Product Description

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, James Watson, and Napoleon Bonaparte's great grand-niece Marie. 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 devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors.The result is "Bonk": everything you wanted to know but couldn't imagine that someone in a white lab coat had studied. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Can Kegeling cure erectile dysfunction? Can Broadway musicals cause it? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? If you can transplant a face, then why not a penis? What happens if you surgically relocate your clitoris? Why doesn't Viagra help women - or, for that matter, pandas? Does orgasm boost fertility? Cure hiccups? Do the earlobes swell during sex?Few things are as fundamental to human happiness than satisfying sex. Yet, the funding for research, always elusive, has dwindled sharply. "Bonk" is both an ode to a fascinating and vital pursuit and a reminder that there is still much to learn. Sexual arousal and orgasm are two of the most complex, delightful, utterly amazing scientific phenomena on earth. Sexology, as Roach approaches it, is right up there too.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205228 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 333 pages

Review
"* 'To hang out with dead people, you need a deadpan sense of humour, and Roach is insouciant to the point of laugh-aloud funny. You could die laughing." - The Times * "Witty and original...Packed with more arresting details elegantly and humorously expressed than one could hope for." - Sunday Telegraph * "Spry, sharp-witted and charmingly self-deprecating...Delightful." - Sunday Times"

Sunday Times on Six Feet Over
Spry, sharp-witted and charmingly self-deprecating... Delightful.

Telegraph
terrifically witty, hugely engaging study of the way we love

Customer Reviews

Shopkeep, how much for that vaginal photoplethysmograph in the window?
"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 Kinsey [2004].)

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, BONK describes a photoplethysmograph as 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 Mum's Christmas basket.

Down and Dirty Look at Sex Research and Human Anatomy
If you want to learn more about arousal and fertility, you'll find some nuggets in Bonk. But information about human sexuality isn't the focus of this book which is a really about the difficulties of learning about human sexuality.

The barriers to knowledge include peculiar ideas based on nothing more than speculation, lack of technology to see inside the body, and prejudice against research into sexual relationships. In fact, to find out about how some of the techniques, Ms. Roach had to become a subject (including one time when she and her husband had to become the subjects . . . having marital relations in an MRI machine).

There are places in the book where you need a strong stomach to stick with the writing. I was vaguely reminded of the books based on the Darwin Awards at time, except the humor isn't as good here.

If you find reading about sexual relations easier if there are lots of funny animal stories and humor about research, you'll probably like this book better than I did. The information content (independent of the humor) could have been contained in a book about 25 percent of the length of this one.

A fun education
The book was a brilliant read. Mary Roach can capture the significance of her research with a wonderful sense of humour. Her photo breaks in the book, had me giggling only to be followed by bellowed laughter in the context of the writing. I was the best way to learn. If this is your first book by Mary Roach, you will enjoy her previous books.

This book may also help explain certain aspects of your 'private' life. I certainly learnt more.