Defining the Best Sexual Experiences

If you're gonna have sex in front of a researcher with an ultrasound wand, Dr. Dung would be a good you know, he's just so kinda matter-of-fact. He he did offer to play some music, right? As well. Oh God, yeah, he did he yeah, he goes. I and I was kidding and I said, where's the romantic lighting and music? They goes, Oh. Wait. On my laptop, I have the soundtrack to lay me. To do science jazz. With our favorite nerds. Yeah. Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and today on the show we are talking about the science of sex. And in particular, how scientists have desperately and awkwardly tried to study sex for decades. Yes. Today we bone. Which is possibly the best word for sex. Followed closely by Stup. Bonk is also the title to Mary Roach's best selling book on this very topic. And even though Bonk was written a hot minute ago, it is still this fabulous. highly relevant book, The Science is still mind blowing. So today we are talking to Mary about her book. We uncover the mysteries of orgasms, we'll tell you how to sexually stimulate a pig, also a human, yes. We'll talk about how to have mind-rippling sex. If you are listening to this on Spotify, you could be watching it too. It's on video. After the break, my interview with the amazing Mary Roach. Coming up. Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them. Plus, Time Management Tools. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age appropriate experiences. Lear more about Teen Accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teenaccounts. Me a break! So that kid kept on Break, break me off a piece of that Kick at Bart chocolate crispy taste gonna make your day and wherever you Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that can get bar Have a break. Advocat Welcome back. Today on the show, my interview with the amazing science writer Mary Roach, and we're talking about her book, Bunk. Is absolutely fabulous. So let's just get into it. Mary Roach, I'm so excited. It's the you know they say never meet your heroes, but here we are. Um So thank you so much for joining us on the show. My pleasure. I have heard you say that in high school you thought science was a drag. Um changed for you? When when did you start to kind of fall in love with science? Well I I had that. sense of, you know, science was I equated it with science homework and, you know, the textbooks that I had to read and I it just it seemed like a slog. And then uh I started I started out doing just mainstream journalism. was given these assignments that were just that were so interesting and they were so Uh, I mean I did a lot of traveling and I began to realize that science is basically you, your body, your computer, your dog, the world. I mean, how could it be boring? It's basically how the world works. Science is it's all about following your curiosity and Just sort of asking why and how and So then what made you want to write a a book about? So really this is the science. Yeah, that was well I was um looking around for another book topic. This is my third book and uh Around that time. I was looking through it was an old back issue of uh some film. Some really Kind of nerdy film. journal. I don't remember why or what waiting room I was in, but there was a reference to the culposcopic films of Masters and Johnson. And I was thinking culposcopy, that's something to do with the cervix. And I'm like, holy crap, did they actually film inside a woman's body? And in fact they did. They made a penis camera and they put it in and they and the woman was like having sex with this camera and I was like, holy crap, that's my next books. That's research. Because like How delightfully awkward is that to Yeah. You know, bring people into a laboratory setting and have them do sexual things and you're the researcher in your white coat. And I just thought that scene is very merry roach. Got to do a book about that. What made it I mean it's a delightful and awkward and fabulous scene. What made it very rich. Science that you don't really expect. And and I think also I'm drawn to the human body just because it is this kind of weird foreign planet, you know, when you Beyond you know, we walk mostly as minds. Thinking of ourselves as you know, this personality and this mind, but we're in this big bag of meat and bones and stuff and all this weird crap's going on. Kinda cool. You know, it's almost like travel. I used to love to do a lot of travel for my reporting and At some point realize that the human body is a is kind of a foreign planet that is fun to play around on. Yeah. For sure. And particularly all these Very important areas, but that we just don't probe or talk about that much. All the more the the dark side of them. Moon. What not? Um Now there's this wonderful quote that comes from your book. It's from the psychologist John B. Watson, writing in the early 20th century. And basically he was a bit miffed at science's reluctance to study human sexuality, which I would say still exists. Today. Um, and he says that we should have our questions. Answered not by our mothers and grandmothers, not by priests and clergymen in the interests of middle class Moors, nor by general practitioners, not even by Freudians. We want them answered by scientifically trained students of sex. And I I love this. It's it's true and it's mo it's even more true today. We don't have so many Freudians. But we have influences in um our own version of this. What Why did