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Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. Chapter 1: The Sausage, the Porcupine, and the Agreeable Mrs. G. The biologist of the fifties could put some animals in a pen and watch them have sex.
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Chapter 1:The Sausage, the Porcupine, and the Agreeable Mrs. G. • The biologist of the fifties could put some animals in a pen and watch them have sex. • However, if you want to understand human sexual response, then studying animals is probably not the most productive way to go about it.
Chapter 1 • Beginning in 1890, as part of each patient's initial examination, Robert Latou Dickinson would take a detailed sexual history in his gynecology practice. • It was Dickinson who ushered the clitoris into the spotlight. He was an early proponent of the more clitoris-friendly woman-on-top position.
Chapter 1 • John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorism in 1913, was the first research scientist to make the case for bringing sexual arousal and orgasm into the formal confines of a laboratory. • However, it wasn't until 1932 when medical research hooked up instruments to live human sex.
Chapter 1: on Alfred Kinsey • Kinsey, with colleagues, interviewed 18,000 Americans about their sex lives and published the results in two volumes. • “Kinsey was virtually on top of the action, his head only inches removed from the couple's genitals... Above the groans and moans, Kinsey could be heard chattering away, pointing out various signs of sexual arousal as the couple progressed through the different stages of intercourse.”
Chapter 1: on Alfred Kinsey • Kinsey recruited special-interest groups (stutterers, amputees, paraplegics, even those with cerebral palsy). He found that, during sex: • A stutterer may temporarily lose his stutter • Phantom limb pain of amputees temporarily disappears • The muscle spasticity of cerebral palsy may be briefly quieted
Chapter 1: Masters and Johnson • Masters and Johnson launched a book on their own project, titled Human Sexual Response, in 1966. They found: • In the stage of arousal just before orgasm, the visible portion of the clitoris retracts under its tiny foreskin. • “In direct manipulation of the clitoris there is a narrow margin between stimulation and irritation.”
Chapter 2:Dating the Penis-Camera • Masters and Johnson's artificial coition subjects were achieving orgasm from nothing but the thrust. • However, Alzate and Londono concluded that penile thrusting on its own, with no foreplay or during-play, is “an insufficient method of inducing female orgasm.”
Chapter 3:The Princess and Her Pea • Princess Bonaparte, working with doctors in the 1920's, measured the distance from vagina to clitoris on over 200 women. • The women with the lengthiest span, longer than 1 inch, were claimed incapable of orgasm. • Women of a distance less than 1 inch were, she said, almost guaranteed a “voluptuous reaction” from the in-and-out thrust of a penis.
Chapter 3 • Robert Latou Dickinson also encountered, in his many years of clinical practice, 18 women whose virginity remained intact despite having what they mistook for intercourse. • “The husbands and wives, though otherwise intelligent, thought the cleft of the vulva was as deep as his organ was expected to go.”
Chapter 3 • American women were given clitoridectomies from the 1860's through the early 1900's. • The practice was started by Isaac Baker Brown, who believed that masturbation in women caused hysteria, epilepsy, and “idiocy.” He believed that removing the clitoris was the only cure. • Often, he wouldn't tell patients exactly what he was planning to do to them.
Chapter 4:The Upsuck Chronicles • Denmark's National Committee for Pig Production research showerd that sexually stimulating a sow while you artificially inseminate her leads to a 6% improvement in fertility. • This lead to a government-backed Five-Point Stimulation Plan for pig farmers, including an instructional DVD and colored posters for the farmers to tack on their barn walls.
Chapter 4 • Hippocrates believed that the female orgasm, like the male's, was linked to a bursting-forth of seed. • Even long after that concept was proven incorrect, the idea that simultaneous orgasm increased the chance of conception was kept. • If the man's climax was essential to the creation of life, surely the woman's had the same purpose.
Chapter 4 • Orgasm causes a release of oxytocin (the “joy hormone”), which is known to cause uterine contractions. • Human semen also contains prostaglandin, a hormone which causes powerful contractions when it comes in contact with a woman's uterus. • These two hormones are likely part of the mechanism through which sperm travels upward into the uterus.
Chapter 5:What's Going On in There? • The last portion of a man's ejaculate contains a natural spermicide. • The purpose isn't to kill his own sperm, obviously, but to fight any seed to follow.
Chapter 6:The Taiwanese Fix and the Penile Pricking Ring • When erectile tissue loses its stretch, it no longer expands fully and presses hard against the walls of the veins. • Because of this, the blood being kept in the penis that should keep it erect is draining out. • If you were to tie off and remove some of those veins, it would prevent (or at least slow) the leakage.
