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Six-Legged Sex: The Erotic Lives of Bugs
A rollicking, readable series of portraits of bugs in their most intimate moments.
143 pages, Paperback
First published August 24, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 23, 2025
To the inquisitive couple looking to spice up their relationship, look no further! This is the perfect book for you!
March 12, 2010
Super cool and funny book all about insect sex. You'll be so glad you're a person when you're done with this one. Especially if you're a guy.
September 25, 2015
Subtitle: The Erotic Lives of Bugs. So you can calm down. Not a bad book, though.
I should mention that the illustrations are by Marjorie C. Leggitt. The illustrations are occasionally able to explain what's going on more easily than the text (for example in explaining what it means to say that dragonflies mate in the "wheel position").
Wangberg's text is gratuitously exploitative, using terminology intended for human activity (e.g. "prostitution", "orgy", "S&M", "rape") that plainly is not exactly appropriate for the insect behavior under discussion. On the other hand, something about seeing such a free-wheeling and exhaustive discussion of somewhat similar behaviors in insects does make some human behavior seem a bit less, well, unnatural (if in some cases, for example the numerous species where the male is beheaded or devoured after sex, still not at all appealing).
Other than chuckles, however, is there anything to be gained from reading a book of this sort? Well, I can't say exactly for sure, but I think so. Sex is, even in very primitive (as regards brainpower) species, a complex affair. It does raise the question of why it has to be that way. There are species where the female just leaves out eggs and the male squirts on them and that's that. If only humans or a few other mammals with relatively complex behavior were into elaborate courtship and/or coupling, the whole business could be shrugged off (as a theoretical topic, anyway, if not in one's actual life) as a weird side-effect of too many neurons making one neurotic.
However, with this much variety in sexual behavior among a truly vast range of bugs (insects, spider, some worms, etc.), there has to be more going on. Some of it is the female testing if the male is made of stern enough stuff to be able to pass on good DNA. Some of it, though, is more involved yet. Human females may think guys are sometimes jerks, or human males may think gals are high-maintenance or intentionally inscrutable. However, after reading about numerous species where the male attempts to block off access to the female's relevant orifice (in some cases by just wedging himself in there for the rest of his and her life), and numerous species where if he doesn't do the dance JUST SO, she will eat him alive (literally), some of humanity's more deviant behavior starts to seem tame. These are not species with a lot of spare neurons, so something else is clearly at work.
I think it's this: sex is complicated, in most species, as an end in itself. Making things complicated, is kind of like using a rigorous written test to get into an institute of higher learning, even when the test's content isn't terribly relevant to the material to be learned. It's a useful test, because it's hard. If you're not the right species, humans can pretty much tell (contrary to much popular belief, men and women are actually the same species). Insects have a harder time with that (you should see what they do with flowers), so having baroque courtship is a way of sorting out the mutants or outright imposters from the target partners.
Having done that, it's sometimes easier to prove your fitness as a mate by denying access to others instead of demonstrating your own. Anyone's who's seen or heard men discuss a peer who spends too much time on his appearance, or women discuss a peer whose boots are too tall or whose eyeshadow is too blue, can recognize the parallel. Insects just take it to an extreme, in part because they don't have the option of talking down their rivals.
Like any other book on animal behavior, part of the benefit of this one is the mirror it shows you for human behavior. Wangberg's text is mostly just the facts; he leaves the drawing of any more fundamental lesson (on humanity or evolution's patterns generally) to the reader. There are pluses and minuses to this, but it's only 137 pages long plus references, so you can get a lot of bizarre facts without much fluff, and draw the larger lessons yourself. But I wouldn't try to imitate anything you see in here.
I should mention that the illustrations are by Marjorie C. Leggitt. The illustrations are occasionally able to explain what's going on more easily than the text (for example in explaining what it means to say that dragonflies mate in the "wheel position").
Wangberg's text is gratuitously exploitative, using terminology intended for human activity (e.g. "prostitution", "orgy", "S&M", "rape") that plainly is not exactly appropriate for the insect behavior under discussion. On the other hand, something about seeing such a free-wheeling and exhaustive discussion of somewhat similar behaviors in insects does make some human behavior seem a bit less, well, unnatural (if in some cases, for example the numerous species where the male is beheaded or devoured after sex, still not at all appealing).
Other than chuckles, however, is there anything to be gained from reading a book of this sort? Well, I can't say exactly for sure, but I think so. Sex is, even in very primitive (as regards brainpower) species, a complex affair. It does raise the question of why it has to be that way. There are species where the female just leaves out eggs and the male squirts on them and that's that. If only humans or a few other mammals with relatively complex behavior were into elaborate courtship and/or coupling, the whole business could be shrugged off (as a theoretical topic, anyway, if not in one's actual life) as a weird side-effect of too many neurons making one neurotic.
However, with this much variety in sexual behavior among a truly vast range of bugs (insects, spider, some worms, etc.), there has to be more going on. Some of it is the female testing if the male is made of stern enough stuff to be able to pass on good DNA. Some of it, though, is more involved yet. Human females may think guys are sometimes jerks, or human males may think gals are high-maintenance or intentionally inscrutable. However, after reading about numerous species where the male attempts to block off access to the female's relevant orifice (in some cases by just wedging himself in there for the rest of his and her life), and numerous species where if he doesn't do the dance JUST SO, she will eat him alive (literally), some of humanity's more deviant behavior starts to seem tame. These are not species with a lot of spare neurons, so something else is clearly at work.