you sort of open with this, you know, it's it comes early in your book. What you know, I could see you smiling as you're remembering. What what does this passage mean to you? Oh, well it it was amazing to me. When you think about The act of sex, even independent from fertility, just Sex. Biological physiological thing, and yet Even up through the mid nineteen hundreds. Nobody was you wouldn't find it in a textbook, like a classic physiology textbook, there'd be no mention of like Intercourse arousal orgasm like Doesn't exist. Move along, move along. You know, and it and and particularly for people who are having any kind of trouble sexually or or n you know, with whether or not just not satisfied or n not conceiving or whatever. I mean, it behooves us to understand and it's not just It's good to know because of the sake of knowing, it was also actually really helpful for people to know um what w what could be going wrong. I mean, you look back at um Robert Latou Dickinson, who was the w the one who got Kinsey interested. In sex research, Kinsey had been studying gall wasps. Dickinson's like, hey, I got something a little more interesting for you. Yeah. Dickinson was this amazing guy who would he was a gynecologist, but it he was very open with his patients and He talked about how you know they could have we're having trouble conceiving because they didn't realize like the penis has to actually go in there. Like they don't know how to do it. Like and in which hole. It can't go in the butt. It can't go in the butt. This hole. Yeah. Well maybe that hole later. But the people felt so uncomfortable bringing it up. Who do you ask? And who do you talk to? People didn't feel like they could talk to their partner or their doctor. And so any time you can break down a taboo like that, I think it's it's a good thing. And um and it was really hard for Kinse and Masters and Johnson the early Researchers Um It was so taboo. What did you kind of learn about what it was like to be a um trained student of sex or a science researcher back then. It w not only difficult and it's such a taboo even more than today. They were also quite creative, as you mentioned, with the Penis camera. Yeah. I mean uh to di and I really wanted to see that penis camera. I mean it should be in the Smithsonian and I tried to find it. Virginia Johnson's son We don't want to We don't want to talk to you. I'm like w well where just where is it? I finally um heard that it had been dismantled, like it doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, it was attached to a motor and it was like and the woman could control the speed and like they were cranking it up and it was And Kinsey didn't even have a lab. Kinsey was using his attic. People were coming up to the attic and Just you know, cr the creativity was was kind of amazing. At one point there was this Um There was a belief that when The semen wasn't Coming out enough. It would like it wasn't shooting out. And there was this belief that it should be shooting out and Um Kinsey was like, no, it doesn't, it just kinda glops. And I'm gonna prove this. And he went out and he hired a bunch of male prostitutes, set up a camera and put down two, I remember it was oriental carpets and had them jerk off and then filmed the stuff coming out and did show that it mostly just glops, although there were some people with some very, you know, projectile Ejaculations. But anyway, th I'm like He had a question and he figured out a way to answer it. Yeah. super important because if you expect it to shoot out So many People would think there was something wrong with them. And people who are having trouble conceiving would be like, Oh my God, my stuff isn't coming out right. You know? It's like, No, no, it is. You're good. It just needs to glop. Don't worry. It's a gloppy thing. It's not like a glorious fountain. Um And in In your book, um you mentioned you have a favorite line, 'cause you d you obviously you're reading Kinsey and Mars and Johnson. What is your favorite line of Kinsey's from um sexual behavior in uh the human female I think. Okay, here's my favorite line. There's lots, but This is the favorite. Okay. Cheese crumbs spread. In front of a pair of copulating rats will distract the female, but not the male. I just love that. And you know that He did that. He took the crumbs out. And he watched. You know. And the female the female's like, oh, what's that? Oh, something to eat. And the male's like, what are you talking about? Why are you even God So one of the big questions you tackle in this book is female orgasm is sort of this mystery of why female's orgasm at all. Why for those who've never really thought about it, why is this a mystery? Well, with with men, uh orgasm is obviously tied to reproduction. You know, you have ejaculation, which delivers the semen, and then is how conception happens. So obvious what function it serves. Um and with women It wasn't so clear, um, but there was for centuries. This belief that It was tied to conception, and that The the contractions, uterine contractions that happened during orgasm, they thought there was this belief that they were Like delivering it more quickly and and therefore and boosting the odds of conception. You know, as far back as the seventeen hundreds there was this belief that it was a It was good for women because you know, if they w if a woman was having trouble conceiving the they sort of take the man aside and go Yeah like there was a famous line who knows