Hurts So Good
The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Hurts So Good
Narrated by:
Leigh Cowart
Buy Now for $26.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Leigh Cowart
-
By:
-
Leigh Cowart
About this listen
Masochism is sexy, human, reviled, worshiped, and delightfully bizarre. Deliberate and consensual pain has been with us for millennia, encompassing everyone from Black Plague flagellants to ballerinas dancing on broken bones to competitive eaters choking down hot peppers while they cry.
At its core, masochism is about feeling bad, then better—a phenomenon that is long overdue for a heartfelt and hilarious investigation. And Cowart would know: They are not just a researcher and science writer, they’re an inveterate, high-sensation seeking masochist. In Hurts So Good, Cowart unveils how our minds and bodies find meaning and relief in pain—a quirk in our programming that drives discipline and innovation even as it threatens to swallow us whole.
Critic Reviews
“There’s possibly no one alive more qualified to write about pain than Leigh Cowart. A thoughtful, funny, and at times lyrical look at pain and its deeper human meaning.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Briskly interweaving history, biology, and reportage…Leigh’s exploded view of pain is an essential component of the excavation of pleasure for which we’re long overdue….Courageous, diverting, and written with dark good humor.”—Good Advice/Bad Gay
“Informative explanations of the neurobiology of pain and pleasure, and plenty of personal reflection on the author’s own relationship to masochism. Queasy readers need not apply…Cowart’s raw study offers insight."—Publishers Weekly
“Cowart has endless compassion for humans trying to find meaning and purpose while trapped in our fallible meat sacks. Hurts So Good is funny, explicit, and oddly wholesome.”—Caitlin Doughty, author of the New York Times bestseller Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
“It’s testament to Leigh Cowart’s skill and charm that a book about pain should feel so joyful, that a deeply taboo subject should get such a bright and vivid airing, and that experiences that should induce winces instead trigger laughs and moments of deep profundity. Hurts So Good is a book of wonderful paradoxes—a rich, hilarious, and endlessly fascinating look at a world that most of us know but few of us understand.”
—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of I Contain Multitudes
—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of I Contain Multitudes
“A thorough examination of a widely-shared human experience. Cowart blends memoir with research and observation deftly, and boldly shares the gritty details of her own sensation-seeking body. Relevant to anyone seeking to understand their own relationship with physicality. A must-read for those of us who find ourselves trying to explain so many complex things about our relationships to pain.”
—Stoya, writer and pornographer
—Stoya, writer and pornographer
“Hurts So Good is a high wire act during which Cowart weaves together the science of enduring pain for pleasure with their own personal, maniacally visceral experiences. The latter scenes are written so vividly—blood, guts, excrement, swollen and frozen bodies—that, at times, Cowart seems to be daring the reader not to finish. But finish you should, because there's no better exploration of masochism's appeal."—Elon Green, author of Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust and Murder in Queer New York
Haven’t stopped thinking about this book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.