Lixing Sun

Dr Lixing Sun, a behavior and evolution professor and author of On the Origin of Sex, explores how sexual reproduction arose and why it persists. He discusses costs versus genetic benefits, host‑parasite arms races, wild mating strategies like parasitic anglerfish, sex versus gender distinctions, role reversals in species like clownfish, and organisms that switch between sexual and asexual modes.

Rebecca Davis, historian who maps America's erotic past, and Lixing Sun, biologist who studies animal reproduction, discuss why sex evolved and how sexual behavior varies. They cover genetic shuffling, strange reproductive systems across life, historical attitudes toward pleasure, regulation of sexual information, and the long, diverse history of intimate practices.

Lixing Sun, evolutionary and behavioral biologist and author of On the Origin of Sex, explores how sex began and why asexual and sexual strategies coexist. He surveys gamete size, flip‑flopping reproductive modes, sex chromosomes and environmental sex determination. The conversation also touches on intersex occurrences, kin selection, mate competition and the broad diversity of sexual systems.