Bonk: the curious coupling of sex and science

Bonk by Mary Roach

Although I am only about half-way through this, it has to be one of the funniest and most informative books about the science of sex I have read yet.

It is essentially a history of the science of sex with topics such as erectile dysfunction, how female orgasm affects fertilisation, masturbation, hormones, but with a focus on the absurd and abnormal.

For example, the section on how orgasm affects fertilisation uses pig insemination farms as the example. She talks about how the farmers stimulate the pigs in a specific way, using pheremones and piggie-style vibrators, even going as far to stimulate their mammary glands. I also learned from this section that pigs have the clitoris inside their vagina and the males take from five to fifteen minutes to ejaculate! And the author took part in an imaging study in which she had sex with her husband while a doctor stood over them with an ultrasound machine. While this was happening they were chatting about their respective children and his response to the question of his children's ages was "Just two and a half. You can ejaculate now".

The absurdity of sex research is brought to light in a funny and informative way. This is an easy read and anybody could enjoy it (from the general public to sexologists like myself) but it is also well researched and thought out and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in sex.