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Mary Roach is creating quite the body of work on, well, the body. In Stiff she probed the scientific uses of human cadavers, and in Spook she poked into what happens when we leave our bodies behind for the afterlife. Now, with her best-titled book yet, she lifts the veil on one of the most fundamental, but least understood, activities we use our little bodies for: sex. With diligent investigation into the history of the awkward and often inept interplay between sex and science and anecdotes featuring leaders in the field as well as the subjects of their examinations (including herself and her extremely accommodating husband), Roach reports her findings in a cheerful, enthusiastic, very funny manner to all of us lay practitioners.

For the most part, scientific sallies into the field of human sexuality have been bumbling, cautious, misguided and stigmatized but at times remarkably inspired -- in other words, they've been pretty much just like sex itself. Roach's take on the whole field -- studded with curious methods and infernal devices ranging all the way from hilarious to downright frightening -- is one of fascinated bemusement. She's not so much poking fun at the white-coated, caliper-wielding attempts to measure what comes naturally as she is freely admitting how ludicrous it is that to be taken seriously one must strip anything remotely sexy out of sex. You're stuck being viewed as either a voyeuristic pervert or an uptight prude.

Regardless of the stigma and difficulties in finding funds for sex research (unless, of course, you're making little blue pills for little male problems), it is a vastly important and greatly misunderstood field. Roach does her part to shed some light into the laboratory-as-boudoir niche with this breezy, insightful and tittering, if not titillating, examination. And for those looking to use this book as a dating guide, you're probably best served by the revelation in Chapter 14 that the worst triggers of female arousal are, sorry fellas, the scents of cologne and grilled meat. The best? That would be cucumbers and Good & Plenty candies, a worrisome combination that only furthers the confusion over whether size really matters.