REVIEW: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
This book has been selected as a Great Read.
Author: Mary Roach
W. W. Norton, 2008
Best ebook deal: Audiobook available at Seattle Public Library
| C4 Ratings.....out of | 10 |
|---|---|
| Language..... | 8 |
| Entertainment..... | 10 |
| Depth..... | 8 |
If you’ve ever wondered about how a male chimpanzee woos a mate, how human pheromones function, or whether Viagra will work for women, this is the book for you. The study of sex has a long and harrowing history, which Mary Roach explores in an in-depth, but not overly technical manner. In other words, it’s a science book for non-scientists. My curiosity about Bonk was piqued when I saw Roach speak on the TED blog back in May. Her talk had a provocative title (10 Things you didn’t know about orgasm), and after listening to her for a few minutes, I had to know more.
Roach is extremely thorough with her research and it shows. In Bonk, she starts at the very beginning, at the foundations of the body of work on sex, when scientists were studying animals to try to figure out how humans functioned. She recognizes the important work of all of the players, from Kinsey (whom we’ve all heard about, thanks to the popular film) to Masters and Johnson, who studied laboratory sexual encounters for years and published their intriguing findings in 1979 – an article entitled Homosexuality in Perspective.
She explores behaviors from the 1500s, when a woman could sue her husband for impotence, and to prove the fact, a team of observers was required to enter his bedroom to verify the facts before granting a divorce. She looks at the trajectory of ED (erectile dysfunction), and the crazy lengths people have gone to cure it throughout the ages. She examines the machines that have been developed to aid in intercourse, and the orgasmic capabilities of people with spinal injuries. She is willing to participate in studies, attend talks, and go to otherwise great lengths to collect her data, and writes about these experiences very candidly. As someone hasn’t read a lot of nonfiction lately, apart from the depressing, the dry, and the painfully detailed, I found Bonk to be a breath of fresh air – it’s also full of fun trivia that you can use to wow your friends and family at the dinner table.
Roach’s chapters are cleverly titled, such as “Re-Member Me: Transplants, Implants, and Other Penises of Last Resort.” In one chapter called “The Testicle Pushers: If Two Are Good, Would Three Be Better?”, Roach chronicles the activities of Serge Voronoff, a Frenchman who specialized in testicular grafting, buying into its claims of sexual rejuvenation and other happy outcomes like the minimization of acne – a precursor to Proactiv perhaps. After running out of human gonads (which he harvested from inmates?!) to peddle, he resorted to those of apes and monkeys:
Testicle madness was in full bloom. Bars in the 1920s were serving a drink called Monkey Gland, and shops in Paris sold ashtrays decorated with whimsical chimps with their hands on their genitals and the words “No, Voronoff, you won’t get me!” By 1924, some 750 medical professionals and not-so-professionals were plying the gonad trade.
A steady stream of colorful stories and useful facts keeps the narrative enjoyable and light as we move through science and history. I fell in love even with Roach’s footnotes, which contain hilarious explanatory anecdotes, side notes, and other relevant information. I laughed out loud in several passages, especially one in which she convinces her husband to participate in a study that would involve having sex in a doctor’s office, where they would be periodically scanned by an ultrasound wand. Remarkably, her husband and Dr. Deng are able to carry on small talk during the event.
Though Roach has a gift for humor, she manages to highlight the significance and the gravity of her subject – this type of difficult research has changed the lives of many people throughout the years, and been extremely valuable in the study of human behavior and psychology. She remains culturally sensitive, and deals delicately where her work touches taboo.
Bonk is an absolute delight, from start to finish. Mary Roach is a good writer and she’s genuinely funny, without being corny or clichéd. Perfect for the poolside or a day at the beach, this book answers all the questions you never knew you had about sex and the science behind it.
Similar books: Check out Roach’s other books, Stiff, about death and cadavers, and Spook, which features the paranormal.