if it's true. Um Empress Maria the Habsburg Monarchy. Maria Teresa was having trouble conceiving and the royal physician Takes the husband aside and goes it is you know, the opinion uh of of of the physicians that um the vulva of her majesty should be titillated for some time prior to intercourse. Like Yeah. So let's make sure she's enjoying this. So that and now is You know, uh hundreds of years. That was a belief. Wow. How wonderful. Yeah. How wonderful, exactly. to answer this question uh and and really get into the Mysteries of female orgasm across the animal kingdom. You went to Denmark to meet some pigs. Can you tell me about this adventure? And Tell me how did you feel when you got that invite as well. Oh, I'm always very excited when somebody agrees, 'cause you know, I send these emails like, Oh, hello, you don't know me and um Y you guys inseminate sows and I've heard that you sexually stimulate the sow before you deliver the semen and that that boosts the odds of conception and can I come watch so you know and they're like sure come on down and and I'm always very excited, you know, and some when somebody says, yeah, you can come watch us. Stimulate the sows in the barn. So uh yeah, this was the National Committee for The Danish National Committee for Pork Production was, I believe, the name of the group. And uh yeah, there's this uh I think it's a six percent increase in the uh feroing rates, which is the you know how many So they had found that You sexually stimulate. Yes. So. while artificially int inseminating her, it leads to a Six percent improvement in fertility. So How exact do you uh sexually stimulate a so a f a female pig. Had he had Oh, Lendy, I'm glad you I'm glad you asked me that I actually they gave me a poster uh of the different steps. I mean what you do Is not um with the exception of one step, it is not like anything you do with a human Okay. Partner. Okay. Okay. I feel like I should be taking notes. The the male the boar that is is using his snout and he does stuff like he sticks his snout in the inguinal fold, which is where the thigh meets the torso and kinda lifts her up a little bit, which I guess is exciting. For the sow. Yeah. And then. So far sounding pretty similar to what we do, right? Right. Just lifting up and dropping a little bit for a while. Very exciting. And then kind of poking around the vulva also might with the snout. So even because he doesn't have hands. Mine doesn't have hair. See some similarities. Right. This now comes in handy. Uh-huh. So um that's what the uh the work the inseminators are Or trying are doing. They're they're lifting they'll go and lift the sow up, like that. Lift her up and then like drop her down a little bit. And then po poke around the Vulve Vulva of the sow. And then then the and they also and here's the overlap, pigs and people. The they lie on the sow's back, which mimics the weight of the boar on the sow's. back and then they reach around and um Memories, the teets. Oh, interesting. And that's the part where I think the the the Danish pig farmers felt a little uncomfortable. Oh, that was it. That was what tipped them over. That was what did it. Yeah. There's a scene in the the video. Where the and I felt it was intentional. This is an instructional video, right? Yes, it was exactly an instructional video. Then they have this handsome blonde Danish young man and and one point they kinda zoom in on his hand as it's down near the And you can see he's wearing a wedding ring. It's kinda like to I felt that they were kind of going You know, we just want to reassure you. There's nothing weird going on with the pig. He's happily married. It was just like But I have the poster if you want to see. Please, I want to see the poster, yeah. It's totally disintegrating, because this has been a while and they they must have used Oh my God, it's just falling apart. It's like a little bit. I know, yeah. Um It's in Danish. It looks like it looks like a pirate's treasure map at this point. It does. It's totally crumbling. called optimal reproduction. Ah. And did the show look like she was having a good time? No, the sound looked very bored, but they She's like, where are the cheese crumbs? Pig. Like a dog, uh expresses its emotion and its uh delight, et cetera. With its ears more. There and the emotion is in animals is often w with the ears. And I was, you know, looking at the eyes and the Mouth. So um I I wasn't tuned into how the sound might have been. Showing her delight. Wow. Yeah. Pig stuff a f I feel uh the pig Pig have a very uh vibrant sex life. Not only is the ejaculation going on for m minutes at a time, five minutes apparently, um, the female, the clitoris, is right Just inside the vagina. So it's getting stimulated So Uh if the if the sow is uh enjoying things, uh, then it is it is a it you know, there's a it does affect conception. And I was like, Whoa does that mean yeah, whoa, how do we drive that with Does this mean with the w women in women does this happen also? 