Chapter 6 • In the late 1700s, semen was believed to be a vital source of life energy. • Masturbation and casual sex (particularly with “ugly” women, who sapped a man's vitality faster than the attractive ones), led to all sorts of bodily problems. • Citizens worried that masturbation could cause impotence, blindness, heart trouble, insanity, stupidity, clammy hands, tongue coatings, stooped shoulders, flabby muscles, and under-eye circles.
Chapter 6 • Sex physiologist Roy Levin explained that sperm which sits around for a week will develop abnormalities: missing, extra, shriveled, tapered, and bent heads. • However, if conception is the goal, sperm should not be too fresh. Daily masturbation (or sex) would deplete the number of sperm per ejaculate. • Optimum holding time: 5 days.
Chapter 7:The Testicle Pushers • By 1916, testicle grafts had become more mainstream. The beneficial effects of tissue from a this testis implanted in the scrotum beside the other two were said to include: • Increased sexual power and vigorous and prolonged erections • Erased afflictions of advanced age: high blood pressure, senility, arteriosclerosis.
Chapter 7 • In a study of 1000 testicular grafts: • Reported improvement: • 49 of 58 asthmatics • 3 of 4 diabetics • 3 of 5 epileptics • 12 of 19 impotent men • 32 of 41 said they could see better • 54 of 66 acne sufferers reported a decrease in the number of pimples
Chapter 7 • Chinese Materia Medica of 1597, by Li Shih-chen, promotes the penises of dogs, wild cats, and otters as treatments for impotence • Certain types of otters are deemed more effective than others
Chapter 8:Re-Member Me • Erection, orgasm, and ejaculation are independent events. • A man can have an orgasm without ejaculation • A man can also have an orgasm and/or ejaculation without an erection • The first time an implant was installed in the penis of an impotent man was 1952. • The implant was essentially a strip of cartilage
Chapter 8 • In a study of men who had malleable implants installed into their penises: • 76 percent were satisfied with the rigidity • In another study of 350 men with inflatable implants: • The satisfaction rate was 69 percent • Another, similarly sized study of inflatable implants: • 83 percent were satisfied, but only 70 percent of their partners were.
Chapter 8 • The world's most experienced penis reattachment surgeons are found in Thailand: • During the 1970s, an estimated 100 vengeful Thai wives sliced off the penises of their adulterous husbands as they slept. • With a suitably equipped microsurgeon, the penis could be reattached. However, they were often shorter, number, and only partway erectable.
Chapter 9:The Lady's Boner • As with men, sexual excitement ushers more blood to a woman's genitals. • On average, a woman's clitoris holds twice as much blood while they are watching porn than otherwise. • Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately?) for women, physical and mental arousal are separate. • With FSAD (female sexual arousal disorder), a woman finds herself in the mood, but unresponsive to foreplay.
Chapter 9 • The penis and clitoris are very much alike: • Both end in a sensitive, nerve-dense, pleasure-yielding bulb of tissue called a glans. • Both have a shaft, with a pair of expandable chambers called corpora cavernosa. • A clitoris even has a prepuce, or foreskin, just like the penis.
Chapter 9 • Exercise has been shown to improve a woman's ability to get aroused. • Exercise makes the body more efficient at pumping blood. • To get into a lubricated vagina, a penis needs to be hard enough to push against the opening with 1-2 lbs of force. • This is approximately the amount of force required to open a swinging kitchen door.
Chapter 10:The Prescription-Strength Vibrator • Testosterone is the hormone most closely linked to sexual desire, and is sometimes prescribed to women who complain of low libido. • According to Cindy Meston, “It's looking like sex in and of itself can be theraputic. It makes you enjoy sex more and want to have sex more. I think the whole use-it-or-lose-it thing definitely applies to women.”
Chapter 10 • The Science of Orgasm says that people who have regular orgasms seem to have less stress and enjoy lower rates of heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and endometriosis. • People with spinal cord injuries get a unique benefit from orgasm: • Orgasm relieves a paralyzed person of the leg stiffness and muscle spasms (collectively known as spasticity).
Chapter 11:The Immaculate Orgasm • It was assumed (logically) that if a person's spinal cord is broken at a point higher than the point at which the genital nerves feed into the spine, then there should be no way for the nerve impulses to make their way past the injury and up to the brain. • It was therefore assumed that there was no way for the person to achieve orgasm. • Yet, 40-50% of these men and women do.
Chapter 11 • If you trigger the correct spot on the spinal cord for a freshly dead body (or a person being kept alive by machines, pending the removal of organs), a spinal reflex will occur: • Known as the Lazarus sign • It will stretch out its arms and then raise them up and cross them over its chest.
Chapter 11 • People with spinal cord injuries may develop a compensatory erogenous zone above the level of their injury. • Researchers call it “the hypersensitive area.” • As explained by one quadriplegic subject: “My whole body feels like it's in my vagina.” This subject had just experienced an orgasm (evidenced by heart rate and blood pressure), by applying a vibrator to her neck and chest.
