Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality – Eliot Schrefer
While “Queer Ducks” may sound like a light-hearted romp through interesting anecdotes about the prevalence of same-sex behavior in the animal kingdom, don’t be fooled, dear reader, this book is an unfocused mess.
While Eliot Schrefer had admirable intent in addressing long held and incorrect theories about how we perceive sexual behavior in the natural world, the execution was a hodgepodge of personal experiences and pontifications that showed the author’s biases — even though he frequently maligned scientific bias.
It’s simply one irony in a text that struggled to maintain a consistent voice, frequently shifting between juvenile humor, scientific research, history, psychology and politics within a single chapter. I alternately felt enlightened and demeaned.
While billed as young adult, the information often felt too complex for younger audiences (probably best for 16+), but the casual writing style was too basic for adult-focused pop science. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that felt devoid of an intended audience, but this certainly does.
I take that back, the audience is clear: Schrefer.
There’s the idea that if you don’t see a story that reflects you, write it. The author wrote the book he craved to find as a closeted pre-teen searching for answers about homosexuality in his public library that didn’t feel rooted in shame. When you feel on an island, there is comfort in knowing there are 1,500 evidence-confirmed findings of same-sex sexual behavior in animal species — proving that homosexuality is natural and not to be feared.
Still, it seemed Schrefer was trying really hard to justify the topic, almost like he needed to apologize for wanting to write this book. Several times a full third of a chapter had nothing to do with animals — queer or otherwise — and were simply opportunities to share his memories or politics.
In general, this felt targeted to straight people, which is fine but also a little pandering. Some sections read like a defense he’d give at a school board meeting if this was challenged as inappropriate for a library.
While this ultimately felt way short of my expectations, I do want to call out a few interesting ideas that were raised:
Every chapter starts with an intriguing question — essentially a hypothesis — like, “Are there trans animals?” “Do we learn homosexuality or heterosexuality - or just unlearn bisexuality?” “Does sexuality require sex?” Unfortunately, these are far more interesting than the answers presented.
How gender inequality and sexism has skewed science. Female animals “submit” but male animals “dominate.”
The philosophical idea of “other minds” as a roadblock to understanding queer people and animals.
That we grow up being sold the Noah’s Ark version of the animal kingdom, which is inherently heterosexual, and thus provides confirmation bias in how we study animals and their sexual lives.
So many animals are bisexual and there’s a lot of non-procreative sex, which Schrefer uses as an opportunity to poke holes in the conservative argument that homosexuality is inherently wrong because it doesn’t produce offspring.
All-in-all, I could’ve stopped reading at the introduction and been fine. This would’ve worked great as a Popular Science magazine article, but it didn’t have enough meat to sustain 200+-pages.
I tackled this as a hybrid read/listen, and if you aren’t convinced already, this is a hard pass in all formats. The audiobook was absolutely atrocious; quite possibly one of the worst I’ve ever heard.
Joel Froomkin, Dustin Ballard, Hope Newhouse and Neo Cihi cranked their performances to eleven, and it made the grating humor and tonal unevenness worse – especially within the comics that started each chapter. I don’t know who read what sections, but they were all equally terrible.
Rating (story): 2/5 stars
Rating (narration): 1/5 stars
Format: Hybrid read/listen (personal library/library loan)
Dates read: May 13 – May 23, 2024
Multi-tasking: Good to go. While I didn’t enjoy the structure or tone of the book, it’s not poorly written. Schrefer does a good job of distilling information so it’s easy to follow along regardless of your activity.
