Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
by Mary Roach
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mary RoachEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-17
ISBN: 0393064646
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
Book Reviews of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
Book Review: A Fascinating, Highly Non-Erotic Look at "the Most Important Subject in Life"
Summary: 5 Stars
Right up front, Mary Roach tells us this book is a "...tribute to the men and women who dared. Who, to this day, endure ignorance, closed minds, righteousness, and prudery" [sic]. This is a book for those who are interested in Sex, that is, the big picture of what sex is, does, and is all about. This book is about, as Roach so cleverly offers in her subtitle, where science and sex intersect, the success and shortcomings, about vital, important and thoroughly scientific work done necessarily in shadow and secrecy.
The book is generally classified as science writing, but it does not read that way. It's more a memoir of personal curiosity, and a lay-author's attempt to answer are some basic questions about a subject we're all interested in but propriety keeps us from asking. There was adventure aplenty for her (and her husband, a real trouper) in writing it, and we get to come along, too. She ventures as far afield as Cairo, where she runs into dedicated sex research taking place amid--of course--religious restriction. And she goes to Taiwan to be hosted by a highly enthusiastic penis-enlargement doctor.
There are three Really Big Questions Roach goes at:
First, are sex scientists pervs? That's her lead-off, and it's a really good question. Basic common sense seems to indicate that those who make something their life's work usually are deeply interested in it, in all aspects of it, and they live it as well as work it. It flows most logically that those who study sex, and study it as intensely as Kinsey and Masters/Johnson did probably had a real thing for sex. Well, duh. But Roach offers: what's so horrible about that? Why is it that enthusiasm and deep enjoyment/interest in sex makes you any less a thoroughly dedicated scientist?
A-ha, Ms. Roach! By extension, are people who write about sex science pervs? Well...Roach offers very little direct personal insight as to her own proclivities, but the book itself speaks more than enough about her curiosity, lust for adventure, and willingness to try something new, if anything just for having done it, bad or good.
Okay, back to sex researchers, and Roach's description of their sad struggle for funding for their studies. They cannot be straightforward in explaining their desires to explore sexual response or orgasm or arousal patterns, so have to resort to euphemism and semantic gymnastics in proposals. So, when it comes to research dollars, it's clear the grant holders still believe that sex researchers are pervs.
And two: what exactly is an orgasm? Sure, it can be observed and defined in any number of physical ways, but it seems that a great many hypersmart scientist-folk still disagree on exactly what is going on here, uh, there, down there. Roach discusses this kind of in depth, offering that there are at least 20 competing medical/scientific definitions. But to my mind doesn't settle on an answer, or really fully develop enough information to let the reader decide.
And third, who are the best lovers? Unfortunately for most hung-up readers, Roach's arrived-at answer is homosexual couples, both female and male (in that order). The heteros get points for attendance, but are a distant third.
Roach's overview of the historical understanding sexual physiology and the act itself is quite interesting. We should all be glad that we are living in the present age, and are not subject to the dangerous idiocy of scientific/medical understanding of sexual anatomy and function as little as 70 years ago.
Roach's humor is outstanding, offering parenthetical and footnoted quips and observations which are truly funny, while not disparaging of her subjects. I mean, she makes references to Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine. She offers lots of oddball tidbits, found facts, such as Millard Fillmore's last words, the world record for ejaculation distance, and what it might be like to date a corn dog.
There is no X-rated action here, at least directly portrayed. The content is adult, to be sure, but not prurient or titillating. There also is no direct how-to here, but you can pull little things out, like that foreplay really does make a difference to both foreplayer and foreplayee.
As for contents, she reviews the work of Kinsey and Masters/Johnson, but in interesting bits and pieces. She's done a lot of research, and requests a number of the key pieces of Kinsey's clandestine research, only to be told no; the reader can't help but infer that such material might just show that one of the greatest sex researchers of all time was indeed a perv. You get the penis camera, phallometrics, vaginal upsuck, the International Index of Erectile Function and RigiScan-Plus Rigidity Assessment System (with Self-Calibrating Penile Loops), smegma, the medicalization of impotence, pelvic clenching, the ins-and-outs of Danish pig insemination, panda porn, Ben Vereen, implants and transplants, the Fruit Machine, coital imaging, the Dickinson vulvas, sex toy manufacturing, the arousometer, foreplay and response, glands and hormones, womb fury (the perfect punk band name!), the rectal probe electroejaculator's role in dampening leg spasticity, and the fact that "...the stereotypical...Barbie...is the one least likely to respond to a manly hammering." You get all this in 303 easy-reading pages, with an extensive bibliography, and with no index or "vibrating eggs," as promised by the author.
Bottom line: If sex disgusts, horrifies or otherwise makes you uncomfortable, this very direct and mature adventure will not be an enjoyable read. But if you've got an intellectual curiosity honest enough to admit that you're interested in well, you-know-what, and if you'd like actually to learn a little bit as you indulge your randy curiosity about S-E-X, then you'll enjoy this book, as I did.
Summary of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
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.Psychology & Counseling Books
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