Tidbits from Bonk by Mary Roach

Last week I finished reading Mary Roach's hilariously educational Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (click here to read all my posts about this book).

Here are some tidbits for you:

• The syngina is a synthetic human vagina used in tampon R&D.
• In 2002, a group of psychologists at SUNY Albany published a paper suggesting that semen may have antidepressant properties, based on studies of college age women's moods and whether they have sex with or without condoms.
• The Monkey Gland Affair by David Hamilton is the story of the once popular notion that the implantation of monkey testicles would rejuvenate male sexual powers and heal just about any ailment.
• The USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) has issued a variety of interestingly titled patents for sex or penis related purposes such as Disposable Internally Applied Penile Erector and Men's Underwear with Penile Envelope.
• There is supposedly a Thai saying "I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat." This is due to the hundreds of incidents in 1970s Thailand involving angry wives chopping off their adulterous husbands' members. Sometimes the women would flush them down the drain or thrown them out the window and if the latter occurred, ducks and other livestock would end up eating them.
• Somewhere in Seattle, WA, the local police department sponsored a bondage safety course.
• Only one tenth of the clitoris is visible but 60% of the penis is visible.
• The only FDA approved device for female sexual arousal disorder, Eros Clitoral Therapy Device, is essentially a $400 masturbation device.

Bonk was a fun and easy read (though the graphic descriptions of penis surgery and experiments may make this book less appealing to men) and I wonder what Mary Roach's next subject matter will be!

Bonk by Mary Roach

I’ve been reading Mary Roach’s latest book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (click here to read all my posts about this book).

After initially reading this in a public place (local Starbucks), I headed home when I realized I felt a bit uncomfortable reading a book about sex outside of the comfort of my own home.

Just read a few excerpts and you'll see what I mean.

Once I was at home, I felt free to laugh at the absurdity of the studies and Mary's own participation in some experiments. Did you know that pig's penises are shaped like corkscrews? And that they sell pig vibrators to farmers to help them artificially inseminate their cows? Or that pigs and men are the only mammals thought to fondle breasts during sex?

Bonk presents a wide variety of research on human sexuality too. Did you know that one woman out of 5,000 is born without a vagina? And that Marie Bonaparte found regarding the distance between the clitoris and urethra that for women with a measurement of less than 1 inch (69% of women) orgasm easily, while those with a measurement of greater than 1 inch (21% of women) have much trouble experiencing pleasure in sex, and those right around 1 inch (10% of women) go either way depending on the circumstances?

Mary Roach is a fantastic writer who knows no embarrassment and I look forward to finishing Bonk and wonder what her next subject matter will be!

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

Yesterday I started reading Mary Roach's latest book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (click here to read all my posts about this book).

Goodness, as I sat reading it at my local Starbucks, I felt a tad embarrassed for reading about such scandalous and almost perverse experiments.

I've seen Kinsey the highly acclaimed 2004 movie starring Liam Neeson as Alfred Kinsey, the Indiana University scientist driven by scientific passion and personal demons to study human sexuality, and Laura Linney as Kinsey's wife Clara McMillen and I was still shocked by the experiments Roach describes in the first few chapters of Bonk.

I often enjoy telling friends and family about what I've been reading but think I may keep the things I learn in this book to myself.

Bonk by Mary Roach

I’ve found Mary Roach's website which has information on both Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and  Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

I enjoyed reading the excerpt of Bonk printed here.

As for Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason, Barnes and Noble has an excerpt of the introduction available here.

I'm very tempted to read these books before I read the others I have checked out from the library (even though those are due quite soon)!

More Library Books

I went to the library this morning to return a few books, and I could not resist borrowing a few (even though I already have seven checked out). Today I borrowed:

• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
• Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason
• 1776 by David McCullough (audio book)
• Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (audio book)

Now I've never listened to an audio book before, so this is really an experiment. I'm not sure if I'll actually get through 1776 or Dreams from My Father but I'll give it a shot.

I've read Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (which I found hilariously educational) and Head Cases sounds an awful lot like The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge or like Oliver Sacks's books (I’ve read Awakenings and An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales).

I read about Head Cases last month in the New York Times in William Grimes's review titled "Empathy for the Brain, After Insult and Injury" and in Mary Roach's review (yes the same Mary Roach) titled "Damage Control."

And I heard about Bonk last month in the New York Times in Janet Maslin's review titled "A Sex Researcher Walks Into a Lab, and Then Things Start to Get Comical" and in Pamela Paul's review titled "Sexual Advances."

Both are favorably reviewed and I hope they live up to my expectations.

Back to work!