What Internet Searches Reveal About Human Desire

Hugh Pickens writes "Time Magazine reports that computational neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam analyzed the results of 400 million online searches for porn and uncovered some startling insights into what men and women may really want from each other. In the first place, although you can find an instance of any kind of porn you can imagine on the internet, people search for and spend money and time on 20 sexual interests, which account for 80% of all porn — the top 10 sex-related searches include variations on youth (13.5 per cent), breasts (4 per cent), cheating wives (3.4 per cent) and cheerleaders (0.1 per cent) among others. Many are surprised that "cheating wives" is such a popular search but Ogas says that it's one of the top interests all around the world because men are wired to be sexually jealous but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused. Women prefer stories to visual porn by a long shot and the most popular erotica for women is the romance novel because female desire requires multiple stimuli simultaneously or in quick succession."

Comments

Fake "Science"

[RandomLinguist]

Their methodology was atrocious, their so-called university affiliation was denied by the college, and they used unethical research practices. this is NOT science; it is GARBAGE.

Check these out, yo:
A thorough summary of the fail
Another roundup

Re:Fake "Science"

[ColdWetDog]

FTFA:

I'm a computational neuroscientist. I view the mind as software.

Righto. Abort, Retry, Fail for you, dude.

Re:Fake "Science"

[syousef]

Their methodology was atrocious, their so-called university affiliation was denied by the college, and they used unethical research practices. this is NOT science; it is GARBAGE.

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! If they listed midgets and goatse.cx too high up people would have an aneurysm :-)

(Very much tongue in cheek. I agree that this "science" is nothing of the sort).

Re:Fake "Science"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unless that was just Time fucking it up, which probably wouldn't be a first, I would steer a wide berth around a computational neuroscientist who views the mind "as software" rather than "as something usefully analogous to, and modellable by, software".

We don't know as much as we would like about the brain; but we know enough to say that it looks very, very, very unlike a "computer" or something that "runs software" except for near-uselessly broad definitions of those things. If anything, the more or less complete annihilation of analog computers by cheap, fast, transistors and the brutally fast Von Neumman architecture devices that they make possible have made the "brain = computer, mind = software" analogy less useful than it used to be(ironically, of course, at the same time, those same not-very-brainlike machines have brute-forced their way ever closer to being able to model biological neural networks of non-useless size...)

Re:Fake "Science"

[stms]

Furthermore this sounds like another study from the institute for researching the blatantly obvious.

Re:Fake "Science"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's funny how often things go badly when people(even, perhaps especially) very smart ones step out of their discipline and assume that somebody else's disciple must be fairly simply reduceable to the rules and techniques of their own. Economists seem to be the most notable offenders; but these computational neuroscientists seem to have wandered deep into the sociologists' territory just because they saw a database and a tenuous connection to human behavior. Of course the primitive locals who've been developing the study of population behaviors had nothing to teach them... so they stumbled merrily into nonsense.

Sorry kids, it is arguable that some disciplines are utterly useless, or that some disciplines attract smarter people than others; and it is definitely the case that strict segmentation between them is counterproductive; but it is rarely the case that your neighbor's discipline is just a pitiful subset of yours, engulfed in darkness and just waiting for you to enlighten them...

Re:Fake "Science"

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I didn't RTFA, but I'm going to throw in my conjecture anyway. What about some other considerations:

Is it true that simply the most searched for terms are what the most people are actually looking for? For example, if something is easy to find, why bother doing any searching? Thus the most searched terms could be the ones that people are just most dissatisfied with in what they find. Another example, does 'cheating wives' mean that men are actually desiring to cheat on their wife or fantasize about having sex with a cheating wife? What if it's simply the best search term to find a particular style of porn and not related to the content of the 'skit' nor any desire for the actual act of cheating? Do they think the average user is dumb enough to believe the skits are spontaneous and contain real, cheating wives?

And what is the significance of evaluating searches? How many people simply go to some variety type page and pick out what they like in the feed?

I would say that on such a complicated issue, simply analyzing a table of 400 million results is not a deep enough evaluation to determine people's motivations desires, or interests.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just that, but it would be nice if it wasn't from 2009. Just saying.

Re:Fake "Science"

[crush]

And now that this study has been published there will be a spike in the number of people searching for "granny porn" and "aged cunts". ;)

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, put another way, their data came from AOL...so we now know the sexual preferences of the elderly and the mentally challenged...whee!

Re:Fake "Science"

[ColdWetDog]

Or, put another way, their data came from AOL...so we now know the sexual preferences of the elderly and the mentally challenged...whee!

For the purposes of today's discussion (this being Slashdot and all), it's a pretty good start.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows porn searches are teen, anal, gang, toys, gape, oral, slut, whore, horse and a few other simple terms you can mash out with one hand.

No mention of White Chicks and Black Dicks. This article is rubbish.

Re:Fake "Science"

[thetoadwarrior]

At least awhile ago Google Trends was showing that 'sex with sister' and 'sex with mother' ranking higher than'sex with girlfriend' and sex with mother was the highest ranked by far. Given what they said and what I've experienced on the net I'd say I've not read anything that's incorrect. Mind you I did only read the Time link.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Ginger Unicorn]

Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!

Re:Fake "Science"

[SirWinston]

This "study" was an idiotic exercise in which a couple of junior researchers mined search terms to reinforce their culturally formed and far from unbiased notions about sexuality. All the crap about men searching for cheating wife porn (I believe "cuckold" porn is a popular current term for it) because of jealousy being hardwired and competition triggering arousal was especially telling--these guys are parroting outdated "conventional wisdom" (i.e., assumptions based on post-facto theory rather than formed from evidence-based research) and nothing more. The real work is being done by folks like the authors of _Sex at Dawn_:

http://www.sexatdawn.com/

who look at the anthropological evidence of how human communities used to live in prehistory, and let that guide their conclusions on how contemporary sexuality got where it is. For example, the _Sex at Dawn_ authors would explain that men want to see cheating wife porn not because jealousy is hardwired and competition sexually excites them, but because we used to live for hundreds of thousands of years (maybe a million+ depending on where you put the dividing line for what's "human") in small communal groups where sex with multiple partners in succession or was the norm. So, men want to see cheating wife porn, and porn where multiple men share a woman, because that was the norm in our prehistory until about 10,000 years ago when agriculture changed a hunter-gatherer society of communally shared lives (mating included) into a hierarchical society of enforced order and scarcity (mating changed into a scarce resource like everything else).

In other words, today we have external software (a legacy of early subsistence-farming civilization) installing a chimp-like sexuality of scarcity and aggression and competition into our heads, when our native OS is more bonobo-like and tells us we want to share sex partners.

And we can actually validate this theory, because we have extensive records of contact with "stone age" tribes some of whom are still around today, and true monogamous marriage is almost unheard-of. Most tribes practicing their ancestral ways without Western influence have marriage--but almost never exclusive marriage where partners are expected to be "faithful." Women are usually expected to be promiscuous, and many tribes have "partible paternity"--the belief that every man a pregnant woman has sex with contributes semen towards making the baby, and that if a woman is not promiscuous enough she's not giving the baby a big variety of helpful traits from the fathers, or that the baby could miscarry from lack of continued semen contribution. Some uncontacted tribes literally have had no idea that sex even causes pregnancy, because from the moment females are physically developed enough to have sex they're doing so, often with multiple partners over time, so that the connection between sex and pregnancy isn't clear to them.

Point being, if you want to really learn about human sexuality, read _Sex at Dawn_ and ignore this other crap.

Re:Fake "Science"

[babblefrog]

I thought by the Church-Turing thesis all Turing complete computers were equivalent. What difference does analog or digital make?

Re:Fake "Science"

[Ihmhi]

Of course, it's just as likely he was purposefully dumbing it down out of habit...

Re:Fake "Science"

[arisvega]

What I read was, "Scientists discover now what males and females know since the invention of fuck."

Re:Fake "Science"

[deapbluesea]

Very insightful. Wish I had mod points for you. The trick, of course, would be to prove that the brain is equivalent to a Turing Machine. It's not been done yet, and we don't understand enough to even think about such a thing. That thought notwithstanding, the fundamental insight behind the Church-Turing Thesis is that there are a countably infinite number of TM configurations, and an uncountably infinite number of languages that could be applied to TM's. Therefore there are languages that TMs will be unable to accept by the pigeonhole principle. It is highly unlikely that the human brain has an uncountably infinite number of configurations, therefore it is likely that there are undecidable "languages" that the human brain cannot accept. In other words, the human brain may be a TM. On the other hand, one could make a counter argument of neuron path length being analogue, thus allowing infinite configurations, but the halting problem seems to be a language that is also undecidable by the human brain - showing that there are undecidable languages for the brain.

Re:Fake "Science"

[DerekLyons]

but it is rarely the case that your neighbor's discipline is just a pitiful subset of yours, engulfed in darkness and just waiting for you to enlighten them...

That doesn't stop the engineers and IT folks on Slashdot. Hell, it doesn't even slow them down.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's take the word of some LIVEJOURNAL posts over Time magazine. No matter how much of a web2.0 internet revolution faggot you are, there's no way you can fucking take anything on livejournal seriously, ever.

Re:Fake "Science"

[bye]

men want to see cheating wife porn, and porn where multiple men share a woman, because that was the norm in our prehistory until about 10,000 years ago

So how does what you say contradict with what the authors of the article say:

men are wired to be sexually jealous but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused

Are you really making the argument that if something is "the norm" for tens of thousands of generations (your words) it will neatly stay out of our genome?

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Another example, does 'cheating wives' mean that men are actually desiring to cheat on their wife or fantasize about having sex with a cheating wife?

