SOURCE: "Sex in Our Time," in The Atlantic, Vol. 258, No. 3, September, 1986, pp. 100-103.

In the following review, Rose compares the opposite philosophies expressed in the books Re-Making Love and Willard Gayling's Rediscovering Love.

"Higgimus, hoggimus, men are monogamous. Hoggimus, higgimus, women polygamous." My friends tell me I have got this wrong. It should be "Hoggimus, higgimus, men are polygamous. Higgimus, hoggimus, women monogamous." But I prefer my version, because it expresses a partial truth less often heard: many women have an instinct for sexual adventure, most often stifled, and many men, even promiscuous men, are at heart romantics, sexual conservatives.

These two books, with such similar titles, both addressing themselves to the unendingly interesting subject of sex in our time, could hardly be more different in outlook and intent. Moreover, they bear me out. Gaylin, a psychiatrist, is a self-confessed romantic who fell in love at sixteen, married...