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Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Science And Sex Paperback – March 24 2009

by Mary Roach (Author)

4.3 2,169 ratings

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A New York Times Bestseller

“Rich in dexterous innuendo, laugh-out-loud humor and illuminating fact. It’s compulsively readable.” ―Los Angeles Times Book Review

In ?Bonk, ?the best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and insight on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Why doesn't Viagra help women-or, for that matter, pandas? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Mary 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 make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

WW Norton
Publication date

March 24 2009
Dimensions

13.97 x 2.03 x 21.08 cm
ISBN-10

0393334791
ISBN-13

978-0393334791
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Review

“Roach ferrets out basic truths and endless absurd details amid mountains of dry science on her chosen subject. . . . It’s a wonderful read, sprinkled with facts you can quote to amaze your friends.” (San Francisco Chronicle)^“[Mary Roach] is a bold, tenacious, and insatiable reporter. . . . A greatly satisfying romp.” (New York Times Book Review)^“Roll over, Kinsey. Mary Roach has done it again.... Bonk proves that full-bodied research can be riveting.” (O, The The Oprah Magazine)^“Roach is a fearless and witty reporter.” (Wall Street Journal)^“[An] account that is at once revealing―alarmingly so―and very very funny. She studs (forgive me) her journey with a multitude of knee-crossing bits of fact that will enliven bedtime conversation everywhere.” (Erik Larson, author of Devil in the White City)

About the Author

Mary Roach is the author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Her writing has appeared in Outside, Wired, National Geographic, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. She lives in Oakland, California.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ WW Norton; Reprint edition (March 24 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393334791
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393334791
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 270 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.03 x 21.08 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #289,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,570 in Biology (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 2,169 ratings

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Mary Roach

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Mary Roach is the author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Her writing has appeared in Outside, Wired, National Geographic, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. She lives in Oakland, California.

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Typical Roach; informative and funny

Reviewed in Canada on February 9, 2021

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I guess it seemed inevitable that Mary Roach would tackle the subject of sex after her earlier books, and the result is as expected: informative and funny. She traces some of the historical hang-ups, obsessions, and quackery around the subject of sex and arousal in a straight-forward way, interspersed by commentary and additional information in footnotes (as usual), and does so without beating around the bush (sorry!). Some of the anecdotes are hilarious, but everyone who reads this book (a lot of readers may feel embarrassed, I suspect) will learn more about this badly-understood and communicated subject. While I enjoyed Grunt more, I did enjoy reading Bonk, and learned quite a bit along the way. And had a good laugh or two!

One person found this helpful

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Client d'Amazon

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada on May 9, 2016

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An excellent read by the excellent Mary Roach.

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Dorothyanne Brown

Sex IS funny - so why not laugh?

Reviewed in Canada on May 2, 2013

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Interesting tidbits here interspersed with absolutely wonderful asides and footnotes than frequently endangered my sinuses as whatever I was drinking at the time threatened to explode through them.
Read this book for research on my project about MS and Sex, and oh my golly, I had so much fun reading it. You've got to love an author who will volunteer not only herself but also he long-suffering husband as research subjects...
Just read it. I got my copy out of the library and enjoyed it so much I just bought one.
That said, Mary Roach's STIFF is proving hard to read over my Wheaties. Eww. Fascinating, but eww.
Great writer, great research, often just that wee bit more than we want to know, and that's what makes it great.

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Gisela

Too Much information

Reviewed in Canada on September 18, 2016

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This book you have to prepare yourself to read. I thought that Fifty Shades of Gray was graphic. I was wrong. This book is way beyond that book. It is extremely specific in facts and details. For those wishing to understand the physiology of the sexual act this is great reading. For those of us that prefer to be less factual and more romantic not so much.

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Lighthouse Keeper

Bonk was great fun, after watching Mary Roach's TED Talk

Reviewed in Canada on December 1, 2016

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Bonk was great fun, after watching Mary Roach's TED Talk, I wanted to read her book. While her book is based on scientific research, it's written very tongue in cheek, and sometimes you just want to read something funny. It's not often that science and humor come together and as a huge fan of non-fiction, it's a unique book. Highly recommend it if you are looking for an interesting read. Watch her TED Talk if you want to get a sense of her writing.

Reviewed in Canada on May 27, 2011

I have to think that Mary Roach would probably be a great guest at dinner parties... In this book, Ms Roach has again taken an offbeat subject (sexual research) and presented various aspects of it in an interesting and witty way. I don't often get belly-laughs from my reading material but did from this one. To those reviewers who have criticized the lack of substance or the nature of the humor, I have to say 'get some perspective!' Ms Roach has not set out to write a scholarly treatise. She has written to entertain in the same light-hearted, 'fun' way she has approached other subjects. In my opinion she has succeeded very well.

