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. The author 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 this book she shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place.

The sausage, the porcupine and the agreeable Mrs. G: Highlights from the pioneers of human sexual response -- Dating the penis-camera: Can a woman find happiness with a machine? -- The princess and her pea: The woman who moved her clitoris, and other ruminations on intercourse orgasms -- The upsuck chronicles: Does orgasm boost fertility, and what do pigs know about it? -- What's going on in there?: The diverting world of coital imaging -- The Taiwanese fix and the penile pricking ring: Creative approaches to impotence -- The testicle pushers: If two are good, would three be better? -- Re-member me: Transplants, implants, and other penises of last resort -- The lady's boner: Is the clitoris a tiny penis? -- The prescription-strength vibrator: Masturbating for health -- The immaculate orgasm: Who needs genitals? -- Mind over vagina: Women are complicated -- What would Allah say?: The strange, brave career of Ahmed Shafik -- Monkey do: The secret sway of hormones -- "Persons studies in pairs": The lab that uncovered great sex.