Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

by Mary Roach

book data

2,848 ratings, 3.76 average rating, 928 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		21%
4		42%
3		27%
2		6%
1		1%

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published

April 7th 2008 by W. W. Norton

binding

Hardcover, 288 pages

url

http://www.maryroach.net/bonk.html

isbn

0393064646 (isbn13: 9780393064643)

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 se...more

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11/02/08

Trevor rated it:

recommended to Trevor by: Ginnie and Mindy

I’ve never had internet sex – there must be another word for it, cybersex, obviously, but I’m thinking more along the lines of keyboard sex. All the same, a couple of years ago (and purely as a community service, you understand) I started working on a series of words that could be typed using only the left hand. It was another of those projects that I started and fairly quickly lost interest in.

If this book is about anything I think it would be fair to say that it is about ...more I’ve never had internet sex – there must be another word for it, cybersex, obviously, but I’m thinking more along the lines of keyboard sex. All the same, a couple of years ago (and purely as a community service, you understand) I started working on a series of words that could be typed using only the left hand. It was another of those projects that I started and fairly quickly lost interest in.

If this book is about anything I think it would be fair to say that it is about the absurdity of sex. This is the second of Roach’s books I’ve read lately and I must say sex is much funnier than death. This book was laugh out loud funny.

I have also discovered that I have a special face that I wear whenever the words URETHRA and EXPANDED or INSERTED are used in the same sentence. This is especially the case when the word TOOTHBRUSH is also contained in that sentence – but it is not reserved for the collocation of those particular words. In fact, by the end of the book whenever the word URETHRA was used at all I could feel my face responding in a particularly pronounced Pavlovian fashion.

There were so many interesting bits to this book that it is pointless me starting or I simply won’t be able to stop. And it was funny and fun – so I am going to recommend it and recommend it highly.

The bit I found most interesting was right at the end, where she was talking about tests that were done in the 1970s that found that the people who enjoyed sex the most were homosexual couples – either gay or lesbian. This was because the heterosexual couples tended to see sex as a destination they needed to reach as quickly as they could, while the homosexual couples played more and teased and delighted in each other more. For some reason we seem to have become sold on the ‘sex as performance’ metaphor. At one point she said that many women felt sexually inadequate because they believed themselves to be unattractive and spent the whole time worrying about what they looked like – watching themselves in effect. Sex is about being there with someone else, and is better the more ‘there’ you are – it is a dance, rather than a race or a beauty contest.

Now, this is the second time recently that I’ve discovered just how incurious I am and have always been. The first time was with Mr Fry’s autobiography when he was talking about boys sticking their fingers up their bums. That simply never occurred to me when I was growing up. And to be honest, you could leave me alone in a room for a thousand years and I would never think of having sex with a vacuum cleaner. I am assuming that is not what Billy Bragg means when he has a female character in one of his songs say, “no amount of poetry will mend this broken heart, but you can push the Hoover ‘round if you want to make a start”.

So, what did I learn? Well, besides that gays make the best lovers, that it is best not to rush into a room when you hear a man calling out “Titan, Titan, Titan” on a video your wife is watching and if God has a place it certainly isn’t in the bedroom, I think that the best of this book – like Stiff – is acknowledging that life, death and sex are all a bit absurd and for that we really should be very grateful.
(less)

Like this review? yes (14 people liked it)

3 comments

02/14/08

Montambo rated it:

(review of isbn 142331669X)

bookshelves: nonfiction, sexy-as-hell

Read in April, 2008

Who are these people who let themselves get strapped up to sex machines with cameras inside them and wires attached to their nipples? Anyone? Admit it!!

I still like Roach's style, but I wanted her to go deeper (oh my god, I didn't intend that double entendre, there).

Like this review? yes (12 people liked it)

15 comments

06/06/09

Manny rated it:

bookshelves: currently-reading, science, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, well-i-think-its-funny

(Joint review with JORDAN, who's actually finished the book)

- George?

- Mmm?

- Don't go to sleep.

- Mmm.

- You are going to sleep!

- Mm-mm.

- George, tell me something you did today.

- Um... I read a book.

- That's better! Move around a bit. Yes, that's right, put your hand there. Good. What book?

- Bonk. By Mary Roach.

- That silly book about sex?

