Mary Roach is my hero. First she wowed me with Stiff, an exploration of dead bodies and what happens to them. Then she gave me goosebumps with Spook, a scientific look at the afterlife.

And now? Now she’s forged into what is, perhaps, science’s true final frontier. No, not space. Sex. (Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, 319 pages, $25, W.W. Norton & Company.)

Roach, a fearless and often self-deprecatingly klutzy reporter, traces the recorded history of sex research and condenses much of it down into the more entertaining — and unbelievable — bits. She pores over reports, and visits scientists and doctors all over the world to gain insight into their life’s work, which she finds is often done just this side of the brink of financial and cultural peril (take Dr. Ahmed Shafik, who must try to find research subjects in Egypt, a Muslim country that you could fairly describe as sexually repressed). Most governments don’t like to spend a lot of money on sex research, and sex researchers have to contend with the fact that many people just assume that they are voyeuristic pervs just waiting for the chance to observe test subjects going at it.

This has meant that sex research has traditionally occurred largely on the sly — under hilarious euphemistic study names, and using test subjects who had been solicited from the street (yes, prostitutes) or, in some cases, the scientists and their significant others themselves. This means that sex research has often been unintentially hilarious, which Roach clearly revels in. She can’t help but insert footnote after footnote of additional trivial goodness that don’t fit into the main narrative. My personal favorite: there is erectile tissue in the lining of the nose, which can expand occasionally due to sexual arousal. “Nasal congestion is an erection inside your nose,” Roach practically giggles.

Roach’s adventures take her to places I’d have rather avoided, if not for my morbid curiosity. Places like inside an operating room as a doctor filets a man’s penis during a procedure meant to help him gain erectile function again. Places like Denmark, where human boar inseminators go through the tedious motions of pig lovemaking to ensure that the sows achieve successful insemination rates (mercifully for the pig farmers, the final step of pig lovemaking — the teat rubdown — has been deemed “too much” and is no longer practiced). Places like a dildo factory (okay, I would have totally gone there, if only to take pictures). Places like under a doctor’s ultrasound wand as it glides over Roach’s and her husband’s naughty bits as they are doing the business. For science!

Under Roach’s careful editing and crackling writing, the history of sex research comes alive (pun intended, I suppose) and is often hilarious and cringe-inducing. Words can’t possibly explain what it’s like to read the phrase “uterine upsuck” over and over and over and then read multiple descriptions of such a concept. I read the portions about the penile-implant and erectile-dysfunction surgeries while doubled over in the fetal position in bed. But I’m glad I plowed on through to the end. It just might be the most fun you can have with sex without having sex.