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Also by Mary Roach:

Fuzz, September 2021
Hardcover / e-Book
Gulp, April 2013
Hardcover / e-Book
The Ultimate Guide To Fellatio, September 2010
Trade Size
Packing For Mars, August 2010
Hardcover
Bonk, April 2009
Hardcover
Bonk, April 2008
Hardcover
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, October 2005
Hardcover
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, May 2004
Trade Size (reprint)

BONK
By: Mary Roach

The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

W. W. Norton
April 2008
On Sale: April 11, 2008
286 pages
ISBN: 0393064646
EAN: 9780393064643
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex.

The study of sexual physiology—what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better—has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.

Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women—or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.

Media Buzz

Fair Game with Faith Salie - May 6, 2008
All Things Considered - April 10, 2008
All Things Considered - April 9, 2008