The Nature Of Sex: The Sex Contract

From the Emmy Award winning PBS Nature Series.

The Nature of Sex is like nothing ever attempted before - a six part epic look att he world of sex. As seen on Nature, television's most acclaimed natural history series, The Nature of Sex tours the exotic and mysterious realm of animal and human sexuality, presenting a stunning panorama of sexual diversity, desire, and display. For more than two years, a team of cameramen travelled the globe filming courtship displays and fights for dominance, the choosing of partners, mating, birthing and caring for the young. The images are spectacular and the stories are often bizarre enough for tabloid headlines. Throughout the six shows, intimate insights are presented that trace the roots of human sexuality from its earliest beginnings.

When potential mates touch, it could be an encounter that lasts for just a few moments - or an alliance that lasts a lifetime. The Sex Contract looks at how the sexes come together, how they interact and how logn they stay together. Males fight, bully, charm, and display in frantic efforts to establish dominance while wooing a female. Gigantic sea lions battle for exclusive mating rights to a harem, but male baboons have to win a female's affection and trust before being accepted as a worthy partner. Female rhesus monkeys conduct discreet affairs with strangers, and if she's hungry, the female praying mantis will devour the head of her partner during sex. In Sierra Leone where land is plentiful, Mende tribsemen have many wives, while in the land poor Himalayas, many men share one wife.