Author Probes Sex-Obsessed Scientists (Dept. Of Bow chicky bow-wow) in "Bonk"

[Ian David]

Best-selling author Mary Roach made a name for herself by exploring the secret lives of cadavers (in her book Stiff) and science's fascination with the supernatural (in Spook). Now, she's turned to the often-wacky researchers who are obsessed by exactly what happens when Part A goes into Slot B.

In her new book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Roach explores topics ranging from the sexual stimulation of Danish pigs and MRI scanner intercourse to bisexual bulls and the 19th century "penile pricking device" (don't ask). What did Roach discover? She tells all in an interview with Wired.com.

Wired: You've written twice before about death and science. What made you decide to look at sex and science?

Mary Roach: I was lying in bed and reading Film Quarterly, which was lying around our house. There was a reference to Masters and Johnson making films using a tiny camera and a light source inside a moving phallus -- the artificial coition machine.

I remember thinking, Holy shit, they made this camera and that's how they did their research -- they brought subjects into the lab and documented their sexual response from the inside with a little tiny camera in a "penis."


Author Mary Roach's latest book explores the scientific study of sex.
David Paul Morris

More:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/bonk

[hootinholler]

1. Wow, I can'timagine my response if a woman that looked like that approached me to talk about sex.

It would probably involve wiping slobber off my chin, incoherent babbling, and profuse apologies.

-Hoot

[mitchum]

2. I enjoyed both Stiff and Spook...

and look forward to reading this new one

[hunter]

3. Sex in the MRI... it's not so easy, especially for men it seems.

The most successful couple? Amateur street acrobats "used to performing under stress."