A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire (46 page)

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Authors: Ogi Ogas,Sai Gaddam

BOOK: A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire
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158
When women are not ovulating, they prefer men with more feminized faces
Jones et al. (2005).
159
nonovulating women do not
ignore
indicators of good genes
Thornhill & Gangestad (2008).
159
“George Clooney and Sean Connery are sex symbols”
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/11/27/porn/view/index11.html
.
159
One British study asked women to keep diaries
Thornhill & Gangestad (2008), Bellis & Baker (1990), Jones et al. (2005).
159
Studies have shown that men are more protective
Thornhill & Gangestad (2008).
159–160
women more frequently resist men’s efforts to track their activities
Gangestad et al. (2004), Garver-Apgar et al. (2007).
160
most women lack conscious awareness of their ovulations
Thornhill & Gangestad (2008).
160
women show a greater interest in visual sexual material
Wallen & Rupp (2010).
160
Sssh was founded by Angie Rowntree
Personal face-to-face and e-mail communication with Angie Rowntree, spring and summer 2010.
162
A sexy voice, a masculine scent, and a sensuous touch
Thornhill & Gangestad (2008).
162
“I have consumed vast quantities of female-created (written) porn”
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/11/27/porn/view/index2.html?show=all
.
162
analyzed the text of more than ten thousand romance novels
We extracted the entire text from 10,344 romance novels by a total of 1,878 different authors. The median length of the romance novels was 55,615 words and the mean length was 54,168 words. We extracted probable description passages based on pronoun density. Most often, passages with the highest density of masculine pronouns and located in the first quarter of the text were descriptions of male protagonists. Passages with the highest combined density of masculine and feminine pronouns tend to be sexual or erotic descriptions. We extracted such high-density passages from the novels and used Mechanical Turk for annotation as person or scene description. Anatomical nouns were then extracted from the scene descriptions by sorting according to the frequency of words relative to the baseline frequency of all romance novels (and manual validation). Adjectives used in physical descriptions by limiting the search to two-word phrases containing anatomical nouns.
163
female brain processes a man’s visual features with the same speed
Rupp & Wallen (2008).
164
associated with poorer long-term health
Ellison & Gray (2009).
164
men produce steady levels of sperm
Ellison & Gray (2009).
164
“My husband has a suit”
http://www.thegreatstory.org/storiesawaken.html
. .
164
musculature and fast-energy burning
Leitenberg & Henning (1995). “That serum testosterone level, independent of pubertal development per se, was a significant predictor of sexual fantasy frequency, whereas six other hormones were not.”
Blakemore et al. (2010). “Rather, there is emerging evidence from both human and nonhuman primate studies that testosterone increases motivation to attain higher status, but the specific effects on behavior are dependent on the social and developmental context.”
164–165
masculine scents are correlated with testosterone levels
Thornhill & Gangestad (2008).
165
“tall men make me feel more secure”
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Love-Tall-Men/1099298
165
“It makes me feel small and secure”
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Love-Tall-Men/506030
.
165
a preference for men in uniform
See OkCupid data description.
QUESTION #2792: ARE MILITARY UNIFORMS A TURN ON? YES, NO, I WEAR ONE TO WORK.
Straight Males: # of respondents: 17315; 18.45% YES, 58.79% NO, 2.61%.
Bisexual Females: # of respondents: 2685; 35.83% YES, 47.3% NO, 0.34%.
Straight Females: # of respondents: 9201; 43.22% YES, 39.18% NO, 0.37%.
166
One eye-tracking study found that women spend no more time looking at the penis
Rupp & Wallen (2007).
166
“because I wanted to stand behind him”
http://jezebel.com/comment/26261416/
.
166
Women generally prefer tight, athletic butts
Abramson & Pinkerton (1995).
“They talk about ‘Winning the Beauty Contest’—that was Brodrick Bunkley . . . When he weighed in, there were murmurs throughout the room. His legs were exploding out of his shorts, and it looked like his skin was swathed in Saran Wrap. You had a bunch of grown men who acted like they were at a strip joint outside of town. I thought they were going to offer him money for a lap dance.”
167
Ms. Intuition
User #2976906.
168
One particular group of women reported higher amounts of porn viewing
See OkCupid data description.
QUESTION #25: WOULD YOU WATCH A PORNO MOVIE WITH YOUR IDEAL MATCH? YES, NO.
Straight Males: # of respondents: 94903; 83.51% YES, 6.13% NO.
Bisexual Females: # of respondents: 12292; 88.06% YES, 4.0% NO.
Straight Females: # of respondents: 55679; 74.71% YES, 11.18% NO.
QUESTION #9668: NOT AS IN WHIPS AND CHAINS, BUT IN GENERAL, DO YOU PREFER YOUR PARTNER TO BE . . . DOMINANT, SUBMISSIVE, BALANCED.
Straight Males: # of Respondents: 77158; 14.1% Dominant, 20.19% Submissive, 42.34% Balanced.
Bisexual Females: # of Respondents: 9681; 50.05% Dominant, 6.0% Submissive, 27.91% Balanced.
Straight Females: # of Respondents: 45389; 50.69% Dominant, 3.14% Submissive, 20.39% Balanced.
QUESTION #1134: DO YOU HAVE A DESIRE (EVEN IF IT’S SECRET) TO TAKE PART IN SEXUAL ACTIVITIES INVOLVING BONDAGE? YES, NO ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Straight Males: # of Respondents: 99053; 51.54% YES, 30.51% NO, 1.56%.
Bisexual Females: # of Respondents: 13611; 81.63% YES, 8.53% NO, 0.54%.
Straight Females: # of Respondents: 61933; 55.83% YES, 23.15% NO, 1.49%.
QUESTION #27262: YOU WALK IN ON YOUR PARTNER SURFING A PORNO SITE. HOW DO YOU FEEL? ANGRY/JEALOUS/SHOCKED/CHEATED, INTERESTED, INDIFFERENT.
Straight Males: # of Respondents: 68397; 8.79% Angry/jealous/
shocked/cheated, 61.91% Interested, 10.57% Indifferent.
Bisexual Females: # of Respondents: 7434; 8.8% Angry/jealous/
shocked/cheated, 64.47% Interested, 11.19% Indifferent.
Straight Females: # of Respondents: 48488; 23.41% Angry/jealous/
shocked/cheated, 39.34% Interested, 13.28% Indifferent.
Also see discussion on authenticity of bisexual self-identification and commentary by bisexuals on differences in online and real-life dating preferences:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/
.
168
Self-identified bisexuals
The expected overlap of
nude men
and
nude women
searches in the AOL data set, assuming independence: 8.86, obtained: 130. We can’t differentiate between male and female searchers, however.
169
Each column represents a single question from the survey
Question #1 (OkCupid Question# 86615): Would you pay for porn? A: Yes. B: No. C. Only if I couldn’t get it for free. D. I’m not interested in porn. (Respondents: 826 straight men, 106 bisexual women, 268 straight women.)
Question #2 (OkCupid Question# 13103): How big is your porn collection? A. Small B. Medium C. Large D. Don’t have one. (Respondents: 8,147 straight men, 762 bisexual women, 3,394 straight women.)
Question #3 (OkCupid Question# 35624): You discover a huge porn collection on your significant other’s computer. You are: A. Unaffected . . . “So what?” B. Embarassed or disgusted . . . “This is filthy!” C. Angry or hurt . . . “This is cheating!” D. Masturbating . . . “This is so hot!” (Respondents: 253,460 straight men, 27,639 bisexual women, 163,804 straight women.)
Question #4 (OkCupid Question# 18966): Do you prefer hardcore or softcore when it comes to your porn? A: Hard! B: Soft! C: I’m not sure. D: I don’t like porn. (Respondents: 57,876 straight men, 8,245 bisexual women, 36,799 straight women.)
169
38 percent of the women self-identify as bisexual
Fantasti.cc users self-identification, based on user information scraped in July 2010:
 