'Cause there's a number of studies. There was like hamster and gerbil and rodent other rodent studies that maybe it did affect fertility. So along come Masters and Johnson. Masters and Johnson to the rescue. They're like I don't think so. I don't think so at all, and we're gonna prove it. And so they did here again, the creativity of these researchers was amazing. Um they're like, Okay Here's what we do. We make some artificial semen. Okay. And I had the recipe in the book. I think it involved cornstarch anyway. They wanted the right viscosity and everything. They put it in a sort of a cervical cap. And installed it or the woman, you know, put it in and then they set her up in front of an X ray machine. And she masturbated and they took X rays 'cause you know the radio opaque so it'll show up. So the semen will show up so they can see if it's being slept up. During orgasm. And that's what they did. And they didn't see any ups. So when the when the women orgasmed the the sperm didn't move more inside. No, no, it didn't it they didn't find that. Also, someone else pointed out that the uterine contractions are expulsive. They're not sucking in. They're Shoot out. Like they're pushing out. Like they do during a woman's period, they kinda help the material come out. So there was that argument. Someone else then came along and said, Well no, it it it cycles. uh during you know certain parts of the woman's cycle it's sucking in and then certain s parts of the cycle it's going so anyway. Amazing that um all this uh Confusion and work that's been done. In the name of proving or disproving up suck. Personally I just Like to say upside? 'Cause it's a great word. It's an excellent word. Ups. And then I have looked I did look into the research pool since you published your book to see I if there's been any new studies, new exciting studies, um exploring what's going on with with f female orgasm, why to those with vaginas orgasm? And I did it's funny that you know the more things change the more they stay the same. Because I did find this study from just a couple of years ago. That looks like it could have come straight out of Masters and Johnson. Um They got six women put a sperm stimulant um into their Vaginas. And then they were asked to masturbate, but with the flip of a coin, it decided whether they were gonna orgasm or not orgasm. Uh-huh. And then they put a moon cup into their vagina and walked around for an hour. And then the researchers looked at what fell out. How much dropped out, and how much was sucked up. Exactly. Exactly. And in this study of only six people, um They found that The there was more retention of this sperm stimulant if they were to orgasm. Um it was large by about 15%, leading of course the tabloids. Um in the UK to scream women up to 15% more likely to get pregnant if they orgasm. Um wow. Well this is okay. Good. Good, let them believe that. Let them believe that. Yes, exactly. Which is not that the study did not test actual pregnancy. Um So yes, but as yeah, as you say so we keep going back and forth on this uh why why does this orgasm happen and uh the I'm excited to say the research will continue. It will continue. In your book you look at some Fascinating sexual discoveries that have been made by scanning people either in um an MRI or an ultrasound. And there is one that I cannot get out of my mind in the book you call it jaw dropping. Do you remember, do you know which case report I'm talking about? The seven month old? Yeah. In Utero. Okay, this is a seven month old Male. A fetus. A fetus Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And um this was um A sonogram. Ultrasound sonogram. And the researcher, this was just written up as a letter to the editor in a in a journal, like, hey, I saw this and it's pretty weird. It's pretty interesting. And they have two still images from the ultrasound. One is um there's the fetus and his little hand is Right at it on his little penis. Uh huh. Oh no, near it. It's near it. And then then the second image, he's grasping it. So it's two stills, but then the art if you read the letter. um he says the researcher israel meisner says some that he observed uh A little guy playing with himself. Like Fift fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Yeah, yeah. That's right. But when you think about it, I mean there's nothing to do in there. You're seven months old. It's true. Seven months old. If you discover that, you'd be like, well, this is gonna make the time go faster. Exact. It must have happened a lot. I am I if it's if we've got one case of it, there must be doctors who have seen this and they're just turning a blind eye. Quiet. Yeah, exactly. You would think so, yeah. What did you think when you when you saw the images and read that case report? Oh, I've just like sprinted to the copy machine like this is going in the book. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigue? Wake up to Zebbound. Tirzepatite. 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Built into Word, Excel, Powo, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use. helping you quickly, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Lear more at Microsoft.com slash M365 Copilot. We all have that dream trip we've been wishing we could go on. But too often life, or usually price, gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure. Just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Got a happy price. Priceline. Tax Act understands you haven't memorized the tax code. That's why Tax Act has live experts to help. TaxAct can even do it for you if you prefer. It's the easiest way to know you're doing it right. other than going back to college and obtaining a bachelor's degree in accounting with a minor in finance, then interning somewhere and becoming fluent in all tax forms. But that might be hard to accomplish before tax day. Maybe just stick with tax acts. Tax act. Let's get them over with. This segment is brought to you by the