Bonk

Book 67 of my 2019 Reading Challenge

read from September 24 - October 8

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

by Mary Roach

Summary (via the book jacket)

published 2008

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.

My Opinion

3 stars

Although I'd heard of Mary Roach this was the first book of hers I'd read and I can see why she's popular.  She takes off-beat science stuff and presents it in an engaging, often funny way.  It's well-researched but not dry.  Especially with this topic it could've be easy to veer into an almost-mockery of the absurdity of some of the studies she cited but she always kept it respectful.

The reason I rated it 3 stars is because the chapters about the surgeries and procedures done, usually involving the penis, made me uncomfortable.  This was due to my personal "blech" levels, there weren't pictures or overly graphic descriptions.  But I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of her books.

Fun fact I learned that doesn't have to do with sex: while the winners of Nobel prizes are announced, those that are nominated but don't win can't be named (by anyone - the nominees themselves, the nominators, the selection committees, etc.) for 50 years.

And it's not really applicable to anything but I have to include a shoutout to ending the book with the quote (about the many researchers who have dedicated their lives to these studies), "Hats and pants off to you all."  

A Few Quotes from the Book

"This book is a tribute to the men and women who dared. Who, to this day, endure ignorance, closed minds, righteousness, and prudery. Their lives are not easy. But their cocktail parties are the best."

"Hormones are nature's three bottles of beer."