Like many mammals, male humans are wired to try and mate with as many females as possible, while also defending his breeding stock from being impregnated by rival males.
Like many mammals, female humans are wired to try and mate with only the "best" male candidate, and to "trade up" when a more suitable mate comes along.

So yeah, "cheating wives" makes perfect sense in light of the natural mating habits of our species. Of course the religious nutjobs will be on here screaming about free will and all that jazz. Sure, free will allows us to overcome our instinctive urges, but it does not remove them.

Thus the most searched terms could be the ones that people are just most dissatisfied with in what they find.

Bingo. This applies especially to "youth-related" searches which rank the highest. Go looking for hot chicks 18-21 years old and you either find child porn or a pack of worn-out 40 year old whores. So you spend a lot of time repeating searches with variations until you get lucky and stumble across the one site which is NOT packed full of 60 year old women having sex with animals.

Re:Fake "Science"

[interkin3tic]

But it also sometimes works out very well. Computational neuroscience itself seems to be an example of that. The wiki page for computational neuroscience mentions the term was coined by an Eric Schwartz who appears to have crossed from physics into neurobiology.

The "father of neuroscience", Ramon Y Cajal, had quite a colorful background. He had skill in art, which probably helped him record his observations and study neural cells, and in his professional career started out studying inflammation and cholera before moving into neurobiology.

It doesn't appear to be limited to biology either. I've heard there are well-respected economists who were physicists in previous professional lives. To take it even further, even in music, genre-crossing usually has interesting results, like Richard Cheese, who does lounge-singing covers of pop songs, or that bluegrass cover of Snoop Dog's Gin and Juice.

I'd submit that changing fields can often be productive, bringing a new way of looking at things to the field. Assuming the field is simple is the real problem, but that's a pitfall whether you're switching fields or staying in your own field.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

dude please, no use of "tongue in cheek" in the same comment as "goatse"...

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

A wide berth around a computational neuroscientist who is (possibly mis-)quoted as saying he views the mind as software.

I don't know how the guy actually thinks about the brain, but I can guarantee it's infinitely more nuanced than what the journalist portrayed in the article.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Carewolf]

Part right, part true. Never underestimate your neighbor, always be careful with what you don't know you don't know.

With that said, some disciplines are in the dark ages, this is proven when 20 years ago the first computer generated research articles got accepted in humanities and sociology journals. Computers still can not pass a comparison to a 8 year old kid (Turing test), but they have successfully demonstrated being indistinguishable from a serious researcher in one of the bullshit sciences.

Re:Fake "Science"

[pugugly]

Indeed, that's the problem with keyboards today is so many porn related searches require two hands.

Accordingly I am designing a porn layout for keyboards allowing the most efficient one-handed typing speeds. Currently I can search for porn at 152 words per minute, however all other typing is down to 9 words/minute. Further optimization may be less than useful.

Pug

Re:Fake "Science"

[pinkushun]

I understand how you feel. We are just jealous we didn't think of it first - a reason to search every kind of pron!

Re:Fake "Science"

[hexagonc]

I think that language is what allows the human brain to be a Turing machine -- and a universal one at that. This is pretty self-evident to me since it is clear that you can teach a human being, with pencil and paper to execute any effective algorithm that can be programmed into a computer. It might be slow but the program behaviors would be functionally equivalent so long as run time doesn't matter. You might argue that this isn't entirely the brain, that it is really the entire system composed of a human being in conjunction with pencil and paper that is the universal Turing machine. I would concede this point but only because humans have limited memory, which requires the use of external tools like pencil and paper. If you could internalize those tools then you could say that it was entirely the human brain that was executing the algorithm in which case that brain would be a universal Turing machine. If we're going to say that human brains aren't universal Turing machines because they don't have enough memory then you'd have to say that Intel processors aren't either since they also have limited memory -- it's only a matter of what algorithms are practical to run entirely in the human brain versus those that -- due to time or memory constraints -- must be run on a traditional digital computer.

This, I think, leads to the crux of the problem which is that I think that Turing completeness is over-rated. Knowing that you can, with the right instructions, execute any effective algorithm on any universal Turing machine ignores the bigger practical considerations. Not all universal Turing machines are practical computational devices for the types of problems that we care about. An 8086 is a universal Turing machine as is a Core i7 processor. Does that mean that we should treat them as the same? In one sense, yes -- they can both be programmed to execute the same algorithms. But if there is a time or memory constraint then they are not equivalent, even in principle, since the Core i7 processor is absolutely faster then the 8086 and can execute algorithms that the 8086 could never execute within a short enough time to be usable.

Moreover, cellular automatons like John Conway's Game of Life are universal Turing machines as well, but that doesn't mean that we know how to program them to execute useful algorithms or that those algorithms will be executed within a reasonable amount of time. If all you know about a system is that it is a universal Turing machine then I think you know less about it than you might think. The hard questions are (1) How is data represented to this machine? (2) How are programs represented? (3) How is the output obtained? (4) How susceptible are the processing elements of this system to noise? These are some of the harder problems that have to be tackled before you can put Turing completeness to practical use.

Re:Fake "Science"

[xkuehn]

It's not been done yet, and we don't understand enough to even think about such a thing.

Why do you say so?

The computational universality of a number of artificial neural network designs has been proven. Of course, that doesn't make a specific network necessarily universal.

Turing's machine assumed that you could have as much tape as you needed. The equivalent in feed forward neural networks (universal, and apparently common enough in the brain) is to assume that you can have as many neurons in the hidden layer (only one required for universality) as needed and that the order (highest number of inputs to a single neuron) is sufficiently high. This assumption is waived in practice, because otherwise I wouldn't be typing this on a "computer".

Biological neural networks are far more complex than artificial ones. Because of this, we can't say exactly how they work, and I would therefore be hard-pressed to give a formal proof of universality, but even the simplest artificial NN models (e.g. the McCulloch-Pitts model) are universal.

One more minor thing (in agreement with what you said): there are some indications in the literature that there may be some neural network models that are greater than a Turing machine. This is subject to a lot of very shaky conditions. I'm not up to date with the latest on this front; but if someone claims the brain is more than a Turing machine, he'd better show some proof.

tl;dr answer: Here's a simple proof: If I describe a specific Turing machine to you, you can calculate its result, assuming you have enough paper or a big and complex enough brain.

Re:Fake "Science"

[aaaaaaargh!]

I thought by the Church-Turing thesis all Turing complete computers were equivalent. What difference does analog or digital make?

Not entirely true. First, Turing machines are sequential. There are many cases of parallel computation that cannot be expressed by a Turing machine or as term normalization in untyped lambda calculus. Take for example A parallel-OR B: it will return true when A returns true even if B never terminates. You cannot express this sequentially. Second, analog neural networks with "real" real numbers are "super-Turing" (aka hypercomputers), i.e. computational machines that can solve tasks that a Turing machine cannot solve. To be fair, though, there is not the slightest evidence that these kind of neural networks are possible; they violate a decent number of fundamental physical laws.

From a more practical point of view I agree with you. It's pretty hard to imagine a convincing argument for showing that the brain is parallel in an essential and irreducible way; because of the finite resource-boundedness of its computations it seems to me that any parallelism in it could be reduced to sequential computation. And neural networks with real numbers and other hypercomputers seem to be mere theoretical constructs.

Re:Fake "Science"

[deapbluesea]

Yes, but NN's are not equivalent to human brains. They approximate similar patterns, but are in no way the same thing. You can't go from Neural Network is Turing Complete to human brain is a Neural Network, therefore the human brain is Turing Complete. You're about a billion steps from showing equivalence between those two things.

Re:Fake "Science"

[TheCarp]

You can't have 10s of thousands of generations in 10,000 years. maybe for field mice, or some other small mammal but, we generally recognize human generations as being about 20 years.... so, 10,000 years is more like 500 generations.

Also... um... do you really think monogamy has been so strictly practiced that it really would be considered the "dominant strategy"? What family of any size doesn't have one or two "serial monogamists" (on his 4th wife is he?) or know someone who found out that they had adult siblings that they didn't even know about?

Or as Dan Savage put it "If after 50 years of marriage, your husband cheated on you like 3 times? He was GOOD at monogamy". I have been meaning to read the book "Lust in Translation" which looks at attitudes towards adultery around the world, but I heard the author on the radio and she showed several examples that showed a huge variety of opinion, and commonly acceptance of it.

Still think monogamy is 'the norm' to an extent that matters? I would argue that its the "norm" kind of like not being drunk is "the norm".

Re:Fake "Science"

[aaaaaaargh!]

The real work is being done by folks like the authors of _Sex at Dawn_:

http://www.sexatdawn.com/

who look at the anthropological evidence of how human communities used to live in prehistory, and let that guide their conclusions on how contemporary sexuality got where it is. For example, the _Sex at Dawn_ authors would explain that men want to see cheating wife porn not because jealousy is hardwired and competition sexually excites them, but because we used to live for hundreds of thousands of years (maybe a million+ depending on where you put the dividing line for what's "human") in small communal groups where sex with multiple partners in succession or was the norm.

Let me guess, they invented a time machine and frequently travel back and forth to confirm their claims, and that is the reason why you are citing their claims as a good example of scientific methodology.

Re:Fake "Science"

[deapbluesea]

I wouldn't write off Turing Machines as useless. You're right that it really doesn't help to say that a CA is a UTM just like an I7 processor. You're just as correct in saying that processors technically are not UTMs, they are finite tape TMs with somewhat less power than a UTM. The real importance of TMs in general is that there are problems that cannot be solved, no matter how much time or memory you have. That's a pretty big statement to make, yet there it is, and it's anchored solidly in logical argument. Take that a step further and show the equivalence of Post's Correspondence Problem to the Halting Problem, and now you have a practical, real-world problem (which I have watched many programmers who turned their nose up at theory attempt to solve in one form or another).