all-new Audi Q3. Here's an impressive fact. The Q3 features a roomy, comfortable, refreshed interior with a 12.8 inch touchscreen. Now let's go to dinner party genius. I'm Meryl Horn and in this segment, sponsored by Audi, we'll give you a fun and delightful science fact that's sure to impress your friends and get the conversation going at your next party. And to talk about this, I'm here with producer Aketi Foster Keys. Hey Aketi. Hey Meryl. So do you struggle with small talk at parties? Yeah, sometimes. I really don't like when a lot of people are looking at me and expecting me to say something funny. Right? Yeah, it it can be hard, but I have a a fun science fact for you to help you out. And it's about nightmares. Do you struggle with nightmares? I do. There's this one that comes up like quite a bit where I'm being chased like a building by a tiger, and the tiger can bust through different walls and climb through really small spaces even though it's ginormous. That sounds terrifying, I'm sorry, but you know, nightmares are super common, but we are not helpless. Science has a way to help us to stop having these scary dreams. So Yeah, there's this technique. Um, here's how it works. So first you you take your scary dream. Um but you kind of reimagine it so that instead of the tiger just like, you know, catching you and mauling you or whatever, you kind of give it a happy ending. So maybe you you're thinking of the dream, the tiger's chasing you, and then you have like a magic wand and you turn around and go like Cresto and change it the tiger into a little kitten. And then the kitten's just like mew And it's not scary anymore, because it's a cute kitten. So the and then, so after you have your happy version of the dream, when you're awake, you just think about that version of the dream again and again and again and again until it kind of gets cemented into your brain. And so the idea is to kind of retrain your brain. while you're awake so that the next time you actually have the dream, that happy version will like kick in and you'll like end up with a cute kitten at the end. Oh my gosh, that's so awesome. I would love to have a cute kitten that's just like crawling over me as opposed to a tiger that's mauling me. That sounds like way better. Right, yeah. I didn't know that dream. It's Yeah, and so several studies find that this works like really well. Um So yeah, and you know, not only will you have a cute dream, but you'll have a great conversation starter at your next party. So do you think you'll use this next time you're at a party? Oh yeah, next time someone's telling me about their nightmares, I'm gonna come in like Doctor Who and just be like, well, Presto, this is what you do. Perfect. Thanks, Aketti. Thanks, Meryl. That segment was brought to you by the all new Audi Q3. Here's a few more fun facts. The all new Audi Q3 features more power and more space than ever before. Plus Quattro all wheel drive gets you there with confidence. It's built to impress, kind of like you at your next dinner party. Say yes to the all-new Audi Q3, made for the yes life. Learn more at AudiUSA.com. Welcome back. The brilliant best selling science writer Mary Roach is here with us. We're gonna keep bunking along. You and Your husband signed up to be guinea pigs in an ultrasound experiment. Tell us about this. Yeah. Well, you know, I that wasn't my plan to be a subject in this study. Um, this was an o again, an ultrasound study. So you could Take this sort of moving image, three dimensional image of Whatever the body part was. And the researcher in question had uh done this um three dimensional imaging of um Penis erect penis. Payroni's disease where The erect penis goes crooked. Which can be kind of painful. Like he could he could preview by having you know by taking a three D ultrasound movie of the patient's Erecting penis he could get a sense of w what he was gonna do in the surgery or wh that's that was the idea and um So I wrote to this doctor, Doctor Dung. D N G and I I was like wow uh and then in that paper he said you know what and then my the Dex For the n for my next act I'm going to bring a couple in and I'd like to, you know, film s genitals in sexual congress and I'm like, I need to be there for that. So I wrote to him. You know and I'm like I would it be okay if I came to London and uh saw uh was there for to observe why you did this. project and he's like, Uh uh yeah I we could arrange that, um, but I've been unable to find A couple of Who who want to do this, so if your organization can provide. A willing couple, so my organization called its husband. And I'm like, yeah, you know I said you haven't been to London in a long time. Let's go to London. We could go see a play, like Yeah. Jeremy Irons is in something. We can go see a play and then we'll go out to eat and we have to have sex in front of some guy with an ultrasound. This one is such a good sport. You know, yeah, I mean because early on he'd been like, oh, sex research, sign me up for that. You know, like okay, here's your chance. And it was so awesome. Oh my god. Everything It was just so you know, because we're in the uh you know, it's after hours. We're in the radiology department, there's no one around and and we were in in you know, we're first we're waiting for a while and I'm sitting in the hallway and then like we see him coming down the hall and Ed goes, Ed's my husband, he's like Here he comes, oh my god. It's like we were both just why did we say yes? This is so weird. And um you know, it's it was If you're gonna have Sex in front of a Researcher with an ultrasound wand, Doctor Dung would be a good you know, he's just so kinda matter of fact, and he's making conversation while this is going on. We had a lie. He had the wand up to my belly, so this had to be a from behind situation, right? He he did offer to play some music, right? As well. Oh God, yeah, he did he yeah, he goes I and I was kidding and I said, Well or no, Ed said, Where's the romantic lighting and music? 