Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

by Mary Roach

Watson chafed at science’s reluctance to study human sexuality as it studies human nutrition or planets or porcupine sexuality. “It is admittedly the most important subject in life,” he wrote. “It is admittedly the thing that causes the most shipwrecks in the happiness of men and women. And yet our scientific information is so meager…. [We should have our questions] answered not by our mothers and grandmothers, not by priests and clergymen in the interest of middle-class mores, nor by general practitioners, not even by Freudians; we…want them answered by

scientifically trained students of sex….” Watson’s original scientifically trained student

In his chapter about the attic sessions, Pomeroy explains that Kinsey’s team simply “found it easier to obtain the consent of homosexual couples.” (By “homosexuals,” he means men. “We were unable to obtain any lesbians,” Pomeroy says, as though perhaps they hadn’t been in season, or his paperwork wasn’t in order.)

Regardless of the mechanisms that may or may not explain a rape victim’s physical state, a rapist’s defense based upon evidence of arousal has, to quote Levin, “no intrinsic validity and should be disregarded.”

Brindley tradition. At a 1983 urology conference, Brindley delivered a lecture about a new impotency drug, papaverine, that produced robust erections when injected directly into the penis. He began by showing his audience, a group of around eighty urologists and their wives—many en route to the conference cocktail party and dressed in formal attire—a series of slides of his own penis, after various dosages. He then revealed that, five minutes earlier, he had injected himself with papaverine. He pulled the fabric of his track suit tightly against his hips to reveal the outline of his medicated member. Not satisfied, he then pulled down his pants, revealing, in the words of eyewitness Laurence Klotz, “a long, thin, clearly erect penis.” Klotz’s account of the event was published in BJU International in 2005. “He paused, seeming to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, ‘I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence.’ With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs…. As he approached [the audience], erection waggling before him,

four or

five of the women in the front rows threw their arms up in the air…and screamed…. The screams seemed to shock Professor Brindley, who rapidly pulled up...