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Christopher R. Siddle

Bonk is a very funny book.

Reviewed in Canada on August 7, 2016

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I giggled and sometimes bellowed with laughter throughout Bonk. Although this is only the second book I have read by Mary Roach, I think I am a fan. She knows interesting information when she finds it and has an excellent ability to take the most dryly written scientific literature and turn it into a fascinating account of researchers seeking the truth about sex. Her trade mark wit and wise cracking keep the reader on his toes.

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bellesque

Terrific Writer and Researcher

Reviewed in Canada on April 11, 2014

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I've read all of Mary Roach's books and think she's a super researcher. She has a casual style of putting together what could be dry facts and making them juicy. She especially shows up scientists and doctors from every era, including our own, and their wacky experiments which make me laugh and groan and sometimes shiver in horror. It takes a great writers to make a research dense book seem so light and breezy.

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A. Magana

Humorístico y honesto

Reviewed in Mexico on June 3, 2021

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Gratamente entretenido e ilustrativo. A ratos los términos resultan difíciles de traducir, pero en general se disfruta y hay muchos datos sorprendentes.

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Grace

Brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2023

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Funny, interesting, buy it!

Bernie Gourley

The odd coupling of sex and scientific research

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2019

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Mary Roach specializes in nonfiction on quirky topics that offer plenty of opportunities for humor – if of an uncomfortable variety of humor. Few topics hit those marks better than sex, especially when it is juxtaposed with science. Sex has a long history of being on the fringes of scientific study because the value judgments society applies to the topic makes it hard to attract both scientists and subjects, and when neither are lacking there is the matter of convincing agencies and institutions to fund one’s work. On the other hand, there is both demand for better information about sex and a great deal of potential for earnings to be gained by making both the experience and result of sex better or more reliable (more or less fertility as is desired.) All this has led to sex and science becoming strange bedfellows -- that have sometimes let in pseudo-science for an awkward threesome.

Roach presents a wide variety of studies from famous early scholars like Kinsey and Masters & Johnson to obscure present-day scientists like the Egyptian researcher who has to find prostitutes to have intercourse with inflated condoms in order to study nerve reflexes in the female nether regions. Sometimes, the research involves animals, as in the case of researchers trying to determine whether the female orgasm draws semen up further toward the fallopian tubes by studying pigs, or studies of mating rituals of monkeys and how they compare and contrast to those of humans. Though most often the studies are human-centric and ask questions such as: why do a few women orgasm with excessive (and, unfortunately, embarrassing) ease, while too many others have difficulty achieving that result at all? And, why aren’t sex toys better designed to achieve their objective?

I give Roach bonus points on a couple grounds. First, there is the plentiful combination of humor and fun facts that make the book extremely readable. Second, Roach takes some personal risk when, for example, taking part in an imaging study with her husband that involved intimacy in an MRI. That is not even to mention the many things she must have seen that she can never unsee on her global tour that took her to places like Taiwan and Egypt as well as to conventions and research parks across the US.

It should be pointed out that there are important and serious topics being addressed by the science in the book, issues like: erectile dysfunction, sexual dissatisfaction (and its adverse effects upon relationships), and fertility difficulties. So, it’s not all jokes and quirky facts. Solutions to problems (surgical, pharmaceutical, and even psychological) are discussed, though there is a lot of basic science to consider as well. (For the less scientifically-oriented, basic science is that which doesn’t have a specific objective, but is rather to enhance understanding so that further down the road economically and practically viable solutions can be achieved. The lack of specific objective means this type of science can be particularly tricky to get funded. It also makes for some of the more amusing anecdotes because – unlike painful issues of persistent genital arousal disorder or erectile dysfunction – its easier to form jokes about penis cameras and romancing a sow.)

The book consists of fifteen chapters. As is common in Roach’s book, there’s not an obvious organizational schema – except the first chapter which is a bit more general and the last which answers the old question, “who has more fun, and why?” [except the answer isn’t “blondes or redheads” but rather heterosexual or homosexual couples.] That said, there is a grouping of male genitalia (ch. 6-8) versus female genitalia (ch. 9-12) studies. There are some photos (not particularly graphic) as well as endnotes and references.

I found this book to be fascinating and highly readable, and would recommend it for anyone with an interest in anatomy and physiology, or in sex for that matter.

41 people found this helpful

Francis Estrand-cartier

Bon Produit, répond à mes besoins, comme prévu et décrit.

Reviewed in France on November 1, 2019

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Bon Produit, répond à mes besoins, comme prévu et décrit.

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P. VAN A.

Vintage Mary Roach

Reviewed in the Netherlands on April 15, 2017

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After reading Roach's hilarious descent into the wonderful world of sexual research you'll never look at your private parts in the same way again.

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