Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex | 
 enlarge | Author: Mary Roach
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.42
You Save: $10.53 (42%)
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Rating:  67 reviews
Sales Rank: 1636
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0393064646
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.6
EAN: 9780393064643
Publication Date: April 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex.
The study of sexual physiology—what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better—has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.
Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women—or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 62 more reviews...
 were you ever in an MRI with a friend? March 31, 2008
David W. Straight (knoxville, tennessee United States)
118 out of 124 found this review helpful
This a truly great tale of a first-hand look at science and sex from both the inside and the outside! Mary Roach provides a humorous and often very personal view--both as a participant and observer--of humans, animals, and mechanical devices: there is much that you would never have imagined, and perhaps would rather never of heard of at all. She and her husband Ed have sex in a 20-inch diameter MRI tube in the interests of science. The doctor looks on, makes suggestions, and finally tells Ed "You may ejaculate now". The author also recounts the experiments by Kinsey is his attic many years ago and tries to track down the film footage.
The author's great sense of humor needs to be read to be believed. She spares no one, and particularly not herself or her husband. She travels to Taiwan to watch an implant operation. In one of the funniest parts[and this says a lot, since the book will have you howling a lot] she goes to Denmark to watch artificial insemination of sows. We know this happens with cows, and you might suppose that there's not much difference with pigs, but you'd be wrong, very wrong indeed. Suffice it to say that the best results occur, when, among other things best not mentioned here, the AI person lies down on the sow's back and fondles her teats during the process. You may never regard your morning sausage quite the same way again.
The author has a lot of asides that are a delight to read. If you usually skip the footnotes in a book, you'll miss a lot here. You'll learn a lot--for all the things that might seem frivolous, but which are not, the book is a scientific one. Roach has a curiosity, an appetite for knowledge, and has the capability that perhaps most scientists do not have, which is to mix science and humor. Stephen Gould was able to do this, but his humor was not as pervasive--his writing is, at a guess, 95% science at 5% humor, whereas with Roach it's more like 50-50. Martin Gardner's great Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science may be the closest similar work to Roach's book. This book is certainly not for everyone, and there are those who will be deeply offended, but for most it should be a real treat to read!
The Science Of Sex April 1, 2008
C. Hutton (East Coast, USA)
41 out of 51 found this review helpful
Ms Roach has written a hiliarious account of science in search of better sex. A lot of her discoveries fall into the category of "It seemed like a good idea at the time." The author of previous off the wall subjects like "Spook" (post-death exploration) and "Stiff" (dead bodies), she has the knack of finding obscure information that no one has ever heard of. While the book is verbally graphic, it is not porn. She injects herself into her story and her humor resembles the writer, P.J. O'Rourke.
Shopkeep, how much for that vaginal photoplethysmograph in the window? July 12, 2008
Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
"Not everyone gets their (masturbation study) funding from research grants. Some masturbation professionals get their funding from the sales of Vibrating Port-A-Pussies and Mr. Fred Jelly Dongs." - Mary Roach in BONK
"To get inside a lubricated vagina, a penis needs to be hard enough to push against the opening with one to two pounds of force. That is approximately the amount of force required to open a swinging kitchen door." - Mary Roach in BONK
Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, the enormously instructive and entertaining book on the uses to which human cadavers are put. As far as I'm concerned, instructive AND entertaining is about as good as it gets. With BONK, Roach has outdone herself with a read that I couldn't put down.
Science pursues sex because, after all, it's what makes the world turn. Roach first establishes the history of the science, which pretty much reached mainstream acceptance with researchers Alfred Kinsey and then William Masters and Virginia Johnson. (An excellent film about the former, starring Liam Neeson, is 2004's Kinsey.)
The meat of the book, so to speak, is the wide array of sexual behavior and physiologic functions which scientists have investigated, and which include: the sure sign of female orgasm, the location of the fabled G Spot, female orgasm as a function of clitoral-urethral separation distance, the link between female sexual pleasure and fertility, the validity of the vaginal "upsuck" concept, the validity of the penis-cervix interlock theory, cures for erectile dysfunction, the historical legal implications of male "potency", societal perspectives on masturbation, testicular transplants, penile implants, penis restoration post amputation, the physiology and structure of the clitoris, the internal mechanics of penile erection, orgasm's effect on overall physical health, the value of orgasm as exercise, the role of electroejaculation in people with spinal cord injuries, vaginal lubrication as an indicator of female sexual arousal, the nature of arousal in men vs. women, the physiologic trigger of male ejaculation, the role of hormones on the female libido, the existence of human sex-pheromones, and the qualitative measurement of sex. Juicy stuff, this.
The author's special talent, whether it be in STIFF or BONK, is her serious - but not too serious - approach to the subject matter. At any time, the reader may expect Mary to look up from her notes, cock an eyebrow, and deliver some wryly humorous aside. This is perhaps best seen in the footnotes to the text, as in the one connected to the above quote concerning the amount of penile force required for vaginal entry:
"We have three Houston researchers to thank for this statistic. In 1985, the trio attached a pressure gauge to the tip of a penis-shaped Plexiglas rod and penetrated a small group of female volunteers. It seems to me that if they wanted to approximate the surface friction that exists in real intercourse, slippery-smooth Plexiglas was a poor stand-in for penis skin. Though I suppose that when you're doing an experiment that involves penetrating coeds in your lab, surface friction is less of a concern than, say, human subjects review board friction."
