My dear friends!

I have a few questions which I'd like to ask you.

Now, there is a common view that human sexuality was more or less the same at all times - and that cultures that claimed to be more sexually reticent were just being more hypocritical.

But it's not completely true as we know - the perception of sexuality, gender, etc. has altered over the centuries and differs in different cultures. For example, today women are perceived as being less interested in sex than men, but up until the later 19th century they were perceived in many parts of Europe as beign the most sexually active gender. Some sexual activities are seen as acts of dominance, and others are seen as acts on submission.

So here are some relevant questions I have to ask about this.

1. What's a good and accessible book (I have a Master's Degree in History and am studying for a PhD, but it's in a different field) where I can find some discussion of these changes, in particular in terms of how it pertains to the Western World in the 18th and 19th century? For example, how did the perception of the various sex acts differ from what it is now?

2. What's a good book on the history of love? Everyone knows, I think, that in the modern day things like 'love at first sight' are seen as unhealthy and unreasonable by educated people, and the relationships Romeo and Juliet or Marius and Cosette had are seen as vaguely unhealthy to downright creepy in the modern world. [Part of why Twilight is seen as creepy as hell is because characters in it act like charactes from 18th century romance novels] What is the history of these things, is there a good book about the time period?