'cause we're in this, you know, s lab with fluorescent lights and he thought Ed was being serious and he goes, Oh Wait. On my laptop? I have the soundtrack to lay me? And he also he gave like he gave Ed, you know, it's like some stimulative literature to quote Masters and Johnson's term for porn. But it was uh it was an issue of like men's health or or some like with the squire where there's like one kind of Not naked, but Scantily clad woman. He's like, uh okay. Okay, great. You know, and I'm we're wearing those horrible Johnny's. And it's kinda chilly. So he's like, You can leave your socks on You you got the scene. You have the scene. Afterward Ed's like I can't but also Viagra was involved. Yeah, I was gonna imagine. How could you possibly Yeah, so Viagra was used. Exactly. You go through all this effort, you fly to London, you know. And then Right, and did y was it enjoyable at all? Like no, no, no, no, no, no. No, but uh we w Yes in the sense that I'm taking notes and and I'm writing down what's happening and I'm like, this is going to be so fun to write up. So I'm like the I'm like the female with the cheese crumbs because I've got a notepad and I'm writing and I'm like, uh what's going on back there, but Whatever. But it did feel kinda bad that I dragged Ed into this. I felt kinda bad. The um the instructions from the doctor uh that you describe in the book are c quite funny. Now he he said, Now please make some Some sort of movement. In and out. Yeah and then he at one point he goes. I think it was something like He's asking about and the and And the littlest one. How old is she now? And then he's like, You can ejaculate now. Oh my God. Wow, but Ed was able to ejaculate in that situation? He was, yeah. I think so. Wow. And what's a people pleaser. He's a people pleaser. Yeah, the worst sex ever for me. Did you learn any did you get to see the images at the end and did you learn anything? He did send me an image and I at some point I sent it To slate and they had it online. So it was on the internet. It's like two seconds long. It's the most G rated, X-rated footage you will ever. It's just like in and out. In and out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's not very sexy. Yes. Okay, the last experiment I'm gonna ask you about that you signed up for is you did use a vaginal photo. Let's mograph. Plothizmograph. Plethize. Plotheismograph. Probe. Which you describe in the book as Cinderella's tampon. If you can see through its glass. It's glass. It's a little glass. It's like a little glass stamp on. Yeah. Because it um Okay, it's uh this is uh Device for measuring arousal. It goes in the vagina and like the photoplethizograph is measuring blood flow in the vagina. Um so if you're aroused there's more blood flow to the vagina. So it's sending out like a light signal and and and and depending on how aroused The you are bat you know the how thick and aroused and engorged the v the walls of the vagina are it it sends a signal back. But this little see through thing that you that's about the size of a tampon and you put it in. And then this was a study about uh female arousal. Uh and so I was a st I was a subject in that study. The interesting thing about when you study Um penises and them getting aroused. It's fairly obvious. They when they get erect, they get aroused. Not always, not always. You can obviously uh feel arousal without erection, but it's very but with if you have a vagina it's more complicated, right? 'Cause sometimes you can feel arousal but you don't get wet. Um so it's not so clear one for one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there's um the work of this is Cindy Mestin at the University uh U T Austin, University of Texas Austin. She she was studying Yeah, arousal in women. Um it's interesting because if you show them Stimulative literature. Sorry, porn. Stimulative media. Pornography. Women tend to respond. Cross the board whether it's Um gay, lesbian, straight, I mean hetero animals, whatever, women tend to have a response. Men are much more Uh men are like That's what I like to see and and that's what arouses me. So but uh so women will respond. But the difference uh compared to men is they they don't necessarily realize it 'cause they're not getting a boner. It's like there's some something going on in there. And you can measure it with a photophysic photoplothiismograph. You can measure it, but then afterward you interview the person. And they said, So that Um were you aroused? How aroused did you think that you were from this part of the film and then that part of the film? You know, and and y you if you say, you know, it didn't do anything for me, it was like some really creepy porn, the guy was disgusting, he had a horrible mustache, he the sex was boring. I wasn't aroused at all. They'll look at the ratings or the the you know, the f data Getting and go, actually you were. You were you were responding. Very interesting. Does that mean that We're not