Chapter 11 • If you show erotic films to someone with a high spinal cord injury, they may find the images arousing, but the input won't be able to travel down the spine and thus no lubrication/erection will occur. • Very low spinal cord injuries create the opposite: the person can only become lubricated from seeing/reading/listening to something erotic; physical reflex arousal is blocked by the injury.
Chapter 12:Mind Over Vagina • When a woman is turned on by something or someone, her brain sends a signal to open up more capillaries in the genitals, which increases the amount of blood in the vaginal walls, of which some of the plasma (clear portion) seeps through the capillaries and coats the vagina. Thus: lubrication. • A 1992 study showed that men were more accurate than women at picking up changes in their heart rate and blood pressure.
Chapter 12 • According to The Science of Orgasm, “a substantial proportion of persons claim that marijuana enhances and enriches their sexual experience.” • For obvious reasons, a controlled clinical trial of the effect of marijuana on arousal and sexual satisfaction has been thus far impossible.
Chapter 12 • Women, gay and straight, will show immediate genital arousal in response to films of any sexual activity, regardless of the participants. • Men, on the other hand, tend to respond in a more limited manner: they are aroused only by footage that fits their sexual interest. • Therefore, women and gay men may be turned on by footage of two gay men, but straight men will not.
Chapter 13:What Would Allah Say? • Dr. Ahmed Shafik found that over time, lab rats dressed in polyester or poly-cotton blend had sex significantly less often than the rats whose clothing were cotton or wool. • He also found that when a penis hits the cervix in a certain way, the woman's adductor muscles reflexively contract, pulling her thighs together and (in what appears to be a protective mechanism) limiting the depth of the man's thrusts.
Chapter 13 • The vaginocavernous reflex, while boosting blood flow to the clitoris, is also squeezing the man's dorsal vein, helping trap blood in the penis and keep it firm.
Chapter 14:Monkey Do • Women who are part of couples will initiate sex more often at mid-cycle than during the rest of the month (provided they are using a reliable birth-control method); otherwise, they will typically avoid mid-cycle sex. • Women also masturbate significantly more often around ovulation than at other times.
Chapter 14 • A research paper on premature ejaculation states that chimpanzees ejaculate within an average of seven seconds after they mount a female. • The human male's average time lapse between penetration and orgasm is two minutes: • Average thrusting time is 2-5 minutes, or 100-500 thrusts. • Premature ejaculation is listed at one minute and 30 seconds.
Chapter 14 • Birth control pills raise levels of sex-hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), a protein that binds to testosterone and takes it out of the blood. • Going off the pill may not restore libido • A 2006 study looked at women's SHBG levels and their unbound testosterone when on the pill and afterward. Their SHBG didn't decrease after they stopped the pill and their testosterone levels didn't recover.
Chapter 14 • A study by the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago showed that the smell of men's colognes actually reduced the vaginal blood flow. • In addition, women were turned off by the scent of cherry and of “charcoal barbecue meat.” • At the top of the list of scents that turned women on was a mixture of cucumber and Good 'n' Plenty candy, which increased vaginal blood flow by 13%.
Chapter 15:“Persons Studied in Pairs” • The author states, “When I began this book, I harbored a naïve fantasy that I would find a team of scientists working to discover the secret to amazing, mind-rippling sex.” • Only 2 months before turning in her manuscript, she found that lab. • In 1979, Masters and Johnson published Homosexuality in Perspective, which is based off that specific research idea.
Chapter 15 • The researchers studied interactions between gay, lesbian, heterosexual, and ambisexual couples. • In some cases, it was with their long-term partners. • In other cases, they assigned a stranger. • The researchers found that there was efficient sex: skillful, goal-directed, uninhibited, and with very low “failure incidence.”
Chapter 15 • Efficient sex, however, was not amazing sex. • The best sex was had by committed gay and lesbian couples, not because they were practicing special secret homosexual sex techniques, but because they “took their time.” • They “tended to move slowly, and to linger at each stage of stimulative response, making each step in tension increment something to be appreciated.”
Chapter 15 • With heterosexual couples, there were only a few instances when the husband was fully aware of his wife's level of sexual excitation and helped her to expand her pleasure, rather than attempting to force her rapidly to higher levels of sexual involvement. • The same applied to women: “This sense of goal orientation was exhibited almost as frequently by the heterosexual women as their male partners.”
Chapter 15 • According to the author, the sad part about Homosexuality in Perspective, is that “most people will only recall that Masters and Johnson spent the second half of the book touting a therapy for helping homosexuals convert to heterosexuality. • The author, however, thanks Masters and Johnson, as well as all of the other researchers mentioned, for their diligent study of a slippery subject. As she states, “Hats and pants off to you all.”
