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 enlarge | Author: Mary Roach
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $13.10
You Save: $11.85 (47%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  61 reviews
Media: Audio Download
ASIN: B0019FAIZC
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Lots of ick, but where's the fun? August 20, 2008
A book by Mary Roach on sex, of all topics, ought to be wince-inducing and hilarious. The winces are there all right, with tales of penile surgery, farmers stimulating their animals for better yields, and various devices to measure and explore human sexuality. But whether from embarrassment or fatigue, the laughs just aren't there. Maybe it's the sheer ick factor of disinterested scientists playing mad doctor on unsuspecting indigent patients, or the utter weirdness of the Kinsey group "experimenting" on themselves and holding ejaculation contests. Or of the scary futuristic glare of the "Dr. Evil" of sex research -- William Masters (of Masters and Johnson fame). Perhaps it's just the groan factor of page after page of doctors probing, palpating, peering at and pontificating on the most sensitive areas of the body. Whatever it is, the book has nothing of the wacky morbid enjoyment of "Stiff," Roach's first book.
There's plenty to learn about human and animal sexuality. There's lots of info about the mistaken notion s that we humans have had over the years about "what goes where" and why. The ancients thought male and female contributed "seed" tom start human life -- an egalitarian concept not so far from the truth. But Leonardo, for all his enthusiasm for drawing accurate renditions of the human body from cadavers, turned away prudishly when it came to rendering the human reproductive system, preferring to use the erroneous work of others as his source. Then there's the reason, evidently molded by eons of rather messy competition between randy guys, that the male human organ is shaped the way it is.
The goodly amount of new and unusual info in "Bonk" needs to be made palatable by a certain amount of raucous, anarchic fun, but it's here that Roach is unable to deliver. A good read, even if you have to force your way through it.
 Thoroughly entertaining and educational August 13, 2008
Hands down this is one of the best books I have read in some time. I found myself laughing out loud with almost every page while staying riveted to the fascinating account of the study of sex throughout the last few hundred years.
Who would have thought August 11, 2008
The book gets more interesting as you read. It's full with interesting facts. The only thing that is distracting are the footnotes.
BONK August 4, 2008
This book is full of interesting tidbits of information and the author can be funny at times.
My favorite chapters list of this book:
2. Dating the Penis-Camera: Can a woman find happiness with a machine?
3. The Princess and Her Pea: The woman who moved her clitoris, and other ruminations on intercourse orgasms
5. What's Going On in There?: The diverting world of coital imaging
7. The Testicle Pushers: If two are good, would three be better?
8. Re-Member Me: Transplants, implants and other penises of last resort
14. Monkey Do: The secret sway of hormones
15. "Persons Studied in Pairs:" The lab that uncovered great sex
Another book you will love is Sex and the Perfect Lover: Tao, Tantra, and the Kama Sutra
 Not bonkers for Bonk August 2, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
Since I cannot help out with packing and there are only so many hours a day I can find the TV or internet interesting, I went bookshopping again. This time I bought, among other things, "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex."
The jacket loudly proclaimed, "In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm-two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scienctific phenomena on earth- can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a mores satisfying place."
Sounds intriguing right? Plus all the reviews on Amazon were 5 stars. It must be good, right?
Well, no. I don't think so.
Don't get me wrong, the subject matter is interesting. I am amazed by secual reproduction of all types of life, including jellyfish, but that is a tale for a different day. The problem is that I guess I just don't cotton to juvenile sex humor. Maybe it's because I am old (late 20s). Maybe it is because I am a scientist or really open about my sexuality and thus do not feel uncomfortable thinking or reading about, OMG! Sex! I don't know, but I found this woman's humor to be a distraction at best and outright retarded at worst. I wonder whether I could make it through coffee talk with her and here's why:
In one passage she is talking about meeting with a researcher who studies the sexual activity of rheus monkeys, where come on cues are referred to as presentations. The note for this tidbit within the continuing story is as follows: "A visit to Yerkes [the research facility] will forever after distort your image of Corporate America. On my flight home, the woman behind me was talking about a presentation she was planning for a man named Mark. Her seatmate had just finished up a series of displays at the regional sales conference." [Pg. 284, emphasis the author's]
Or when speaking about the G-spot, she mentions that "Zwi Hosh, of the Center for Sexual Therapy at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, published a paper in which he trained 64 percent of a group of 56 noncoitally orgasmic women [those who do not orgasm simply from intercourse] to have orgasms by stimulating the front wall of their vagina. While most were using the finger, some had managed ot with 'anteriorly directed intercourse.'" The note on this one:
"No one in Israel titters over the seeming irony of a sex therapy center in a hospital called Rambam. Rambam is short for the Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (a.k.a. Maimonides). Though I now associate him with rear-entry intercourse, the rambam, as he is known there, was an important medieval Jewish philospoher." [pg. 80]
Sadly, this book just didn't deliver. Yes, sexual research is interesting, provided it is presented properly. This feel more like an aside into the author's personal absorption and juvenality, especially once you get to the points in the book when she begins (more than once) to volunteer to be a research subject. If she gets off on that, great. If it helped her understand her subject matter, great, but I don't necessarily want to hear about her personal experiences having sex while being ultrasounded. Do you know why researchers randomize the identities of the people they research? It's not for the subject's privacy, but because the last thing most people want to think about is what two other people look like during a sexual experience, especially when it's not porn.
I don't know. I forced my way through this book, but it was a total waste of energy. If you want an enjoyable read, pick up: "Sex: A Natural History." It is at once more intelligent, tells a better story, and is actually funnier in a very adult way. For ridiculousness associated by a woman who clearly hasn't made it past 4th grade humor, read Bonk.
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