My personal belief is that we're Turing Complete. I just don't think we've developed enough knowledge of how the brain works to categorically make that statement.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Sprouticus]

I qouls actualy argue that engineer and IT folks dont usually fall into this category. They/We/I may overesitmate their knowledge of a subject, but they dont actually try to boild down psychology into IT. Making correlations is not the sam thing.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Requiem18th]

What are you talking about? Some disciplines are a subset of others, that is an unavoidable fact. Now it can happen that an specialist can have better insight about his specialty than a generalist, this is not the case of the lesser disciple being better, equal nor even different than the greater discipline, it is still a subset of what the generalist should know, It is not the fault of the greater discipline that some specific adherents aren't up to date with it.

Re:Fake "Science"

[hexagonc]

I didn't mean to imply that Turing completeness is unimportant. Not by a long shot! I just hear people bringing up Turing completeness as if it is the end all and be all of computer science. In A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram makes a lot out of the fact that Rule 30 is a universal Turing machine and the Church-Turing thesis. I can see how this is important from a theoretical perspective but I dont' see how it makes the types of problems that most developers face any easier. People frequently comment that the programming language you use to write a program doesn't matter because they're all Turing equivalent but I would disagree with this. This is because programs have to be written (for now) by humans and there are functional constraints on languages beyond just Turing completeness. Programs written in these languages have to be fast and the memory and execution cost of the support infrastructure (e.g,, interpreters, OS) can not be too high. Good program metaphors and syntax matter because they decrease the probability of error when transcribing an algorithm from your mind (where it originates) into code where it can be executed by a computer. Turing completeness is just the minimum requirement for any system that you want to program.

Re:Fake "Science"

[xkuehn]

You're about a billion steps from showing equivalence between those two things.

I said that already:

Because of this, we can't say exactly how they work, and I would therefore be hard-pressed to give a formal proof of universality

I have already given you proof of the computational universality of the brain. (But the proof does not involve NNs, which would be the more interesting proof because the long-term goal would be to build wetware computers with a constructive proof.)

They approximate similar patterns, but are in no way the same thing.

Biological NNs work on the same basic principles as artificial NNs. Also, the definition of neural network is rather broad. Let me grab a book:

Definition: Neural computing is the study of networks of adaptable nodes which, through a process of learning from task examples, store experiential knowledge and make it available for use.

This definition is such that the neural nets of the living brain are included in the field of study.

(Aleksander, I. & Morton, H. An introduction to neural computing. (p. 1))

You can't go from Neural Network is Turing Complete to human brain is a Neural Network, therefore the human brain is Turing Complete.

So we know that the brain is computationally universal, and we know that some neural networks are computationally universal, and we know that the brain is a neural network. If this isn't clear evidence that the computational universality of neural networks in general extends to the brain, then please enlighten me.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, finally, the "Noble Savage" myth, why did you take so long to rear your innocent head?
If trying to learn about human sexuality you ONLY read "Sex at Dawn" and therefore "ignore this crap" you're simply trying to ignore the obvious fact that things have changed enormously since "dawn" until the current internet age, and that therefore sex has changed along with it. E.g., "the belief that every man a pregnant woman has sex with contributes semen towards making the baby" is, no doubt, an anthropological cutesy; it's also a remarkably stupid belief for anyone who has spent a few years in any western educational institution. Or your idea that "women are usually expected to be promiscuous", even if it was true (it isn't, they are "usually" expected NOT to be promiscuous in MOST tribes) still would be entirely irrelevant for a society which, like ours, has exactly contrary expectations.
So ... Fail! To make your unsophisticated analysis work you have to ignore so many obvious cultural influences, so many years of history, tradition, religion and law, and the lives of so many millions of people that, in the end, your tirade is nothing but a reflection of your intellectual poverty (regardless of the possible merits of "Sex at Dawn" itself).

Re:Fake "Science"

[SirWinston]

men want to see cheating wife porn, and porn where multiple men share a woman, because that was the norm in our prehistory until about 10,000 years ago

So how does what you say contradict with what the authors of the article say:

men are wired to be sexually jealous but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused

The part about men being naturally wired for sexual jealousy is the mistake--modern thinking dictating their conclusions based on present customs, rather than starting from the anthropological past and working forward without bias. Jealousy isn't hardwired in our sexual software; it's a modern overlay, and not a positive emotion but a negative one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jealousy

It was normal in prehistory for us to watch the women we sleep with have sex with other men and NOT be jealous, but be purely sexually aroused by it because we knew our turn was coming soon. No negative emotions involved.

Are you really making the argument that if something is "the norm" for tens of thousands of generations (your words) it will neatly stay out of our genome?

It may indeed be the case that the last 10,000 years of scarcity and hierarchy has written "sexual jealousy" into the hardware of our genome rather than just being in the software of our cultural toolkits. Big changes have happened because agriculture, and the scarcity and hierarchy it created (we'd lived longer and been more egalitarian as hunter-gatherers, though our populations were kept resource-limited), likely accelerated the processes of natural selection and sexual selection. The well-known example of a recent genetic variant that took hold extensively only after the agricultural revolution is lactase persistence, and recent genetic studies show that the differences in melanin which caused Europeans to become "white people" gained frequency only 10,000 years ago or less thanks to agriculture and the poor nutrition it provided, making better vitamin production from sun exposure a valuable benefit it conveyed.

But, to say that jealousy is genetically hardwired without extensive evidence contradicting the ancestral case, that it's culturally derived, is at best unscientific, as it starts from current cultural assumptions. The fact that so many men are searching for "cheating wife porn" would also be evidence that it's not jealousy that's at work (again, it's a negative emotion not a pleasant one), but rather our ancestral partner-sharing desires.

Re:Fake "Science"

[WWWWolf]

I'm a computational neuroscientist. I view the mind as software.

Then why the hell do programmers spend 90% of their time doing 1) user interface code, 2) error validation and 3) doing stuff to accommodate various usage patterns? In other words, if humans truly grok software, and human/computer interaction is basically just a matter of finding a common language, why do programmers have to make the software to serve human needs and human limitations? Why do humans keep not getting or disregarding the software? Why do people make mistakes while using the software? And most importantly, why do humans sometimes outwit the user interface to reach new brands of failure - damn those cunning bastards?

Inquiring computer guys want to know.

Re:Fake "Science"

[t_ban]

Some uncontacted tribes literally have had no idea that sex even causes pregnancy

So how do you know this?

Re:Fake "Science"

[metacell]

Please mod parent "Insightful"

Re:Fake "Science"

[metacell]

Like many mammals, male humans are wired to try and mate with as many females as possible, while also defending his breeding stock from being impregnated by rival males.
Like many mammals, female humans are wired to try and mate with only the "best" male candidate, and to "trade up" when a more suitable mate comes along.

So yeah, "cheating wives" makes perfect sense in light of the natural mating habits of our species.

Even if we take a strict biological view, this only implies that people will cheat - it doesn't imply that cheating sex will be more attractive to people than non-cheating sex. From a purely evolutionary standpoint, why would a female in a relationship with someone else be viewed as more attractive than a single female, assuming all other factors are equal?

Re:Fake "Science"

[metacell]

Lies! You can't type out "horse" with one hand!

The other ones I don't know about.

Re:Fake "Science"

[metacell]

http://www.onehandedkeyboard.com/

Re:Fake "Science"

[metacell]

Thanks for a sensible and well-informed post. It amazes me how people start ridiculing the only one in the discussion who actually provides some basis for their arguments, just because it contradicts their prejudices.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Paul Fernhout]

Thanks for the insightful comment. I was in a PhD program in Ecology and Evolution for a time a couple decades ago, and this sounds very likely.

Here are some tangential things I wrote just now in some email discussion related to this, branching out from these ideas to thinking about the evolution of human cognition in general.

===

First, some comments I wrote as I discussed this with someone else, who wrote first about women using beauty to be upwardly mobile in power and money:

Yes, women can convert beauty to cash at some point, but as is said here, physical beauty is generally a depreciating asset...
"In Economic Terms, You Are a Depreciating Asset"
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/10/in_economic_terms_you_are_a_de.html
"It's an age-old question: Why, in this city jam-packed with rich, smart, pretty people, is it so hard for hot ladies to find mates? This week, the definitive answer appeared on Craigslist, where the answers to all urban koans may be found. "I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl," wrote a poster who called herself an "enterprising young woman." ... A businessman offers his sage advice: ... So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. ..."

Actually, some women can be pretty effective at manipulating social networks regardless of their looks. In fact, moderate looks may be better for that sort of manipulation because such women are less seen as a threat by other women. There is a lot of selection for aspects of human intelligence as well.

A potentially depressing aspect of that:
"Lies And Deception Led To Human Intelligence"
http://www.jasonsummers.org/lies-and-deception-led-to-human-intelligence/
"The prevailing view among scientists today is that the brain size increase that occurred in great apes and was extended into hominids resulted from the premium that natural selection placed on individuals that were socially clever. This theory, often called social intelligence or Machiavellian intelligence, argues that the primary evolutionary benefit of large brain size was that it allowed apes and hominids to cope with and even exploit increasingly complex social relations. In large social groups, each individual must remember the network of alliances, rivalries, debts, and credits that exist among group members. This is not so different from the politics of our own day-to-day lives. Frans de Waal (1982) has observed that chimpanzees seem to engage in a âoeservice economyâ in which they barter alliances and other forms of support with one another. The individuals best able to exploit this web of social relationships would have reaped more mating success than their group mates. ... Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten (1988b) collected examples of potential lying in nonhuman primates and concluded that this behavior showed and evolutionary trend, one that was more widespread in higher primates. Great apes seem to be skilled at deceiving one another, whereas lemurs rarely if ever engage in tactical deception. ..."