WOMEN: 958
bisexual, 368 (38%)
open-minded, 286 (30%)
straight, 184 (19%)
single, 133
relationship, 115
MEN: 5626
straight, 3912 (70%)
open-minded, 980 (17%)
single, 818
relationship, 364
bisexual, 279 (5%)
169
In Richard Lippa’s BBC survey
Lippa (2007).
170
bisexual women have greater circulating levels of testosterone
Van Wyk (1995). “Several studies seem to indicate that some bisexuals have a predominantly heterosexual or homosexual orientation, but high erotic responsiveness and more ‘masculine’ characteristics, leading to versatility in sexual behavior. Early exposure to masculinizing hormones seems to predispose human females toward bisexuality rather than exclusive homosexuality.” Also Vinegas & Conley (2000).
170
can trigger a variety of negative reactions
Spinella (2007). “The analysis indicated that several brain structures are commonly involved in the processing of disgust-inducing and erotic pictures (occipital cortex, hippocampus, thalamus, and the amygdala). The ventral striatum was specifically activated when subjects saw highly sexually arousing pictures. This indicates the involvement of the human reward system during the processing of visual erotica.”
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/08/15/
ewwwwwwwww: “The disgust response gets pulled into these higher moral domains having to do with social rules,” says Daniel Kelly, a philosopher at Purdue University and author of a forthcoming book on morality and disgust. Paul Rozin. In all those instances, most people refused, even though they knew the cockroach and sweater were clean and that the fudge was in fact fudge. They just felt disgusted. According to Rozin, the power of our disgust reaction leads us to a sort of magical thinking. “The sense of contamination is what’s so interesting,” Rozin says. “When the cockroach touches something, we feel like something of the cockroach actually enters it.”
171
Reading the Romance
Radway (1984).
172
“centerfold syndrome”
Albright (2008).
172
prone to condemning squicky content as immoral
See
http://www.obscenit
ycrimes.org/Senate-Reisman-Layden-Etc.pdf
172
as not just physically unhealthy but morally wrong
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=one-reason-why-humans-are-special-a-2010-06-22
: “Between 1969–1989, for example, a single institution in the United States performed 656 castrations with the aim to stop the men from masturbating. One clinical study reported some success in eliminating this problem behavior by squirting lemon juice into the mouth of a young patient every time he pulled out his penis in public.”
173
powerful male sex drive focused
There is a neurological condition known as Kluver-Bucy syndrome that results from the destruction of temporal lobe tissue. This condition removes all sexual inhibitions. Men who suffer from Kluver-Bucy will try to have sex with trees, animals, and rocks. They can no longer control their sexual urges. “Male hang-ups” may actually be nature’s way of narrowing the focus of the powerful drive of male sexuality.
CHAPTER 9
 
174
Mr. Closet
Abridged excerpt is from Levine et al. (2003).
175
I first discovered porn-stories when I was 15
http://www.asstr.org/~Forbidden_Fantasies/stuff/what.htm
.

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