After a few late night drinks I ended up in a discussion with a friend about how sexual acts have changed over of the course of time. We argued for about an hour about whether or not we humans were more or less sexual in the past. After a lot of words we realised that we have absolutely no idea what we are talking about so I decided to try and track down something to read. My first batch of googling came up with "The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault" as a good book to check out, but I'm concerned it my be a bit wordy and too scientific for the casual reader. Also it's a reasonably old book, I was wondering if there might be a newer book with a more concise history of sex that would be worth reading? Or is Foucaults work the best place to start?
Foucault is a philosopher not a historian and objections have been made in applying his theorems too slavishly, that said his work is highly influential across the humanities. Definitely a complex series but it's what jumped to my mind when I saw your title.
How are you defining 'sexual'? Active, rapacious, erotic, fetishistic, orientation, frequent? Is this about the mechanics of sex or the concepts underlying it? Probably best to PM the sex and porn flairs (link in sidebar) to alert them to this question.