baum described "the sexual brain" as engaging and readable, and ideal for educated laypeople. however, he criticized levay for being unaware of some relevant research, and making a number of factual errors, such as that orgasm is caused by the neurotransmitter oxytocin, that female rats fail to display maternal behavior after hypophysectomy, that lesions of the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus reduce presentational behavior displayed by female monkeys, that antiandrogenic drugs block the masculinization of the sexually dimorphic subdivision of the medial preoptic area in male rats, and that vaginal olfactory cues are the primary determinants of masculine sexual arousal in male primates. "publishers weekly" described the book as an "expert, drily written, often technical account of the biological basis of human sexual behavior and orientation" and predicted that it would be equally as controversial as levay's "1991 science article describing a difference in the hypothalamic brain structure of homosexual and heterosexual men."