Much of what goes on in evolution is under the hood, so to speak. :-)

Biochemical pathways are another example of hidden evolution which is not easy to get records about, things like being able to eat a certain fruit without immediately dying, which may be totally related to some enzyme pathway somewhere.

===

And then in response to comments about male dominance in tribal societies and whether that meant getting all the most alluring women:

In some Native American societies, "chiefs" are elected by the women...

Re:Fake "Science"

[RadioElectric]

There are two meanings of "neural network" here. There is the biological one that the brain satisfies and the computer science one that it has not been proven to. You can't treat them as if they are equivalent.

Re:Fake "Science"

[GargamelSpaceman]

I don't buy the idea that men are turned on by women having sex with other men because it's 'how we evolved' idea.

'Cheating wives' is popular, I would guess, with married men because they can fantasize about having an affair with a 'cheating wife' supposing that she will keep the fun secret because she doesn't want to be caught either. Married women can fantasize about being the 'cheating wife'. Unmarried men can suppose that they might have a relatively string-free tryst with a 'cheating wife' who is only out for a little fun, and not have feelings of guilt about it.

All these fantasies are BS, and probably those who enjoy them are mostly aware of it. They are just stories people tell themselves to cast an aura of plausability over the whole fantasy for long enough to attain self inflicted orgasm.

Of course a real 'cheating wife' is probably in an unhappy marriage and might not give a damn if she were caught, and like any other 'other woman' might not have any interest whatsoever in keeping an affair secret. And for unmarried men, a relationship with a 'cheating wife' may easily end up with all the same strings a relationship with another woman would: You or she might fall in love - and then what?

And as for rapish fantasies I think people enjoy them for the same sorts of reasons: Usually two reasonably attractive people of the opposite sex want to have sex with each other, and would were it not for the complications involved with the act, and getting to the point where the act happens.

Rape, in a sexual fantasy is a simple backstory to have in your mind while inflicting an orgasm on yourself. Why would they be so accomodating? Rape. Why is my partner so audacious as to just do X with abandon? Rape. Fantasies about being raped or raping someone cut to the chase quite effectively.

Rape - It works for ducks!

Re:Fake "Science"

[bye]

You can't have 10s of thousands of generations in 10,000 years.

Of course.

That's my point. It got encoded in our genes up to 10,000 years ago when the 'norm' changed.

Human tribes roamed the planet for millions of years - that's 60+ thousand generations per 1 million years.

Even if we restrict our thinking to the homo sapiens species alone then it roamed the planet for hundreds of thousands of years, 6000+ generations per hundred thousand years.

That was plenty of time to get 'social norms' partially encoded in genes.

The last 10,000 (600 generations) was not (nearly) enough to erase hundreds of thousands of years of genetic history, especially when it relates to something as central as efficient reproduction strategy.

Re:Fake "Science"

[badkarmadayaccount]

Laziness and stupid.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

(xkuehn here. Sorry about the AC post, I'm having login problems.)

The study of neural networks is an interdisciplinary (neuroscience, computer science, statistics...) science. If I say "neural network", it can mean only one thing:

There are a finite number of nodes, each with a finite number of different inputs and outputs. Each node takes a (sometimes probabilistic) function of its recent inputs and uses that as its output. The nodes from a (usually directed) graph so that some of the inputs of some nodes are the outputs of other nodes.

Your nodes can use very simple functions (e.g. McCulloch-Pitts) or very complicated ones (e.g. Progression Pursuit Regression), but the theory is similar.

BNNs obviously use some have very complicated functions, but they're still normal NNs. (Yes, in the nihilistic sense we can say that nothing has been proven. But nihilists should go kill themselves and leave us all in peace :)).

Re:Fake "Science"

[badkarmadayaccount]

If impregnation is successful , the male won't have to provide for the female and the bastard child, that weight falls on the "competitor". Think what cuckoo birds do.

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr Ray Stantz: Hey, Dean Yeager! Are you moving us to a better office on campus?
Dean Yeager: No, you're being moved off campus. The Board of Regents has decided to terminate your grant. You are to vacate these premises immediately.
Dr Ray Stantz: What?
Dr. Peter Venkman: This is preposterous. I demand an explanation.
Dean Yeager: This university will no longer continue any funding for any of your group's activities.
Dr. Peter Venkman: But the kids love us!
Dean Yeager: Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those guys don't know anything! This one book I read is THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH!"

Re:Fake "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Word, I'm like totally digging how this falls together in like the Helen of Troy triggering war as well as Sultans having harems.

Could be the male ego in western civ has been so buggered it displays no traits of dominance.

Of course the nerd fantasies, are about being sugar daddy to a sorority house without a single retard jock in sight. I aught to know I have/had 'em...

Being the Lion King is the win but you realize that you do everything the female lions say, excluding eating the cubs from fathers that aren't yours.

Expectation

[Boronx]

From TFA:

"The findings also indicated that straight men prefer heavier rather than thinner women, and that straight women, contrary to all expectations, enjoy reading about and watching romances between two men."

All expectation? Anyone who's been around awhile knows this.

Re:Expectation

[pasv]

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it was a surprise to me.

The men liking heavier women thing wasn't a shock, however. I've long known that negative body image issues among females are caused by other females trying to make each other feel inadequate or sell products, it's not men pushing those preferences.

[captcha: economy]

Re:Expectation

[pasv]

way to expand the waist AC

Re:Expectation

[Ethanol-fueled]

Yeah, as the saying goes, "If I wanted to fuck a woman that looked like a 12 year-old boy, I'd fuck a 12 year-old boy."

Unfortunately, there's an unfortunate trend towards androgyny where men(especially emos) are trying look like girls and women are trying look like boys.

The youth and cheerleader stuff is no surprise either. I think its funny how people consider cheerleading to be a sport. The scientists say that young women bear healthier offpring, but I think that the girlie/cheerleader thing is simply because younger women are friendlier, dumber, and (pardon me) have tighter vaginas. They're still idealistic and optimistic, with a bunch of daddy's money to spend, and haven't yet realized that they're gonna end up choosing between settling for an ugly fat bastard(like one of us) or having to fuck their boss to put food on the table. I read on 4chan that there may be a scientific basis for sexualizing people at an early age - the earlier they mate, the more they will mate later and the more offspring they will presumably bear. The recent authoritarian crackdown on "too small breasts" and other underage sex is no accident - the youth-related fetishes are so widespread that everybody is guilty.

About the cuckoldry - There is a popular theory about our penises being designed to displace another suitor's semen from the target vagina. Cuckoldry makes sense because, if you see a woman who is mating(or has just been mated with), we feel sexually attracted because we are biologically motivated to displace her partner's semen and replace it with our own. Sloppy seconds - what else would explain arousal at the prospect of an act most disgusting?

Re:Expectation

[erroneus]

Actually, I had no idea about this. #1 I prefer women who are not fat or even weighty -- I like to be able to pick them up, carry them around, make a sandwich and continue on. Can't do that with fat women. Yeah, there are limits to skinniness, but still. And no, I would not expect women to be turned on by gay romance! The idea sickens me in ways that I cannot easily describe. I'm not a homophobe -- I have gay friends even. But for me, the idea of touching a guy in places...? "doing things"? Look, I won't even do a woman in the butt -- it's just not a place for a penis to go!!

Then again, maybe you're right and I've just not "been around." I like "normal stuff." Perhaps by most standards, it's boring stuff. But I'm fine with it. My wife's fine with it. I like normal sex before I go to sleep. I like it when I wake up in the morning -- my wife does too cause she knows I always make a big breakfast on those mornings 'cause I'm always in a good mood afterward. It's just a good arrangement and "the way it was meant to be."

Re:Expectation

[hey!]

Well, in science even what "everyone knows" doesn't count until it's published and somebody's rivals can kick the crap out it. A necessary first step to getting beyond common sense is putting common sense to the test. Sometimes common sense is just wrong. If you flip a coin and get heads three times in a row, your chance of getting a head on the next flip is 50%. Rockets with motors on the top aren't more stable than ones with motors on the bottom, and disconnecting the front brakes of a tractor trailer truck doesn't make it more stable in a dynamic braking situation.

The list of mathematical or physical common sense intuitions that are provably wrong is long. With issues of psychology it's a lot harder to put commonsense notions to the test, because they involve fuzzily defined concepts, like "personality".

Since the first step is disproving common sense, no doubt disproof is sometimes found simply because people are looking for it. So what is "unexpected" in the literature might well be predicted by common sense. Science doesn't pile up truths like a stack of coconuts; it approaches the truth by successive approximations.

Re:Expectation

[hey!]

Well, if we accept the results of this study, then we'd have to conclude that having "normal" preferences like yours technically makes you a pervert.

Re:Expectation

[erroneus]

Hehehe... then I'm a pervert!!

Re:Expectation

[The Dawn Of Time]

Not to be rude or anything, Mr. way-it-was-meant-to-be, but fuck you and your hubris.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, somebody got turned down by a cheerleader in high school.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know it, you don't accept it, but it's clear from your writing that you are 49% gay. And you are the one who bends over.

