About this title: The bestselling author of "Stiff" turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. In "Bonk," Roach shows how and why sexual arousal and orgasm can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780393064643ISBN:0393064646
Description: Good in Good jacket. Slight spine slant. Pinpoint stains to the bottom of the front board. Intact dust jacket with some edgewear. Otherwise a clean copy. read more
Description: Fine. 0393334791 NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black ink mark on outside edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Fine. 0393064646 Ships next business day. NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black ink mark on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Description: Fine. 0393064646 THIS IS A HARDCOVER BOOK IN DUST JACKET. THE BOOK AND DUST JACKET ARE IN FINE/FINE CONDITION, LIKE NEW, NO DEFECTS INSIDE OR OUT. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780393334791ISBN:0393334791
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 319 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. The book is in very good condition with no writing or other marks. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780393334791ISBN:0393334791
Description: Fine. Paperback. Almost new condition. Almost new condition. SKU: 24303788 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780393334791. read more
Description: New. Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas. GREAT BUY. Brand New From US Distributor. WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER with OVER 3, 500, 000 BOOKS SOLD. read more
"This book has it all!!!! -A little history of studies on sex (Kinsey! Masters and Johnson) -Erections -Use of erections in martial arts (go rent Iron Crotch!) -Surgery for erection enhancement. (Graphic. It made my stomach churn) -Dildos (or use of electric toothbrushes as dildos.) -Orgasms (and a lady who has orgasms when she brushes her teeth... awesome!) -Failure to orgasm (Princess Bonaparte blamed it on a distant clitoris for the ladies. If the clitoris is more than an inch away from the vagina, chances are you are frigid. I'm thinking she had issues.) -Shoe fetishism -Sex with vacuums (DO NOT try that at home) -Recipe for simulated semen -Pandas on Viagra
The book is interesting, I can't lie. The author has too-frequent "cutesy" footnotes. (I was in a bad mood when I read the book. Had I been in good spirits, her little notes may have amused me)
Oh, she did forget one thing: Fisting. (Thank you, Roach. After the stomach-churning graphic penis surgery, I could not have handled stomach-churning detail on fisting.)"
My uncle and I have read all of Mary Roach's books together. We had stomach churning conversations about cadavers at dinner parties and discussed the after life at meant-to-be light-hearted gatherings. He approached me with red in his cheeks after he finished this. "It's raw. But good." And that was the end of our conversation.
This was the kind of book that kept me laughing so hard people around me had to ask, "What, what?" and then I would reiterate some astounding and hilariously written fact about the clitoris or how to appropriately stimulate a pig to prepare her for insemination without stuttering or batting an eyelash.
I thought I knew a lot about sex. Turns out there's an untapped (heh) well of information about the infamous researchers and their discoveries. Not only has Roach equipped me with fascinating tidbits to share in random conversations, but I actually think it's going to make my sex life better. Scratch that, it already has.
There's plenty I want to talk about/quote, but I'm feeling shy. This is the price you pay for having your mom as a goodreads friend."
"I've never had internet sex - there must be another word for it, cybersex, obviously, but I'm thinking more along the lines of keyboard sex. All the same, a couple of years ago (and purely as a community service, you understand) I started working on a series of words that could be typed using only the left hand. It was another of those projects that I started and fairly quickly lost interest in.
If this book is about anything I think it would be fair to say that it is about the absurdity of sex. This is the second of Roach's books I've read lately and I must say sex is much funnier than death. This book was laugh out loud funny.
I have also discovered that I have a special face that I wear whenever the words URETHRA and EXPANDED or INSERTED are used in the same sentence. This is especially the case when the word TOOTHBRUSH is also contained in that sentence - but it is not reserved for the collocation of those particular words. In fact, by the end of the book whenever the word URETHRA was used at all I could feel my face responding in a particularly pronounced Pavlovian fashion.
There were so many interesting bits to this book that it is pointless me starting or I simply won't be able to stop. And it was funny and fun - so I am going to recommend it and recommend it highly.
The bit I found most interesting was right at the end, where she was talking about tests that were done in the 1970s that found that the people who enjoyed sex the most were homosexual couples - either gay or lesbian. This was because the heterosexual couples tended to see sex as a destination they needed to reach as quickly as they could, while the homosexual couples played more and teased and delighted in each other more. For some reason we seem to have become sold on the 'sex as performance' metaphor. At one point she said that many women felt sexually inadequate because they believed themselves to be unattractive and spent the whole time worrying about what they looked like - watching themselves in effect. Sex is about being there with someone else, and is better the more 'there' you are - it is a dance, rather than a race or a beauty contest.
Now, this is the second time recently that I've discovered just how incurious I am and have always been. The first time was with Mr Fry's autobiography when he was talking about boys sticking their fingers up their bums. That simply never occurred to me when I was growing up. And to be honest, you could leave me alone in a room for a thousand years and I would never think of having sex with a vacuum cleaner. I am assuming that is not what Billy Bragg means when he has a female character in one of his songs say, "no amount of poetry will mend this broken heart, but you can push the Hoover 'round if you want to make a start".
So, what did I learn? Well, besides that gays make the best lovers, that it is best not to rush into a room when you hear a man calling out "Titan, Titan, Titan" on a video your wife is watching and if God has a place it certainly isn't in the bedroom, I think that the best of this book - like Stiff - is acknowledging that life, death and sex are all a bit absurd and for that we really should be very grateful."
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