177 Lovers and Counting

Book excerpt: 177 Lovers and Counting: My Life as a Sex Researcher offers a transcultural perspective on gender and sexuality through engaging personal accounts of the author’s participant-observation research in multiple countries and cultures across the globe. Dr. Leanna Wolfe draws from anthropology, sexology, evolutionary psychology, and sociology, effortlessly weaving together personal stories along with qualitative and quantitative cross-cultural studies to shed light on relationships, genders, and sexualities. In this autoethnography that is both personal and clinical, Wolfe describes and analyzes personal experiences conducting participant-observation research toward understanding the social context of sex, gender, and relationships. She provides insight through personal, intimate storytelling, revealing many varieties of love, sex, and relationships across cultures and subcultures, and how these insights might impact her readers’ lives, just as they have impacted her own.