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Impulse review: An authoritative, if dry, sexual behaviours manual

Impulse: The science of sex and desire by psychiatrists Jon Grant and Samuel Chamberlain delivers on its bid to answer our hidden questions about sex, but it can be a little perfunctory

By Elle Hunt

1 February 2023

Interracial heterosexual couple holding hands at home. Millennial young love between two different races; Shutterstock ID 1493320925; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Everyone has a question about sex they would like answered – even if it is just “am I normal?”

Beatriz Vera/shutterstock

Impulse: The science of sex and desire

Jon Grant and Samuel Chamberlain (Cambridge University Press)

LET’S talk about sex – or not. Many of us have trouble striking the right tone or even finding the right words, caught between obfuscating with the birds and the bees or titillating with undue detail. For the topics too awkward to raise in person, there is always the internet, but its answers are many and highly variable.

Factor…

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