Re:Expectation

[xwizbt]

Your post saddens me in ways that I shouldn't even consider. What does it mean when you say you're 'sickened' by something? Does it mean you feel you're unlikely to do that thing, or that the thing in question would make you physically ill, and you might vomit. Would you be prepared to try it to find out, or are you so certain it's... well, not 'wrong' per se, but 'sickening', that you'd be unable to physically contemplate it?

I'm gay, and I regularly place other men's penises in my mouth. Well, one man in particular, actually, in the same way that you probably place your penis in your wife's mouth, vagina or, judging from your post, not her anus. One might ask why it's acceptable for you to push it in her mouth or vagina but not her anus, and while that's entirely the point here, let's not go there. Oh, look - I made a nearly-funny.

I sleep with my partner, and what we do in the bedroom involves inserting parts of me into parts of him, in the same way that you insert parts of you into parts of her. Nothing's dirty or nasty; you don't even know which parts go into which parts. In fact, there are millions of people who insert parts far weirder than you've even considered into places you've never even imagined parts can be inserted. You can buy the DVDs if you're interested. I'm not: what I'm interested is in if you can convince me that you placing your most private, most intimate part into someone else's most private, most intimate part is somehow more special and somehow sacred than me placing my most private, most intimate part in someone else's chosen private, most intimate orifice?

In short, Mr. 'I'm sickened' - oh, whatever. I've been gaybashed on the street by thugs who made a more eloquent argument.

Re:Expectation

[Ethanol-fueled]

#1 I prefer women who are not fat or even weighty -- I like to be able to pick them up, carry them around, make a sandwich and continue on.

Disgustingly fat women are nasty, but chubbies are the best. If you can't pick up a chubby then you are a 90-pound weakling and want a woman who looks like you.

And no, I would not expect women to be turned on by gay romance! The idea sickens me in ways that I cannot easily describe. I'm not a homophobe -- I have gay friends even. But for me, the idea of touching a guy in places...? "doing things"?

A few of my girlfriends regularly watch gay porn. Frank discussions with them revealed that the porn was all about connection rather than simply shooting one's nut off. I find gay porn to be disgusting, but to be fair, connection transcends penises and vaginas.

Look, I won't even do a woman in the butt -- it's just not a place for a penis to go!!

You do have half a good point there - people often forget that shit comes out of that hole. The prostate orgasm may have been part of a male-male social bonding mechanism frequently seen in nature, and so it makes sense in homosexual male sex. Reasons for penetrating a woman anally include domination, humiliation, and friction; but there are other, cleaner ways to achieve those.

Then again, maybe you're right and I've just not "been around." I like "normal stuff." Perhaps by most standards, it's boring stuff. But I'm fine with it.

Now is a good time to experiment in the privacy of your own home. Common household items like sheets and pillowcases can be used to bind your partner to the bed. Whipped cream and cherries can make a tasty treat. Slapping doesn't leave marks. Schoolgirl and nurse outfits can be easily hidden. Candles can be innocent until nightfall. Skinny people can work really well in the confined space of a bathtub or shower. Make her call you "daddy," or call her "mommy." Dress up in animal costumes. It can be a trial-and-error process, but knowing yourself and your partner better makes it all worth it.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who's been around awhile knows this.

Really? I tend to prefer slim / petite women, and all my girlfriends (except one) found the idea of sex between two men disgusting. The one who wasn't turned off by it (in fact, she was actually turned on) was herself bi.

Re:Expectation

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I have some bad news(no, not pornographic or anything, just a site-ranking) for anybody to whom female enthusiasm for reading about male homosexual relationships is a surprise...

Re:Expectation

[erroneus]

It sickens me in much the same way that my eating meat sickens vegetarians. I accept that people do what people want to do and I in no way want to impose my own ideology on anyone else. But I shouldn't have to conceal my straightness any more than you should have to conceal your gayness. I spent a couple of years working at an "alternative news weekly" and I'm quite sure at least 30% (and possibly even up to 60%) were gay or bi- or whatever. There's simply no problem with it.

As for my wife letting me put my stuff in her stuff? Well -- it's nature. She likes it and I like it. On the other hand, if she wanted me to put it places I don't want it, we might have to do some negotiations on the matter.

Still, seeing two guys kiss in the street or in the movies or on TV? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't like it. I don't like the way guys smell -- even with cologne. Women smell good to me usually. There's a lot of nature going on there for me. And I'll be the first to assert that there's a lot of nature going on there with you too. I'm quite certain that you do what you do because it's what you feel compelled to do deep down. It's just that the idea of me doing it is repulsive... and quite likely in much the same way that vegetarians find my eating a chewy bacon and egg sandwich repulsive.

And if anyone is interested, I am not christian. My feelings are not related to any such thing as religious morals and ideology. I didn't choose to be straight and I don't know why I am now defending it.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Being sickened by squid or gorgonzola or marmite doesn't mean you have anything against the people who eat any of those. So read what he wrote again and stop being (wait for it)... an asshole.

Some people just love being "victims", I guess.

Re:Expectation

[Wrath0fb0b]

... but there's an evolutionary reason why.

When a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get vital evolutionary information that acts as a fairly accurate indicator of overall health.

My anaconda don't want none unless you have a high likelihood of producing healthy offspring with a minimal chance of genetic disabilities, hun.

My homeboys tried to warn me, but that butt you got makes me so confident of your current well-being and future child-rearing potential

So ladies (yeah!) ladies (yeah!) You wanna advertise fertility? (hell yeah!) Then turn around, stick it out, even other women have to admit that you appear to have the necessary physical attributes to produce many healthy offspring.

[ Copypasta from this Reddit, all credit to original authors: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gibxk/i_like_big_butts_and_i_cannot_lie_but_is_there/ ]

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the first misconception from your post is that the majority of people are, as you put it, normal. In my experience, the vast majority of people have predilections towards things that most people or society as a whole consider abnormal. Huge variety in what humans consider attractive leads to more people being able to find partners. Once you accept that, things stop being a surprise.

Also, your post makes me feel somewhat sorry for your wife. I could be entirely off-base, inferring way too much from such a limited post, but it doesn't sound like you spend much time considering what she wants. You dismiss the women being turned on by gay romance topic based on your own view of it rather than thinking about what the female perspective might be. After all, you'd probably find lesbian porn significantly less "sickening" than you would gay male porn, right? Is it that surprising that someone who is attracted to men instead of women would feel similarly about two men as you, someone obviously attracted to women, feel about two women? And if a big breakfast is what she's getting out of it, chances are there's more to be had there for her...if satisfying her is important to you, you might consider asking her if there's anything else she'd like from your sex life.

But here I am injecting my own preferences into my take on your sex life...my biggest turn on is feeling like my partner is satisfied...it's what ratchets it up a notch for me and takes it from being a solely-physical experience to being something more fulfilling. And I need to realize that not everyone, and probably not most people, are like I am. If that's not important to you and your wife finds the current situation acceptable, who am I to question it? If you're happy in a situation in which I wouldn't be, there's nothing wrong with that.

Like I said above, I could have read way too much into what you wrote, but I just thought it smacked of the oft-quipped "the plural of anecdote is not data." And that's just what our own proclivities and preferences are...a single anecdote in a sea of data. We need to learn to view the situation scientifically and understand that there is a real chance that our own data point is the outlier or that, in the case of your views on gay romance, inapplicable to the conclusion.

Re:Expectation

[radtea]

So read what he wrote again

What he wrote was that his straight and vanilla sex life was not just unsickening but "the way it was meant to be", which implies a very strong normative element in addition to his visceral response. As it happens, his visceral response is one I happen to share, but I'm not an idiot or three years old, so I don't infer normative value from hind-brain emotions.

Spiders creep me out too, in pretty much exactly the same way, and I don't pretend there's anything wrong with them because of that: if anything, there's something wrong with me, although it's pretty trivial as I'm not about to let such feelings influence my stand on public policy, which is based on the conscious recognition that homosexuals have as much right to do what they like with their own bodies as the rest of us.

Re:Expectation

[DamonHD]

Good candid response, thanks for that.

"I didn't choose to be straight and I don't know why I am now defending it."

Well, that's going to be how people differently-oriented (or in some places, gender, colour, religion, etc) than you are going to feel much of the time, with an added slice of "most people think that I am bad" on top.

People in the majority "in-group" would do well to put themselves in the shoes of an "out-group" from time-to-time as you just did; the world looks different from there.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I won't even do a woman in the butt

Your man card! Hand it over!

*points to the kitchen*

Now go fix me a sandwich!

Re:Expectation

[xwizbt]

Cheers. :)

Re:Expectation

[xwizbt]

I call Susan on your 'it's nature' argument. Prove it's natural to be heterosexual. Go on. You'll please a lot of fundamentals, and greatly displease me. Prove it.

Re:Expectation

[erroneus]

How do you know Susan? Look, she was "nice to me" okay? So what if she was a little fat?

Oh wait, is "calling Susan" some sort of expression like "calling" in poker?

Re:Expectation

[seanvaandering]

We didn't need a report to prove this point. :)

Re:Expectation

[Iamthecheese]

Actually I think you mean to call shenanigans on what you thought was his implication that homosexuality is unnatural. That hetrosexuality is all but an evolutionary necessity is self-evident.

Re:Expectation

[xwizbt]

Calling Susan is a humorous quote. The challenge remains.

Re:Expectation

[jon_doh2.0]

"I'm not a homophobe -- I have gay friends even"

I'm not racist -- I have black friends even.

Open goal.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

"Women smell good to me usually. There's a lot of nature going on there for me."

With all the cleaning, deodorants, shaving and perfumes, I don't think there's a whole lot of "nature" there at all, really.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Wiz could have summed it up in a sentence. Go for it, mate.