- It's not silly...more

Like this review? yes (19 people liked it)

13 comments

07/24/08

jess rated it:

Read in July, 2008

i audiobook'd this, the third feature-length scientific expedition of mary roach. i love! love! love! mary roach. i have bought multiple copies of her first book, stiff, and have managed to permanently "lend" every one of them out. audiobooking the curious couplings of science and sex, however, was a very strange experience. picture this: i am walking around downtown pittsburgh, just like every morning, and there are strangers passing me left and right with serious or sleepy looks, bri...more i audiobook'd this, the third feature-length scientific expedition of mary roach. i love! love! love! mary roach. i have bought multiple copies of her first book, stiff, and have managed to permanently "lend" every one of them out. audiobooking the curious couplings of science and sex, however, was a very strange experience. picture this: i am walking around downtown pittsburgh, just like every morning, and there are strangers passing me left and right with serious or sleepy looks, briefcases and plastic bags, and i am listening to a chapter on Lady Boners. i'm stuck in traffic, the way i most despise spending my time, and learning about the erotic rituals of artificial insemination of pigs in norway. very! strange!

if you're looking for a forthright and humorous scientific break-down of erotic encounters, the clit, the g-spot, the erection.... well, this may not be the book for you. roach focuses her special, special attentions on the sex researchers that have changed the landscapes of our bodies and our bedrooms. quick, tell me, which sexologist used his research as an outlet for his attraction to men? whatever happened to the dildo cams constructed decades ago for sex research of vaginal arousal? what do you know about the discovery of the g-spot? have you ever read a graphic description of the surgeries performed to provide erections for men with erectile dysfunction? what do you know about the distance between the clitoris and the vaginal opening, and the orgasmic capacity therein? interested to find out which sex researchers had to perform their studies under the cover of nightfall? read BONK.

roach explores the ways that funding moves (or not) through research facilities, the stigma and social implications of being involved in sex research, and the feelings of grown-up children of researchers. we visit the institutions that are supportive and not. roach pieces together the changing times and cultural notions of sex, and how our perception of sex restricts or facilitates collection of data and ability to publish. she produces a clear picture of the historical variance in our cultural acceptance of sex research. basically, the book is a lot of the grimy politicking that happens when people are jostling for funds and the neighbors might not approve of your research. it's an entertaining ride through the scientific research industry. along the way, i learned that sex researchers are both flawed and fascinating, and have both the purest and most dubious intentions and methods. and some of them actually seem likable (cindy mestin, for example!)

of course, we learn the most from the exceptional cases, and roach brings enough material from the margins to make your head (or sphincter) spin. i appreciated her examinations of the roles that prostitutes played, especially in the early days of sex research. i loved the tales of wild sexual encounters in a rented attic for the sake of science. i loved that mary roach talked her husband into having sex with her in a lab for the sake of science. i am not sure that i could talk my spouse into that, even for the sake of science. i was enthralled by the last chapter's mention of the scientific proof of better sex between gay couples than straight couples. i'm biased, i guess, but i agree.(less)

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

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04/10/08

Lori rated it:

(review of isbn 1847672264)

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in June, 2008

(Review starts with a recent blog post, written mid-book, then my conclusion)

Well, maybe it is, just a little bit.

As I've often stated here, I read very little non-fiction. Too dry, too dull, too fact-intensive. Just too. A couple of months ago, I read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Roach's good-natured obsession with researching anything and everything that interests her is infectious. Plus, I'm fairly morbid, so the topic appealed to me. Serio...more

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04/09/08

Sandy added it (review of isbn 1847672264)

One in every 5000 women is born without a vaginal canal.
who knew?

this is the kind of fact mary roach loves to ferret out of medical journals and research papers--and then, she loves to create puns and laugh out loud smarty-pants remarks about the sexologists and their crazy ideas and inventions. she's a science writer for the masses who footnotes like a fiend.

but hey, it's not all penis cameras, pyrex tubes and statistics about ER visits for 'object retrieval'. ...more

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03/18/09

Books Ring My Bell rated it:

bookshelves: science-med-psych

Read in March, 2009

This book has it all!!!!
-A little history of studies on sex (Kinsey! Masters and Johnson)
-Erections
-Use of erections in martial arts (go rent Iron Crotch!)
-Surgery for erection enhancement. (Graphic. It made my stomach churn)
-Dildos (or use of electric toothbrushes as dildos.)
-Orgasms (and a lady who has orgasms when she brushes her teeth… awesome!)
-Failure to orgasm (Princess Bonaparte blamed it on a distant clitoris for the ladies. If the clitoris is...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

13 comments

07/07/08

Mindy rated it:

bookshelves: not-so-social-science, own-it, sexy-sexy-splashy-splashy, social-science

Read in November, 2008

recommended to Mindy by: It was on the $1 shelf at Page & Palette
recommends it for: Oh, everybody, it's just that much fun!

