Science generally succeeds in bringing some order to human existence — except when it does just the reverse, imposing a structure that never quite fits properly no matter how much it is tweaked. Then it just accentuates the underlying chaos.
Patricia Wall/The New York Times
The much-disputed, oft-revised manual of psychiatric diagnosis might serve as one illustration of this phenomenon; given that it runs to almost 1,000 pages, Hanne Blank gets a pat on the back for dispatching the equally murky entity of heterosexuality in fewer than 200, plus back matter.
One can almost hear a chorus of experts in the many sciences of sex and gender muttering that her amusing, readable synthesis is a featherweight effort, simplistic and derivative. But for those not in the field but still in the game, as it were — readers never previously moved to reason from first principles exactly what it means to be a heterosexual or act like one — Ms. Blank darts from one intriguing, thought-provoking point to another.
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