I think it's this: sex is complicated, in most species, as an end in itself. Making things complicated, is kind of like using a rigorous written test to get into an institute of higher learning, even when the test's content isn't terribly relevant to the material to be learned. It's a useful test, because it's hard. If you're not the right species, humans can pretty much tell (contrary to much popular belief, men and women are actually the same species). Insects have a harder time with that (you should see what they do with flowers), so having baroque courtship is a way of sorting out the mutants or outright imposters from the target partners.
Having done that, it's sometimes easier to prove your fitness as a mate by denying access to others instead of demonstrating your own. Anyone's who's seen or heard men discuss a peer who spends too much time on his appearance, or women discuss a peer whose boots are too tall or whose eyeshadow is too blue, can recognize the parallel. Insects just take it to an extreme, in part because they don't have the option of talking down their rivals.
Like any other book on animal behavior, part of the benefit of this one is the mirror it shows you for human behavior. Wangberg's text is mostly just the facts; he leaves the drawing of any more fundamental lesson (on humanity or evolution's patterns generally) to the reader. There are pluses and minuses to this, but it's only 137 pages long plus references, so you can get a lot of bizarre facts without much fluff, and draw the larger lessons yourself. But I wouldn't try to imitate anything you see in here.
December 21, 2015
This is a really fun little book with short chapters in even shorter sections that highlight particular sexual aspects of various insects and spiders. It's VERY light, so it could be read by a middle school or high school student with no trouble at all or an interested adult very quickly. The illustrations make the book pop too. In fact, I love them so much that I had to copy a few for my journal. So, yes, I learned a little and heartily enjoyed myself, even though I was expecting a heavier nonfiction book.
April 15, 2010
Who knew such scandal and intrigue was going on (literally) right under our feet? This is a humorous collection of the bizarre mating habits of a variety of insects. From gender-swapping bugs to those who devour their beloved, this volume will give readers a whole new insight into the complexity of even the tiniest life forms.
June 12, 2011
I'm going to feel quite flattered the next time mosquitoes fly all over my face in the summer
(they have chosen me as their mating spot...me!) Crazy, quirky fun book. A fun conversation
starter when you are carrying it out of the library :)
(they have chosen me as their mating spot...me!) Crazy, quirky fun book. A fun conversation
starter when you are carrying it out of the library :)
November 19, 2018
The author's name is WANGBERG. It almost deserves 4 stars for that alone. If you've read other books about entomology, this won't have any staggering revelations for you, but it's highly entertaining.
July 21, 2025
From the start the author says he's going to use anthropocentric language to describe the behavior of the insects. I think that's a good strategy for a pop science book. By referencing something the reader already knows, it makes it easier for them to understand new concepts.
However, that anthropocentric language hints somethings about the way the author thinks about human sex that had me rising an eyebrow. He uses the phrase "female virgin" way too much. At first I thought that maybe it was important because insects only have sex once... but in page 42 he says "Many insects mate more than once"! and in page 77 he references The Scarlet Letter to shame bedbugs...
That being said, it's not a bad book. It's a short and simple introduction to insect sexual behavior, with some references in case the reader wants to do further research.
However, that anthropocentric language hints somethings about the way the author thinks about human sex that had me rising an eyebrow. He uses the phrase "female virgin" way too much. At first I thought that maybe it was important because insects only have sex once... but in page 42 he says "Many insects mate more than once"! and in page 77 he references The Scarlet Letter to shame bedbugs...
That being said, it's not a bad book. It's a short and simple introduction to insect sexual behavior, with some references in case the reader wants to do further research.
May 21, 2026
Very appealing book as someone who just founded this subject interesting. Studying psychology, it gives insight into the evolutionary side of things amongst insects. However, there were times in the book where things were stated that needed more explanation to fully understand how that behavior worked or even ended. Fun book though!!!
October 29, 2024
It is very funny. And informative.
January 26, 2019
Book #10 of the EBN challenge at my library.
Challenge Topic: A book from the 500s.
I will never look at bugs the same way again. He had a humorous way of making a scientific topic easier to understand to those that are not of scientific mind.
Challenge Topic: A book from the 500s.
I will never look at bugs the same way again. He had a humorous way of making a scientific topic easier to understand to those that are not of scientific mind.
December 12, 2010
Can't say I liked this as much as I liked its title. Feels padded (and he only made it to 140 pages with loads of illustrations and a few randomly blank pages anyway). And really, when you pick up a book like this what do you want to find out? Whether it's true that praying mantises bite the heads off the males while screwing, of course. The answer is "Sometimes, we think," which isn't the author's fault, but it's still not very satisfying.
March 2, 2015
I was really excited to read this book, but it kind of disappointed me.
The chapters were really, really short. Each one only included one or two (at most three) examples of whatever the chapter was supposed to cover. The information given was kept very brief, and the attempts at humor were not very funny at all.
Maybe a scientist would enjoy this book, but I didn't really.
(On the plus side, this book has a bibliography and an index.)
The chapters were really, really short. Each one only included one or two (at most three) examples of whatever the chapter was supposed to cover. The information given was kept very brief, and the attempts at humor were not very funny at all.
Maybe a scientist would enjoy this book, but I didn't really.
(On the plus side, this book has a bibliography and an index.)
March 27, 2012
A really fun read. Lots of great info you never thought you wanted to know!
May 5, 2012
A fun book for the 12-year-old set, full of information, silly, cute illustrations.
September 10, 2013
A fun introduction to insect behavior with lots of hysterical (and informative) drawings. Who knew DNA survival was so insecure?
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews