SEX

There are lots of serious books on my summer reading list. For instance, I just received an assignment to review a new edition of William James's 1909 A Pluralistic Universe, so I'll be diving back into that again shortly. But this is June, and what would June be without a few frivolous bibliographic excursions?

Here's one: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach. It's a hoot, giving the subject all the levity it so richly deserves. Let's face it, whatever else you can say about human sexuality you have to admit that it gives rise to some intrinsically funny situations. For instance, when our author drafts her compliant spouse "Ed" to engage in intimacies recorded by ultrasound imaging, under the watchful direction of Dr. Deng. ("Now please make some sort of movement," says Dr. Deng. And then, in case its not clear, in case Ed might be contemplating flapping an elbow or saluting the flag, he adds, "in and out.")

Sex tends to get treated either too seriously or too goofily in our culture, sacralized and mystified (by the likes of D.H. Lawrence and many imitators... and by W.J. Clinton) or, alternately, played for laughs (see Woody Allen in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex.) Roach's book splits the difference, coming at it scientifically. But I defy anyone to read this without laughing loud and often. Try to put it behind you when you're finished, though, if you want to take sex seriously ever again. How you think about things really does alter your experience of them, and (as they know at TED) ideas really can be sexy. Eh, Woody?