“Kinsey wanted Dellenback to film his own staff. There are three ways to read that sentence, all of them true.”
If you’re the kind of person who would like to know the story of how researchers discovered that electrical dick machines can stimulate knee orgasms in paralysed people, oh boy, do I have a book for you.
To give you an idea of the tone of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, here are a selection of chapter titles:
- Dating the Penis-Camera: Can a Woman Find Happiness with a Machine? [Spoiler: Yes!]
- Re-Member Me: Transplants, Implants, and Other Penises of Last Resort
- The Upsuck Chronicles: Does Orgasm Boost Fertility, and What Do Pigs Know About It?
This is a hilarious chronicle of science, and the ridiculous lengths some people will go to figure out the most efficient way their bits can fit in people/objects. After Bonk you’ll come away with ridiculous stories, an appreciation for Roach’s sense of humour and renewed gratefulness for puns. This thing is almost annoyingly funny. I kept sniggering, but really, really didn’t want strangers sitting near me on the train to ask me what I was reading. “Oh no, it’s not like that, it’s funny, I promise. Why are you moving seats? There’s no pictures!”
Mary Roach, for our entertainment and knowledge, performed the following acts during her research: measured the length between her clitoris and urethra; observed penile surgery in person, during which metal shafts were inserted right up a man’s shaft; had sex with her husband inside a confining magnetic tube so that researchers could see what people look like inside during the beast with two backs. She then managed to make my most prominent impressions of her as a person ‘shrewd, hard-working and extremely funny’, instead of ‘the woman who was really into weird sex stuff’. She worked too hard for me not to recommend this enthusiastically.
Some Ferrett Notes 