The Sexual Brain has been praised by authors such as the anthropologist Melvin Konner, who described the book as a good introduction to the biology of gender and a useful guide for understanding the neuroscience of sexual arousal and associated behaviors. The book received positive reviews from the journalist Peter Gorner in the Chicago Tribune, the playwright Kenneth McLeish in The Independent, the psychiatrist Avodah K. Offit in the Los Angeles Times, Robert Friar in the Journal of Sex Research, and the psychologist Richard Gregory in The Times Literary Supplement. The book received mixed reviews from the biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling in BioScience, the physician Richard Horton in The New York Review of Books, Michael J. Baum in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, and from Publishers Weekly. The Sexual Brain received two reviews in New Statesman and Society, one from Peter Tallack and the other from David Fernbach. Other reviews included those by the physician Lawrence D. Mass in The Advocate, Katherine Livingston in Science, Marian Annett in the Times Higher Education Supplement, the critic Michael Warner in The Village Voice, the psychologist Leonore Tiefer in Psychology of Women Quarterly, and the historian of science Daniel Kevles in The New Yorker. Mass subsequently commented that his review strained his relations with some of his colleagues, and that The Advocate's editors "severely truncated" the review, turning it from a "skeptical critique" into "a blurblike endorsement ... used to advertise the book."