As windows on otherwise esoteric or eccentric subject matter, Mary's books are without peer as reading experiences.
Finally, in case you're wondering, a photoplethysmograph is a device used to measure the amount of lubricant vaginal walls exude during sexual stimulation. As a matter of fact, I have one right here for inclusion in Mom's Christmas basket.
The Things We Do For "Love" April 5, 2008
Frederick S. Goethel (Central Valley, CA)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Author Mary Roach set out to find and write about sex research around the world (and about the yeilds of that research) and wound up following a lot of very strange paths. From a urologists office in Taipei to a sow furrowing operation in Denmark to a "toy" manufacturer in Chatsworth California, the author tracked down all leads that were presented to her and followed up to learn all there was about how the human anatomy works and why research on this subject is usually cloaked in euphemisms. At times she delves back into the 1800s to explain how we are where we are today and why.
To say the book is funny is an understatement. The author has a gift for puns and uses it to maximum potential, taking material that could be somewhat dry and turning it into page turning reading. If you are interested in the science of sex and love to laugh, this is a wonderful book that will not fail to deliver.
Science, Sex, and an Entertaining Author! May 10, 2008
Mel Odom (Moore, OK USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Once upon a time, Dr. Isaac Asimov attempted to explain the world to everybody. When I was growing up, I devoured both his science fiction and his non-fiction, learning a lot about what had already happened in the world, what was happening at the present, and what yet might happen. I enjoyed his non-fiction books and thought he was really good at explaining science to the layman.
But these days my heart belongs to Mary Roach! I will never stray. She's only written three books, but she's already captured every inquisitive bone and impulse in my body. She's written articles for READER'S DIGEST and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and her curiosity and propensity for knowledge and instruction seem inexhaustible.
STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS revealed what happened to a body after death. Granted, some stuff maybe I wasn't too thrilled about learning - at first - but Roach took out (most) of the gross effect and totally turned the exercise into an instructional laughfest filled with history and fantastic errata. And the fascination of the subject, as well as her own passion for it, removed the stomach-churn of the experience
In SPOOK: SCIENCE TACKLES THE AFTERLIFE, Roach brought the same kind of intelligent, informative wit to the study of the afterlife and the existence of souls. I knew people were interested in proving the existence of such one way or the other, but I'd never before known to what lengths scientists (and armchair enthusiasts) had gone.
Now Roach delivers, BONK: THE CURIOUS COUPLING OF SCIENCE AND SEX, a hardcore - sorry, couldn't resist - look at the mysteries and mismanagement of sex. When I first saw the plain white, almost virginal book cover, I was entranced. Could a book on that subject really be called by that title? I couldn't help thinking how risque everyone involved was being.
But I couldn't expect anything less of Mary Roach. All (or at least more than I'd ever before guessed at) of the secrets of sex are revealed between the covers, so to speak. She details several of the curious minds that probed into the subject, and the test patients that laid themselves bare. (See? Even I can't approach this subject with a straight face and the occasional ill-conceived giggle and pun.)
I also love history, and Mary Roach makes the most of the study of sex within those parameters as well. She left no rock unturned in her pursuit of this forbidden knowledge that civilization had invented. I knew that the scientists covered regularly in elementary and junior high science classes dug into the field of sex, but I'd never before known exactly to what degree. Nor did I know that some of them might even have murdered patients to gain knowledge. (I mean, how likely is it that a scientist would happen upon the body of a woman who'd died in the throes of orgasm so he could examine her corpse to better understand that function?)
Another thing I love about Mary Roach is that she's apparently willing to go anywhere to seek out knowledge and report back to the armchair scientists who can't afford to go and wouldn't be caught dead asking such questions. (And that's one of the reasons I like Mike Rowe on DIRTY JOBS.)
For this book, Mary Roach interviewed dozens of people, examined dozens of secret documents, took a tour of a pig farm and watched sows get artificially inseminated, first hand (by hand!), and even enticed her own husband into having sex while being subjected to an MRI. I have to admit, that after seeing Roach in action - forgive me - I can't help but believe that has to be one of the most interesting marriages in the world. I love my wife, but I'm not crawling up onto an MRI table to be watched by scientists for anybody.
Roach goes on to explore several other reconstructive surgery avenues physicians and surgeons have pursued over the year. Just when you think she can't top the last chapter, all you have to do is turn the page.
If you haven't discovered Mary Roach, if you think reading Masters and Johnson's HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE has made you an expert in the field, pick up BONK and become truly educated and amazed. Her chapter on Master and Johns, and their peers, casts that research in a totally different light and I found myself alternately appalled and amused.
The science field has a new champion ready to educate and entertain the masses, and her name is Mary Roach. I can't wait to see where she's going next.
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