Re:Expectation

[Opportunist]

Women like gays. There's a good reason why a lot of women have gay friends: No "threat". There's no inherent threat that they don't want friendship but more and are only friendly because they want to get in her pants. For some women, this is really something special.

Imagine you're hot. Yes, in the classical "you see it and you wanna shag it" sense. Imagine every girl you meet (guy for the girl reading here) wants to fuck with you.

Dream, ain't it?

It is for a while. After a few years of screwing around it gets kinda stale when you learn that none of them really gave half a shit about YOU but only wanted your body. Worse, that you're replaceable by anyone with a similar body, "you", the "real you", don't count. They just wanted to fuck something that looks like you.

I know that's really hard to believe for some here, but it makes you long for someone who does NOT want to screw with you. Sure, you could get friends of the same sex, but it's nice to have a few friends of the other sex too (if only to find out how "they" tick), but every time you try to find one, you'll soon find out that she only wants to get you to bed and doesn't care about you.

And that reaches over into the area of the sexual, too. I know quite a few girls who get turned on by "gay action". But I guess it's not the same reason a lot of guys enjoy "lesbo" flicks (i.e. the idea that you could have both of them and be the big stallion for 'em), it's simply that she could be part of it without having to really participate. They wouldn't fuck her, but they'd maybe let her enjoy watching it without the need to join in.

Re:Expectation

[thetoadwarrior]

Exactly. Real men don't run fashion shows or fashion magazines. If we did then at the very least there would be more exposed tits.

Re:Expectation

[xwizbt]

I have to say that bergamot and vetiver smell good to me. I avoid shagging vetiver plants, not just because they're spiky, and I haven't shagged a bergamot bush partly because I've not actually seen one, and partly because *who shags a bush*? But apparently, my esteemed co-comenteer likes 'the smell of a woman'. Aside from 80s films, does such a thing exist, and why, one might ask, is that the 'natural' thing to be doing? I do lots of unnatural things, but I don't count my sexual encounters among them. Using a fork, walking erect (footwise, I mean), reaching round the back of my head with a limb that's not supposed to get there... all unnatural. Fucking a man... well, that might seem natural to you if you either study penguins or actually try it. Make sure your wife's out of town. :)

Re:Expectation

[thetoadwarrior]

I don't think they meant obese women but actually you can find loads of fat women porn. Someone out there likes it.

Re:Expectation

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Never mind the whole "feeder" subset...

Re:Expectation

[xwizbt]

And you fail to meet the challenge. Does that mean anything? Should you sleep with your sister's best friend or come clean with your wife about the farm hand's hands. All indications point to 'YES' but do retry any 8-ball you wish to consult. In the meantime, please refrain from anal sex: it's dirty-naughty, and God knows about it. Sweetie. x

Re:Expectation

[Hobbes_2100]

Well, in science even what "everyone knows" doesn't count

While the idea behind your statement has elements of truth to it, it is not entirely true (what ever is?). Scientists, as a community, rely just as much on the "commonly accepted wisdom (of their own scientific community)" as lay people do on the commonly accepted knowledge/wisdom of their (sociological) community. This is one interpretation of Kuhn's "normal" versus "revolutionary" science.

Of course one mark of a (good) scientist is skepticism with respect to "accepted" wisdom that allows for them to develop of new models/theories/experiments/measurements/etc and win fame and glory (heh!).

Best,
Mark

Re:Expectation

[James_Duncan8181]

"I'm not a homophobe -- I have gay friends even. But for me, the idea of touching a guy in places...? "doing things"? Look, I won't even do a woman in the butt -- it's just not a place for a penis to go!!"

"It's just a good arrangement and "the way it was meant to be.""

Heh. You've expressed your physical disgust at gay sex, cited gay friends, and then hetronormatively othered anyone who isn't in a male-female relationship. You may be doing less well at avoiding homophobia than you think.

Re:Expectation

[couchslug]

Nothing between consenting adults sickens me, thanks be to the internet. I'll LAUGH at a lot of it, but it's all a matter of aesthetics.

I'm hetero, but I wouldn't care if guys want to ball each other in the street so long as they don't block traffic. I've fucked women in public at biker events and it's really no big deal.

REAL FREEDOM isn't when we are "sensitive" to others, it's when we don't give a shit so long as they don't interfere with us.
The world would be a much better place if folks minded their own business and had a narrow, personal, restricted idea of what that if.

"It sickens me in much the same way that my eating meat sickens vegetarians."

Neither should be sickened. If people CHOOSE to be a bitch that's their problem. Vegetarianism is a valid choice (making TASTIER food would make it more popular, hint, hint) but they can stay out of my business and I'll stay out of theirs.

Re:Expectation

[hexagonc]

If you flip a coin and get heads three times in a row, your chance of getting a head on the next flip is 50%.

Don't mean to nitpick, especially since I agree with the gist of everything else you wrote but this is not necessarily true. The probability of getting heads on the next flip is only 50% if the coin really is fair. Now, three coin tosses are really not enough to know whether the coin is fair or not but if you flipped the coin a hundred times and they all came out heads then that would be pretty solid evidence that there was some asymmetry in the characteristics of the coin or the way it was being tossed. Of course, even in this case, it is still possible that it was fair but less likely.

I would say that the biggest problem with common sense is drawing conclusions from too small of a sample. However, there is a logic to common sense. If you're in a situation where a decision has to be made then there might not be enough time to determine rigorously the probabilities of costs or benefits. A small number of samples may simply be all that you have to go on. So long as we accept common sense as ONLY a short-term heuristic, to be refined by more careful study, then we should be okay. The problem comes from when people refuse to accept scientific results simply because it contradicts their common sense notions.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

I call Susan on your 'it's nature' argument. Prove it's natural to be heterosexual. Go on. You'll please a lot of fundamentals, and greatly displease me. Prove it.

Well, I'm loathe to please any fundies but, heterosexual sex is obviously natural... it's how we reproduce. Our species only exists today because of it. And yet none of this indicates that homosexual sex is un-natural. We know other species commonly engage in same-sex intercourse too. I'm sure a biologist (or wiki time) could even explain an evolutionary utility in it.

Or were you trying to pick a fight by suggesting that one is "ok" and one isn't? I'm not seeing anyone here saying anything like that.

Re:Expectation

[Mad Merlin]

I call Susan on your 'it's nature' argument. Prove it's natural to be heterosexual. Go on. You'll please a lot of fundamentals, and greatly displease me. Prove it.

Well, if it wasn't, our population count would certainly take a nose dive. Consider that most first world countries average somewhere close to two children per family. Now, what happens if ~90% of people are homosexual instead of ~10%?

Don't get me wrong, if that's what you want to do, go for it. However, I think it's difficult to argue that we're not hardwired to reproduce given that we're still around.

Re:Expectation

[cOldhandle]

Clearly you haven't seen many fashion shows or magazines, nudity isn't exactly a rare occurence!

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we get another +1 to this?

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be how you've seen it up until now, but once the Coalition of Gay Rapists shows up, you'll be taking a dick, my friend.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

It sickens me in much the same way that my eating meat sickens vegetarians.

Is it the noise you make and the clotted blood in your beard that sickens them?
Because most vegetarians I know are very relaxed about other people eating meat.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's a lot of nature going on there for me."

I'd be the first to defend your right to a preference, but as far as your opinions ABOUT that preference go... I think there's more self-ignorance going on there, than nature going on.

Yes, you can be straight. Yes, you can dislike gay (or any other kind of) sex. No, you shouldn't just say it "sickens" you, without understanding how your OWN thoughts and beliefs are forcing that reaction. Learn to understand yourself, how your attitudes and thoughts build up to become opinions and reactions, and you'll be in a much better place to defend yourself.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Mad propz to you and the original author. Made my morning!

Re:Expectation

[Kashgarinn]

nice response.

The thing is, homosexual people are born homosexual, they're wired like the other sex to fancy their own sex.

Like this article says, there's a difference between men and women regarding how they get turned on sexually, and men are probably the same as other men, gay or not, (i.e. one thing is enough, both get turned on both physically and psychologically) but what it is that turns them on, there the cues differ.

So it's normal for a nomal male to find it repulsive because straight men are born straight, we have cues to tell us what we should like, and cues what we shouldn't and these cues are different for homosexuals.

So although the vegetarian analogy is a "learned cue" it probably is quite similar.
.

Re:Expectation

[Synonymous Homonym]

I know quite a few girls who get turned on by "gay action". But I guess it's not the same reason a lot of guys enjoy "lesbo" flicks, it's simply that she could be part of it without having to really participate.

Sound exactly like the reason why guys enjoy lesbo flicks.
No icky phallus to disturb the picture of beauty of women in love.

(Be the stallion for women who don't want or need a stallion is appealing? Well, some people seem to enjoy rape fantasies; people like Pauline Reage.)
(Threesomes are a different beast. Girl getting it on with two straight men is a frequent women's fantasy, completely unlike men's threesome fantasies involving two women.)

Rarely do I meet a woman who talks to men she doesn't want to sleep with. And if one does, her peers have usually branded her a slut - while men enjoy her company for completely non-sexual reasons.

Likewise, rarely do men talk to women they wouldn't want to sleep with. And if one does, he has usually a reputation of being gay - among his peers, not necessarily among the women.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

If you flip a coin and get heads three times in a row, your chance of getting a head on the next flip is 50%.

Sure, on a balanced coin, any individual toss has a 50% (0.5) chance of landing heads.
Don't confuse that with landing heads 4 times in a rows. That one is actually (0.5)^4 = 0.0625
An isolated event and a succession of them are two completely different things.

