Intimate Behavior: A Zoologist's Classic Study of Human Intimacy

Twenty-five years after it first caused a splash in the scientific and literary worlds, Intimate Behavior is still one of the best chronicles of human intimacy. With a masterful and entertaining eye, Desmond Morris, bestselling author of The Naked Ape and The Human Zoo, analyzes the roots of human intimacy, from the handshake through the twelve stages that people pass through on their way to the total sexual embrace. Morris contends that the months just before and after birth are when the seeds of intimacy are planted and are critical to development. From the loving attention of the mother, the child learns and responds with intimate gestures of his or her own. He argues that human adults follow certain patterns of intimate behaviour that are based on these infant experiences for their entire lives. In addition to sexual intimacy, Morris discussed social intimacy, intimacy substitutes, object intimacy, and self-intimacy. Complete with a new preface by the author, Intimate Behavior is a provocative view of humans need to touch and to be touched, to love and to be loved. At a crucial moment, a gentle embrace can still do more good than a thousand earnest discussions. Despite all our social and technological advances, the primeval body language of love still remains the most potent force we have for the expression of feelings of comfort and caring. Desmond Morris, from his new Preface

Born in Wiltshire, England, in 1928, Desmond Morris got his undergraduate degree in zoology from Birmingham University and his doctorate from Oxford. He became curator of mammals at the London Zoo in 1959, a post he held for eight years. He was already the author of some fifty scientific papers and seven books before completing his now famous The Naked Ape in 1967, which has sold more than ten million copies throughout the world and was translated into almost every known language. The Human Zoo and Intimate Behavior, the books that followed it in The Naked Ape Trilogy, likewise have sold millions of copies in dozens of languages across the globe. Morris has also become well known for his many television programs and films on human and animal behaviour. His accessible, hands-on approach has made him popular with both adults and children. Morris is the author of over thirty books. His most recent works include The Human Animal and Bodytalk: a World Guide to Gestures. He lives in Oxford, England. The Human Zoo is also available in paperback from Kodansha Globe.