being honest with ourselves about what truly arouses us or more that we genuinely weren't aroused but some physiological reaction happens. There's there's physiological arousal but It's not necessarily tied to a psychological arousal. Like in terms of You having a satisfying sex life. It's not like you you know, you're somebody's gonna say, Well we put a little see through device in your vagina. In fact you were responding, you were having a good time and you know, you'd be like, No, I wasn't Yes. Moving on to then um I guess we've been talking about sex the whole time. I don't know how I'm gonna do a segue into more sex. Um Uh you look at the in your book, you look at the many things that can trigger Orgasms, um, sex, obviously, or good sex, uh, dreams. Um, but tell us the story of a woman from Taiwan. Yeah, they're they're um well orgasm is a it's a reflex. And it can be triggered. In ways that you wouldn't imagine. Yeah, you wouldn't im it doesn't sort of jive with how you imagine orgasm. Um, but they're all manner of I mean, people are wired very differently. So anyway, this woman would have An orgasm when she brushed her teeth. Um and um I would think that that'd be a delightful thing. You know, you'd be like you'd have really great gum d gum health. You know, you'd be like, Yeah, I need to go to the dentist because I'm brushing like three times a day. Yeah. She but it bothered her. She was avoiding I mean it's weird. And there was a there's another um there's a woman in the book. Who had spontaneous orgasm. Um and she was um a practicing Muslim and it was you know, sometimes it would happen during devotional periods and it was very upsetting, very disturbing. And then there was some someone else like rubbing her eyebrow. Well it was interesting, after I I did a TED talk uh that was based on things in the book and After that. put online, uh, I got em I got a lot of interesting email from people saying They th well they thought I was a researcher. So people would write to me this you know, I got A woman who said on a good day, putting lip gloss on will do it. And another a guy wrote to me and said, You know, every time I ride a bicycle. I have an orgasm and um when I go somewhere I n I'm anticipating it's gonna happen and if it hasn't happened I'll kinda ride around for a while and it makes me late. It was this whole story. Wow. You know, d people are w wired in different ways. Right. Then it can somehow get that response going. Just just triggers that it triggers that response. Yeah. In Bong you visited Dildo Manufacturing Store, which had the model of an anus. Um, which is based on a porn star, and in your book you have in in capslock the guy's showing you around this factory, and he goes, you know, here you have an anus in capslock. Um I mean it is So taboo, I've heard you talk about how People don't even describe when they have anal cancer and there's no ribbons for, you know, brown ribbons for anal cancer or whatnot, or there's no day for anal cancer. Like we it's like anything to do with the butt. Um. Why do you think this is and yeah. Why? Because uh because it's where crap comes out, where sh comes out, it's It's just it's very personal and it's It's smelly and and Jeremy and so it is there's all kinds of reasons why it would be taboo. Um But The fact that it is taboo, uh um, there's risks associated with that. Like you you mentioned, you know, I the There was no There's no ribbon. Um Faral Ferro Fawcett. Died of Um Anal cancer and and they in the the the news it would just was reported as It's like down there cancer. Like nobody yeah, nobody really even talked about it. And and the and I remember reading about The early days of anatomy Uh partly because this was before air conditioning and and uh you know, the the it was often hot or room temperature or warm in the dissecting room and and the colon was, you know, stinky and full of bacteria. So they would take the whole thing out and throw it away. So nobody was really no one's looking at it, nobody's studying it. You know, and and uh you know, even today I imagine Am I c the guy who does my colonoscopies? He said that his son For a long time believed that surgeons were assigned. Because he's like, who why else would you become the guy? He's looking up everybody's asshole. He's like, You mean you chose this? But it's But you know, with that with any taboo, whether it's the asshole or or it's just something relating to sex, if somebody feels that they can't speak about it openly with their partner or with their doctor. Then then they're unhappy um they're putting their health possibly at risk and so it's I think it's just it's just healthy to talk about it. I mean when when the book came out I remember Publicist saying, Mary, how are you gonna promote this book? Are you gonna just stand in front of like a hundred strangers and say things like clitoris and orgasm? I'm like, Yeah. That's what I'm gonna do. And I think the audience really 'Cause it would come to the c question and answer time and people would actually ask pretty personal questions and and and you know, and and and I I got the sense that people like appreciated having the freedom To just ask things. You know and that's why s and some of that's why I felt like these researchers were so Heroic. In a way. You know, that they they dared to break down that taboo especially the forties, you know, when when Kinsey was working, the fifties, sixties, Masters and Johnson. And you know, Robert Latou Dickinson