It always bugs me when people dismiss the intuitiveness of the coin toss analogy with a bad understanding of probability theory.

Not that this has anything to do with the article at all. Carry on.

Re:Expectation

[thetoadwarrior]

Are they in the kitchen making sandwiches though?

Re:Expectation

[Gumbercules!!]

Thankyou Sheldon Cooper. :-)

Re:Expectation

[Boronx]

It's not so much the sex between men, though plenty of women like that, it's the romance. The gay romances written for women are about as close to real relationships as the straight romances are. Personally, I think it's just a fad, like vampire romances.

Re:Expectation

[hellop2]

"what I'm interested is in if you can convince me that you placing your most private, most intimate part into someone else's most private, most intimate part is somehow more special and somehow sacred than me placing my most private, most intimate part in someone else's chosen private, most intimate orifice?"

Hellop's Law: All other things being equal, the option without the poop is preferred.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a HUGE assumption that Vegetarians are sickened by your Meat eating. Nope. Appalled by Humanity's inability to empathise with Animal pain on slaughter, Yes. Sickening like in nauseating - no.

Angry that people who go around with biblican 'God is Love' stickers who slowly cut throats and leave animals to whither in pain or the muslims who chant 'God is Merciful' while they slaughter is actually so ironic that we Vegetarians can't believe you do get it.

Re:Expectation

[metacell]

And yet, the bonobo apes engage in homosexual sex. Perhaps a mix of hetero and homo sex is natural for humans, too?

Re:Expectation

[metacell]

Women like gays. There's a good reason why a lot of women have gay friends: No "threat". There's no inherent threat that they don't want friendship but more and are only friendly because they want to get in her pants. For some women, this is really something special.

Plus, a gay guy doesn't compete for the same men.

Re:Expectation

[Opportunist]

Funny enough, that's often the reason why such friendships fall apart. You'd be amazed how many guys are bi and how many woman/gay friends fall for the same guy. Which can either lead to a more intimate relationship or the opposite, and usually leads to the end of the friendship.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, some people like scat. I find that disgusting. I also believe that it is none of my business, if consenting people want to do that. More power to them. But I do find it disgusting.

So spare us with the "you can't have an opinion", holier than thou, "I am gay" bs.

Re:Expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read that post?

Re:Expectation

[metacell]

Sorry, must have clicked "Reply" on the wrong post.

Re:Expectation

[badkarmadayaccount]

Such sexual experimentation has been floating around my head since 13. And not because I saw a porn flick (though I stared at age 9), I just felt that some type of role playing would give better bonding. Yes I'm psychologically prematurely developed (17, as I'm typing this post, and working trough a crisis of the 30ies during my bi-weekly sessions with my therapist). The sad thing is that I'm pretty scary (not as a physical threat) to most women, that or they run into social stigmas - leaving me high and dry. Not to mention that the prolonged lack of partner and emotional hunger burn trough my will like a hummer does low grade gas. Making me potentially the smartest high-school drop-out in the history of my school, if I don't find a decent way to vent sexual energy, which is so damn distracting, that I was diagnosed ADD at first.

Busted...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

the top 10 sex-related searches include variations on youth (13.5 per cent), breasts (4 per cent), cheating wives (3.4 per cent) and cheerleaders (0.1 per cent) among others. Many are surprised that "cheating wives" is such a popular search...

Is it just me or does this read like somebody succeeded in passing off their browser history as research?

Re:Busted...

[econolog]

Yeah, I don't think you want to know the implications of the data Google has on everyone collectively, and you as an individual.

Re:Busted...

[Anonymous Coward]

The genesis of this study:

W: WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ON YOUR COMPUTER!?
H: Its research.... about what kinds of porn people look for.
W: You expect me to buy that!?
H: But, Honey, I am a cognitive neuroscientist. I'm studying what people think about porn ... with their neurons.
W: Ok, but when you are done, be sure to finish that study on why men like to watch women cheat. Anyway, I'm off to the neighbor's!

SurveyFail

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to know more about how much their methodology fails: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Surveyfail

Re:SurveyFail

[Anonymous Coward]

That shit just makes me more sympathetic to the project. I deeply wish people would stop abusing "fail", it used to be a perfectly good word.

false cheating wives conclusion

[iggymanz]

well known men on dating sites like to seek cheating wives because they are more likely to be discrete, have same risks associated with discovery, than single women who might try to attract attention to disrupt marriage for their benefit.

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

you seem to be very well aware of the reason.

anything you want to tell your wife?

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[meta-monkey]

That's completely different. The article is talking about men searching for pornography online that features fictional cheating wives in videos or stories, generally imagining their own wife is the one cheating. You're talking about people looking for actual sex partners online. The article is about men looking for fantasy pornography, and you're talking about men looking for real sex partners. Fantasy =/= reality.

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[tftp]

generally imagining their own wife is the one cheating.

How do you arrive at that conclusion based on a simple two-word search term? The opposite would be more likely:

1. Imagining their own wife cheating: implies that the man is a loser who can't retain the woman, and the woman is good enough to find another partner.
2. Imagining that the man picks someone else's wife as a partner. Implies that this man is better than that husband.

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[meta-monkey]

Because I read the article and the scenario I described is specifically what they're talking about? The author said that situation causes arousal in males (in addition to obvious anger) because it means they're going to have to compete with another to impregnate the female, prompting them to produce more sperm. I would imagine the appeal of the fantasy porn version of the scenario is because the reader/viewer gets the arousal factor without the anger, since he's not actually watching his wife cheat on him.

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe the guy just likes attractive women aged 30-45 and 'cheating wife' gets better results than other search terms..

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

well known men on dating sites like to seek cheating wives because they are more likely to be discrete,

Pet peeve: The word you're looking for is discreet. Unless you're banging Siamese twins (NTTAWWT), all humans (and in fact, all chordates) are discrete.

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[Carewolf]

It is an enabling fantasy. I am not sure I fully buy the male-dominance idea either, again I think a good part of its attraction is being an enabling fantasy.

What do I mean by 'Enabling Fantasy':
  It is more realistic than two random people meeting just saying hi and then fucking. Added realism makes the fantasy more believable, and thus easier to accept.

Re:false cheating wives conclusion

[Sprouticus]

The GP simply pointed out that the 'study' assumes the man is placing himself as the cuckhold when doing such searches. And that there is no evidence of this, simply conjecture. It could very well be the opposite, the man is placing himself as the stud.

In fact from an evolutionary standpoint this scenario makes a lot more sense. Taking the resources of a competitor, possibly forcing another man to raise our genetic offspring as his own, Etc.

Imagination

[Anonymous Coward]

In the first place, although you can find an instance of any kind of porn you can imagine on the internet

Is that a challenge?

Re:Imagination

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here*.

* the internet.

Re:Imagination

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm new here

Re:Imagination

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Horatio: *makes the goatse face, turns away from monitor* "You were right, Hamlet, there is more between heaven and earth than is dreampt of in my philosophy. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've just seen a black hole large enough to contain my entire philosophy and then some..."

Re:Imagination

[jon_doh2.0]

Tenuous link, but a great tune.

Re:Imagination

[Opportunist]

I've heard many names for it, but I think you're the first to call yours "philosophy".

That bullshit stink...

[oldhack]

"Neuroscientists", eh. Somebody prove me wrong.

Re:That bullshit stink...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bawwww, it's not pure math or physics so therefore it's not legitimate science!

Re:That bullshit stink...

[oldhack]

Hm. I wasn't ragging on neuroscience, I was ragging on this particular piece by purported neuroscientists.

Re:That bullshit stink...

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. Pretty much all other types of science reduce to these 2 things.

Re:That bullshit stink...

[DeLange]

For that matter, physics reduces to math.

Re:That bullshit stink...

[Anonymous Coward]

computational neuroscientists

Damn it, even though I went to one if the biggest university in the country, I couldn't find this program listed. And I specifically told my faculty adviser that I have always wanted to be a computational neuroscientist.
Some people have all the luck.

Fortunately, I managed to get in to the quantum theoretical psychology program.

Re:That bullshit stink...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, math is just an imperfect model for what we discover in physics. Physics is the real world.

Re:That bullshit stink...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/435/ Yeah, everything pretty much reduces to math eventually.

Arousal through cheating?

[kvvbassboy]

(Some experts are of the opinion that) men are wired to be sexually jealous but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused.

Is this true? I would be jealous for sure, but sexually aroused when my girlfriend cheats on me? I don't think so. Are these proven facts, or just a theory based on some weakly correlated evidence?

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[bjourne]

Heh, it is called "cuckold porn" and is in my opinion a quite psychologically disturbing genre of porn. Basically the guy is forced to watch while his wife/girlfriend is (willingly) fucking with another dude, not uncommonly one of african descent who happens to have a much larger penis than he has. Usually he is also being humiliated in other ways such as having to eat the other guys sperm from his wifes butt or somesuch.

Yes I know, TMI and all that. But you asked!

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As with much of "evolutionary psychology"(especially the stuff that has the misfortune to be human-facing enough to make it into pop-psych publication), the notion is at nontrivial risk of being nonsense floating on a foundation of methodological malpractice; but there is the suspicion in some quarters that humans bear some of the adaptations one sees in primates where sperm competition, as well mate selection competition, exists.

In large primates, for instance, the more promiscuous species tend to have comparatively large testicles for their body size, in order to produce more sperm, either for more frequent matings, or to have the advantage of numbers against competitors mating with the same partner. Humans are not at the top of that list; but they aren't at the bottom, either.

