[]
The Intimate Animal
  • Published: 6 February 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241992883
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $30.00

The Intimate Animal

How We Evolved to Love and What it Means for Our Relationships Now

Formats & editions
Hardback
5 May 2026
EBook
6 Feb 2025
Audiobook
6 Feb 2025
Buy from…
Audible Google Play Kobo Libro.fm Spotify

A scientific exploration of love, sex and fidelity and why we choose the partners that we do.

An evolutionary exploration of love, sex and relationships.

Dr. Justin Garcia is a world-leading expert on the science of love and sex. In his first book, he explores the multiplicity of human sexual and romantic behaviour, the forces behind our intimacy instincts, and why humans across the globe live and die for love.

Our competing evolutionary desires for sex and intimacy create highs and lows in our romantic and sexual lives. The Intimate Animal provides practical tips on love and attraction - two biological systems often in painful conflict - and presents compelling case studies to help deepen and strengthen our relationships. Sharing the knowledge that he has acquired working on the frontlines of modern love and sex research, Dr. Garcia helps us to understand the science behind a spectrum of human intimate experiences. From the intimacy crisis, physical affection, redefining gender roles and courtship norms, to understanding why we stay in abusive relationships and stray from fulfilling ones, this book will help you understand how to successfully look for love and cultivate a rewarding relationship in an ever-changing, high-speed digital age.

From infatuation to heartbreak, The Intimate Animal offers us the first evolutionary understanding of the entire life course of our intimate relationships - how we date, mate, break and remake our love lives.
  • Published: 6 February 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241992883
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $30.00
Categories:

About the author

Justin Garcia

Dr. Justin R. Garcia is an evolutionary biologist and sex researcher. He is Executive Director & Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. He is also the Scientific Advisor to Match Group and Match.com, where he provides expertise to the company’s annual Singles in America study. His research has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME, Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair.

JG

Praise for The Intimate Animal

Brilliant. A must read for anyone curious about the deeper forces behind love, sex, and connection.

Dr Emily Morse, author of Smart Sex

Evolutionary biologist Justin Garcia’s groundbreaking studies reveal the latest changes in human dating and mating as well as some of our most ancient needs and desires.

Scott Barry Kaufman, author of Rise Above and host of The Psychology Podcast

Compassionate, data-rich, and radically hopeful. This book is a revelation. Garcia cuts through noise and shame to map how we bond, break, and begin again.

Lara Love Hardin, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Lives of Mama Love

Even when connection, love and desire feel elusive, Garcia reminds us that it's exactly what we're wired for

Esther Perel, psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Mating in Captivity

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK! So exciting to see a research-based book that gets to the real fundamentals in understanding what it means to be human. This book is a real page turner, so rare in non-fiction.

John Gottman, author of Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

A daring exploration of how our hunger for closeness shapes every stage of intimacy—and why learning to nurture that hunger may be the most important work we ever do.

Iris Krasnow, bestselling author of Surrendering to Marriage