before all of that and it it's so it's I don't know. I I had a lot of respect for People who do this. Who do this work? Yeah. It's um it's interesting having, you know, yeah, reported on A bunch of different sex topics, how I had thought we were so much more advanced. uh than we are, you know. But they still say it's so hard to get funding, it's so hard to be taken seriously. Um oh yeah, yeah. There was um Roy Levin talked about I think it was a a conference. Virologists maybe and he he was Um I think it was vaginal secretions. It's like nobody knows nobody has ever looked at vaginal secretions, what's in them, how are they secreted? What I mean nobody had had looked at that. So he's like, I'm gonna look at that. Yeah. And he described being in the men's room in the s and i inside the stall and hearing people like joking about him. in the bathroom. You know, just Yeah. Yeah. And these are you know, these are M Ds. Now your last chapter, um of Bonk Opens with this line. When I began this book, I harbored a naive fantasy that I would find a team of scientists working to discover the secret to amazing, mind-rippling sex. So Mary, what's the closest you got? You know, I wasn't finding very many papers just about like what works best for amazing sex. There's uh but then I found this paper, it was from 1979, and it was Masters and Johnson. And they have brought in They called them reacting units. Couples. There were couples. They were couples. The reacting units, he brought in hetero reacting units, gay and lesbian reacting units, uh, and he had them. He actually had people hooking up, so we had He found that the The couples that were actually in relationships, particularly Uh gay and lesbian relationships. We're having the best. Sex and part of that he was saying was um gender empathy, which is to say, um, if you're a man, you know what feels best. And if you're a woman you know what feels best cause and and so the the gay and lesbian couples it was very easy for them to, you know, based on their own experience of their own bodies to know Hetero couples like the men would complain that the woman wasn't holding the penis hard enough. And the women would be like, Hey, dude, too rough, stop it. You know, so it would be like this kind of mismatch. But also, um He talked about just how Couple who were um very attuned to what to the r reactions and the the arousal of their partner um and they were aroused by that arousal. So it was this Mm really can there was this connection there? Yeah, you You wro you wrote that, um, they did watch the couple's having sex with um They did stopwatches and and data shots. Otherwise you're n you're you're just a pervert. You're not a scientist. Exactly. You need a clipboard and you need a stopwatch. And then you then you can come in and watch. Yeah, you're right. That the best sex which was being had by committed gay and lesbian couples, um, they took their time, they lost themselves in each other, moved slowly, lingered. So that's if you're if you're in a A relationship with someone with uh different genitals to yours, there's ways to overcome this this empathy gap with communication, I suppose. To cap us off, we have a lightning round of um oddball questions. Which I suppose is sort of funny in the context of some of the questions I've been asking you about. But um Here we go. Are you ready? Yeah. I'm ready. Yeah, we might we might even have a jingle by the time this episode comes out. What was your favorite title to a paper? that you read while researching this book. Definitely. Um Sexual intercourse as a potential cure for intractable hiccups. Oh Yeah. Yeah, somebody had some guy was reporting like if you have sex, the hiccups go away. And then he's like, I don't know if it's intercourse or orgasm that's doing it, but You know, unattached pickupers, I love the demographic unattached pickupers could try masturbation. This is a journal paper. Again, ran to the copy machine. Need a copy of that. Yes, attached hiccup is also allowed to masturbate. Yeah, right. Hiccuping. Amazing. Amazing. Um, alright, finish the sentence. Now that I know blank, I'll never look at my blank the same way again. Oh, yeah, now that I know... How a bolus is formed inside the mouth when you're chewing before you swallow? Bolus formation, like you eat food, like you take it apart, and then your tongue forms this. Bowl is this sort of like pickle shaped thing that you swallow. I don't know the study of Chewing and and mouth stuff to me was like So gross that I um I began to think People should have sex in public, but then eat. In a room on their m on their own. It's disgusting. They're chewing their bolus forming. They're So yeah, kind of ruined eating out for me for a while. Funnest object sitting in your house. You know what? I brought An object. Okay. It's called the feminine personal trainer and it's uh it's for it's resistance training. Combined with keggling, okay? So you insert it in the vagina and you're lifting this weight. You wanna see it? Yeah, oh my God, of course I wanna see it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so you the depend Okay. Depending on which side goes in, like if you have that heavy side down, it it that's hard to lift, so that's the advanced kegeling, right? Yeah. I only used it once. How was it? It was just is it looked like I was giving Birth to a doorknob. The thing like it's you know, and then you're supposed to walk around the house. You're supposed to walk around with it in.