Unlike any science book I've ever read--enlightening and hilarious! I can't remember the last time I laughed so much with a book. (OK, I don't really read a lot of funny stuff. Occupational hazard?) Almost every footnote made me LOL and want to mark the page so I could post it on GR somewhere, but there were just too many good ones. But you know what stuck with me most about this book? How revolutionary it is for women to have control of their bodies, sexually, reproductively, to be intellectual...more

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01/27/09

Christian rated it:

bookshelves: runner-ups

Read in January, 2009

A book about sex. You might not want to read on.

My uncle and I have read all of Mary Roach's books together. We had stomach churning conversations about cadavers at dinner parties and discussed the after life at meant-to-be light-hearted gatherings. He approached me with red in his cheeks after he finished this. "It's raw. But good." And that was the end of our conversation.

This was the kind of book that kept me laughing so hard people around me had to ask...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

4 comments

06/09/08

Geoff rated it:

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: Only Hardcore Reserach Nuts

I really wanted to like Bonk. Mary Roach seems joyous in her celebration of the science of sex. It's clear she's spent (and thoroughly enjoyed) her time researching the subject, unfortunately the book never really comes together. Mary Roach's 'signature wit' comes of more as juvenile as she seems lost in her perspective on her subject. Is Bonk a personal essay about her journey through the world of sex research? A portrait of the history of sex and the science surrounding it? Roach never settle...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

2 comments

04/04/08

Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 1847672264)

bookshelves: fancypants

Read in April, 2008

okay i didn't REALLY read the *entire* thing. But I read like 85% of it and skimmed the rest. And for the most part it was pretty hilarious. I had some problems with it thought. I felt like I spent the whole book waiting for her get to the point about people having different kinds of sex. The book, supposedly, is about sex. But it's never really clear how she defines sex. She (and scientists) seem to be working mostly from a sex-as-intercourse assumption. This was most clearly illustrated when s...more okay i didn't REALLY read the *entire* thing. But I read like 85% of it and skimmed the rest. And for the most part it was pretty hilarious. I had some problems with it thought. I felt like I spent the whole book waiting for her get to the point about people having different kinds of sex. The book, supposedly, is about sex. But it's never really clear how she defines sex. She (and scientists) seem to be working mostly from a sex-as-intercourse assumption. This was most clearly illustrated when she and her husband volunteered to have sex in a lab so scientists could take an MRI of it. But then when she described it, it really didn't sound like what i think of as sex at all. I don't want to project feelings on to her too much, but it didn't sound like she was involved or turned on by it at all. It didn't sound like two people having sex. The way she described it, it sounded like she could have been a doll that her husband was having intercourse with. Orgasm was certainly never mentioned in that scenario.

Point being, she spend a lot of time talking about the mechanics of sex, but what IS sex exactly? There are so many different kinds, and she really only talks about intercourse and the orgasms that come therefrom. At the very tiny little squeak of an end she mentions queer sex (or "homosexual," as she very clinically puts it), but only as an aside to illustrate that Masters & Johnson found that queer people have better sex than straight people. But does she go on to say anything more about queer people or queer sex? No no. Instead she talks about the implications of this tidbit for straight people. You can practically hear the underlying "we" when she talks about how far "heterosexuals have come" (no pun?). No mention of any of the implications for queer people. There's so much othering going on I almost can't keep track of it all.

It is shocking to me that a book that purports to be about sex has such a severely limited definition of what sex entails. When I got to the chapter about implants and sexual modification I thought that surely, finally, there would be a mention of queer people, at the very least of people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery. NOTHING! It's appalling. The book is funny and entertaining, but for a book that claims to be about sex, it is heterosexist and cisgenderist (is that even a word?) in the extreme. Not even just heterosexist, interesting-sex-ist (e.g No discussion of all the different ways for just straight ppl to have sex other than intercourse). Disappointing.(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

5 comments

03/31/08

Kathy rated it:

(review of isbn 1847672264)

Read in December, 2008

Bonk is an absolutely fascinating book on the physiology sex (mostly) and the people who study it. Roach has a wonderful writing style. She makes the science simple and you actually feel like you've met the people she interviewed. I especially loved her footnotes that provided trivia related anecdotes and humorous comments.

Just some of the subjects and people covered: Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, penile implants, sex toys, turning on and inseminating pigs, monkey sex, why Viagra d...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

03/04/08

Jenne rated it:

Read in April, 2008

I might have said this on an earlier review, but Mary Roach is on the top of my list of interesting people to have dinner with...or actually maybe dinner isn't the best idea. Maybe we could just hang out in a non-food-related setting.

This is a woman who is truly dedicated to her work. I won't go into the details, but wow.

