Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
I already feel behind on my goals for this year as I’m just now finishing my first book. My first read of the year was Bonk, by Mary Roach. I had read her previous book, Stiff, which is about death and how we treat our dead. And as always, her book was entertaining while educational.
Mary Roach’s books, or at least the two I’ve read and what I’ve heard about the others, involve her taking a deep scientific research into a subject. Her books feel almost as you traveling around the world with her as she discovers new knowledge. The book is an exploration, not just of the subject but of how people study the subject. And these journeys take you to places you would not expect to go, such as a pig farm, or a country that seems to despise sex and women.
This keeps the book from being a dry read. While it is research of a subject, she doesn’t include pages and pages that contain graphs or statistical analysis. For the most part, this is a good thing as it doesn’t bog the book down and allows people who don’t want to (or incapable of) digest numbers and research to come to the same conclusion. At times though, I really do wish the research was right there, and not just because the subject is sex, but because I’m naturally distrustful of information given to me without evidence. But, Mary Roach is not a distrustful writer, and will often report if follow up studies have been done or not (often times they have not), and if there was any discrepancies, and what those discrepancies were. She also makes sure to point out when certain studies may be outdated or how cultural issues may have affected the outcomes. She also admits when she might have a bias.
Each chapter is designated to a specific topic. In that chapter, she’ll time travel through the research done that brings us to the current research being done, and how minds have changed about certain subjects. For the most part, this just makes the reading more entertaining (especially laughing at what people once believed). At times though, I found this to be confusing. Especially the beginning chapters, where it felt like we were jumping back and forth between the same set of people. By the end, it all made sense and I understood what was going on, but still I thought it might have been better handled to just talk about all the research done in the 1800s at once, followed by all the research done in the 1900s, and then all the research done by Kinsey and that crew. That also may have made the book a lot more dry, and would have its own difficulties (such as that of following a specific subject).
Mary Roach adds a lot of flavor to the book. There are jokes, there is sarcasm, and there is plenty of laughter in between all the knowledge. This makes the book an entertaining read. There are a few points where I, a discerning and hopefully intelligent individual, was almost confused if she was being sarcastic, sardonic, or actually telling the truth. This makes me worried about the more foolish individuals out there (*cough* legitimate rape *cough*) who might not be as discerning as me.
Part of the problem with a book like this is that I do my reading while at work. If a customer calls in though, I have to drop the book and get right with the customer. For any sci-fi or fantasy book, this is no problem. For a book where I’m actually learning things, this means a lot of re-reading and trying process what was going on. It is also really hard to go back to answering phones with the word “Clitoral Orgasm” being the last word you read. This not only aided in my confusion at the early chapters, but also in that it took me an entire month to finish such a small book.
Over-all, I enjoyed this book. It may have permanently ruined certain words for me (e.g. Ungloved), but over-all I’m glad I read it. Its not a book about how to have sex, how to improve your sex life, or anything like that, but it is a book that explores various cultures and times views on sex, and how we currently understand how sex works, how it is started, and what side effects can occur. It explores various hypotheses, theories, and some just plain weird ideas. It was enjoyable. I would strongly recommend not reading this where you will be asked to talk to customers at the drop of the hat though, as you may just say something accidentally.
