goes where. I have found copies in used bookstores for under $10. Get one.

Isabella Rossellini's new book is accompanied by a DVD of short videos. Green Porno is a delightful visual exploration of the sex lives and more of marine and other invertebrates. Although shorter on accuracy than Olivia Judson's pieces, the paper creations that depict the animals and sexual processes are delightful.

Since these two books have been published, several other books about animal sex have come out. But these two are, well, ovular (I'm trying to find another word besides the male-oriented "seminal", meaning "formative, groundbreaking, original, innovative). Ovilar sounds like a character from a Hobbit story. Ovumnal or ovanal are awkward. I'll go with ovular.