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01/27/09

Coco rated it:

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in January, 2009

In a few words, this book is poorly written and less than informative. The information, IF YOU CAN FIND ANY, in this book is mostly trivial and/or useless. (The actual amount of info in the book might have made a long magazine article in Cosmo.) The book is shamelessly padded with jokes and cutesy side remarks, found both in the text and in anecdotes in textual footnotes. Since they often have nothing to do either with the book's subject or the material on the page at hand, they quickly become f...more

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03/05/08

Ann rated it:

This woman knows how to do research! And to think of the years I wasted putzing around with soybeans...

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08/06/08

Jamie rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex is a book about sex. Well, sort of. It's not erotica. Or a how-to manual. Or an exploration of sexuality in our culture. Or an examination of sex in the media. Rather, while it does touch briefly on some of those topics, Bonk is the history of the scientific study of sex. It's also very funny.

You may be unsurprised to find out that sex as a research subject has a history of taboos and upturned noses once you stray outside of ...more Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex is a book about sex. Well, sort of. It's not erotica. Or a how-to manual. Or an exploration of sexuality in our culture. Or an examination of sex in the media. Rather, while it does touch briefly on some of those topics, Bonk is the history of the scientific study of sex. It's also very funny.

You may be unsurprised to find out that sex as a research subject has a history of taboos and upturned noses once you stray outside of reproductive and making babies territory. Studying the practical plumbing of the human reproductive system is generally on this side of acceptable, though Roach does point out that aspiring gynecologists used to have to learn their crafts by working on cadavers and even when graduating up to the real thing they had to work by feel without looking. But the study of sex and sexuality for their own sake is more hush-hush and got a much slower start thanks in no part to the many weird and unconventional places it goes.

And go there you shall, curious reader. Roach is fearless and unapologetic in her exploration of the field, and she shines her light right up into some pretty shocking places. This was both great and not so great for me. For example, I found the chapters on sex machines and the people who make them weirdly fascinating, and the chapter where Roach talks her husband into experiencing first hand (so to speak) a study that used ultrasound machines to get cross-sections of their coital act was hilariously awkward. She also throws herself into the research in other places, such as touring a prosthetics factory (and by "prosthetics" I mean "prosthetics" here), and getting personal with attendees of a meeting people who build homemade sex machines. But then again, there was only so much discussion I could take when it came to monkey orgasms, genital surgery, and other things I'd rather not even write about here. I'm no prude, but it didn't take long for me to get my fill of those topics, which Roach goes into with incredible detail.

The best part of the book, though, is Roach's style, because she is the most entertaining science writer I've come across this side of Bill Bryson. She is possessed of a sharp wit and great sense of humor about all this, which goes a long way towards keeping the weird and traditionally private topics approachable and easier to relate to. And it's not of the sophomoric "boobies, tee hee!" variety, either (well, sometimes, but not often). Instead, Roach makes effective use of footnotes and asides to make jokes about not only the people she's reporting on, but also to make self-deprecating quips at her own expense since she's not as far out there as the people she's researching. In short, Roach manages just the right mixture of factual science reporting and wry humor. I laughed out loud many times during this book, and that's got to count for something.(less)

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06/11/08

Alexis rated it:

Read in July, 2008

i want mary roach to be my friend. here's what sealed the deal:
"Likewise, we are going to ignore the erectile tissue in the lining of the nose - which does, very occasionally, expand when its owner is sexually aroused. It too is made erect by increased blood flow. Nasal congestion is an erection inside your nose."
can't you just hear her giddy smile while writing that?

overall roach's research bent is more hetero than i would have liked. another reviewer on here...more

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06/02/08

Don Rea rated it:

If you're interested in sex - and I do know people who claim not to be, so don't laugh - and you have a healthy curiosity, or a sense of humor, or both, you'll definitely enjoy this book. Roach writes very much the way I think, with long, digressive footnotes and frequent humorous asides, so maybe I like her writing better than I ought, but this wide-ranging survey of human sex research surely has something for almost everyone.

Unless you're an expert on everything there's bound to be...more

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05/23/08

Katie Abbott Harris rated it:

Read in May, 2008

Sex, sex, sexity, sex, sex, sex! Bonk is hilarious and informative as it explores all types of sex research from a scientific perspective. The studies referenced include a variety of humans, animals, and mechanical devices. The reader gets an inside look at many diverse topics, from the artificial insemination of pigs, to masturbatory techniques, to sex following a spinal cord injury. Roach's style, as seen in her other books, is blunt and honest, sparing no one, including herself and her h...more

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04/19/08

Paul rated it:

Read in April, 2008

A book about science and sex written by Mary Roach really should have inspired me to more than three stars, but I felt she was so amused by the little tidbits that she was constantly wandering away from her own topic. And for all the times she was laughingly talking about how early sex scientists stripped their research of any titillation, I found this book very dry as well. As Mary states several times in the book, science has mostly found that the best sex is decidedly more than simple bodily ...more

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