There is a bunch of other stuff about mate-guarding behavior, possible structural adaptation of the head of the penis for scraping out competitors' sperm, and the like.

The psychological side is a bit more speculative, and it is hard to measure things like that accurately in humans "Please rate your level of arousal, on a scale of one to five, at the notion of cuckoldry...)

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[Anne Thwacks]

Is the race bit an "American" thing? I doubt its a big issue elsewhere. Similarly humiliation. I am not persuaded its a turn on for anyone outside America - maybe the rest of the world gets enough of it in real life?

And how about older guys like women their own age? How do you know the age of whoever conducted the search? My own impression is that young guys tend to prefer slim young girls, while more experienced men tend to prefer more experienced looking women, both in real life and in porn. Maybe its because I am a grown up person and not a "computational neuroscientist".

Fashion mag producers (male and female) appear to be gay anyway, and not interested in fertile-looking women.

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[turtledawn]

Oh, it's not especially hard to measure arousal, just time and money consuming. And it can sometimes be hard to find enough willing research subjects.

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[Paul1969]

Yeah, that struck me as HIGHLY dubious. Emphatically not how I would react.
I think it is much more logical to equate that search term to wanting to find SOMEBODY ELSE'S wife who is willing to cheat with the searcher.

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I think you should test it out. Get your girlfriend to cheat on you while you watch, and note whether it arouses you, or just angers you.

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[RJFerret]

Is this true? I would be jealous for sure, but sexually aroused when my girlfriend cheats on me? I don't think so. Are these proven facts, or just a theory based on some weakly correlated evidence?

First, jealousy isn't a natural emotion, it's learned. So some won't feel that.

Second, "cheating" isn't a prerequisite. No dishonestly or going behind another's back. A partner having relations with another may be permitted.

Finally, would you feel negatively seeing a sexual video of your girlfriend from before you were dating her? What about a video of her identical twin? How about if the video featured her with another woman? How about if it was a capture of her masturbating with a stranger on Chatroulette? How about if it was her job back then?
   

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[metacell]

Stop it already! I'm at work and need both hands!

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC for obvious reasons, but when my wife confessed to fooling around with another guy on a business trip, I was upset about it, but I definitely felt arousal, too. Partly it was an urge to "reclaim my territory" in a way. There was also a bit of having someone else find her desirable to remind me what I'd originally seen in her, something that can fade with years of marriage. Some of the desire for sex might also have been simply to have her reaffirm her interest in and commitment to me.

It's been several years, and I don't think about it much, but on the occasions I do there still a bit of, "Somebody else wanted to sleep with her? That's my job!" and I'll find myself feeling an urge for sex.

I can't say that I understand searching for cheating wife porn, though. I don't see it having the same emotional impact. And there's too much other emotion involved in the real thing (for most people) to want to go through that.

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[SomeStupidNickName12]

While I am inclined to agree with you there is no evidence that jealous is learned. People/animals will always want stuff that somebody/thing else wants.

Watch family pets vying for attention from their owner. Jealousy is definitely not a human only thing.

Re:Arousal through cheating?

[RJFerret]

Untrue. It's not something you are born with, and there are plenty of people (like me for example), who were never taught or learned jealousy (or guilt). If you do some research, you can easily discover the natural emotions we are born feeling, excluding jealousy, for which there is evidence. There are some cultures where jealousy is nonexistent.

Dogs vying for attention is not jealousy, it's seeking social stimulation, IE, love, (they are pack animals) and/or pack status (think chicken's pecking order). You'll notice ferrets don't behave that way, nor do cats or domestic rabbits.

You'll also notice the natural emotions are based upon hormonal reactions to things (originating in your amygdala). They can happen without conscious understanding of what is going on. Jealousy requires an intellectual conscious decision first, which then triggers a hormonal response (originating in the prefrontal cortex). (So yes, technically one could unlearn it too, but like a bad habit, once you are "wired" that way, it's much harder to replace that reaction with an alternative.)

PS: Is it also possible you are confusing jealousy with envy, which is a natural emotion?

What *is* porn, anyway?

[poppycock]

I'm curious as to how they decided what is porn in the first place, and how much of their own biases leaked into what they decided constituted a "search for porn."

Re:What *is* porn, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

“ I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. [Emphasis added.] ”

— Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers.

damn

[Anonymous Coward]

i hate the slashdot effect.....

Romance novels

[R.Mo_Robert]

Sooo...romance novels are basically porn for women? (Assuming we believe this study.)

Also, what about non-heterosexual men? I'm pretty sure cheating wives wouldn't be a turn-on....and I'm not sure that a romance novel is, either. :)

Re:Romance novels

[magoenmadrid]

Sooo...romance novels are basically porn for women? (Assuming we believe this study.)

Also, what about non-heterosexual men? I'm pretty sure cheating wives wouldn't be a turn-on....and I'm not sure that a romance novel is, either. :)

romance novels are sci-fi novels.

Are trendy electronics considered "porn"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You pose a dam good question.

I've had the misfortune of seeing people get physically aroused by iPods and Kindles and other such devices. Long stories short, I've been at local coffee houses and seen male hipsters there pop actual erections after seeing some new gadget that one of his friends had brought and was showing off.

What might be most surprising about this is that it has happened more than once, with totally different people. The only constants were that hipsters were involved, as were trendy devices. I think one poor fellow even shot his load after playing with some new Apple laptop.

So this makes me wonder, is it still "pornography" even if no human (hell, or any living creature) is involved? Can gadgets be considered a type of "pornography" if they cause arousal in some people?

Error establishing a database connection

[rizole]

Just like my wife. As soon as I show an interest, she wont let me in.

Re:Error establishing a database connection

[Anonymous Coward]

She is afraid of SQL injection?

Re:Error establishing a database connection

[Opportunist]

*sigh* There's protection against that, has been for ages. I still can't understand why people refuse to use it. It's simple, it's easy and it protects you from so much hassle. Sure, there's a bit of overhead but ain't that worth it? A few minutes of care can save you a lot of headaches when trying to get rid of the infection.

Re:Error establishing a database connection

[Anonymous Coward]

tell that to sony

Re:Error establishing a database connection

[Opportunist]

I guess my current employer would fire me if I did. At least if I did it for free.

Suspiciously uncontroversial data

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, and interesting factoid I got from a database optimizer who was working to improve the searches on some major-ish porn site at one point: the popularity of certain kinds of porn (as per the number of searches) actually had almost nothing to do with the supposed popularity (that is, the porn that was available because people produced it, presumably based upon what they thought people wanted). About the best you could say was: there are more people who like male+female sex, than otherwise. Beyond that, results are all over the place.

For example, the incest-related searches work out to between 5% and 25% of searches, depending upon various factors, even though something like 0.05% of porn is incest porn (probably less is genuine; that's how much gets labeled as such). This was true even after normalizing for the fact that people who don't find what they're searching for might rephrase it and search again. One way that they semi-verified this was renaming a few clips and galleries to seem like they contained incest, and look at the decrease in repeat searches and the number of comparative downloads.

The fact is, what we think of as "normal porn" is about as relevant as what we think of as "normal sex" - there's no such thing, beyond the vague fact of most encounters being male+female, which would probably be due to biology more than preference.

Search doesn't equate to browsing...

[Sir_Sri]

Lets say I'm really into Strategy games. So I search for strategy games once or twice. Find some awesome strategy games sites, bookmark them, and then visit the bookmarks directly. I'm not generating search traffic for strategy games. But I will generate a lot for FPS, games and maybe sports games, because I'm not to into those, and when I do want to find something on them, I have to search for it.

Porn is, in that sense, no different that a series of specialized niche markets. If you're really into something and, through a successful search find that 'thing', well...then you don't search for it anymore. Differentiating between traffic and search is probably not trivial however. Search to me represents traffic that is under represented, or that is advertised badly (imagine if I did a search for 'news for nerds' and didn't find /. that would not say much about interest in news for nerds, only that one of the biggest sources of news for nerds wasn't providing good results).

Re:Search doesn't equate to browsing...

[BeaverCleaver]

I wish I had mod points. Search terms are, if anything, a way to find what people _don't_ browse frequently. I spend plenty of time on Slashdot, but I'm pretty sure I've never googled "news for nerds."

Re:Search doesn't equate to browsing...

[zugedneb]

depends... even if I bookmarked a site with hentai on Chidori Kaname, I want to se NEW things about her, so I search...

things related to sex are not comparable to, say, strategy games... i think we want to see new people and new things on sex, but like to keep old habits, say, games and such... as some say, sex is more than a habit :-)

Re:Search doesn't equate to browsing...

[AmbushBug]

They addressed this here. Specifically look at the addendum at the end.

This ruined ST for me

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:
Is this the kind of thing in which Kirk and Spock from Star Trek would have an affair?

ORLY?

[ACE209]

but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused.

If by "aroused" they mean "pretty fuckin' angry" then they got that one right.

Re:ORLY?

[meta-monkey]

But it's fantasy, not reality. Just like an awful lot of women have fantasies of rape or force, but I'm pretty sure they don't actually want to be raped. There are men who might fantasize about watching their wife cheat on them, but would be horrified if it happened in reality.

It's the same with a lot of non sex-related fiction. We love watching movies where the hero battles evil space monsters, imagining ourselves in that role being that brave, but we would crap our pants and run screaming if we were actually in that situation.

Re:ORLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

I admit that there are some girls where my relationship was bad enough that if I walked in on her screwing another guy, I'd probably have been numb. Not happy, perhaps, but perhaps numb enough to crack a joke. But usually, the response would be to be damn pissed off. Luckily, it is not something I have had to deal with, but I've had relationships where I felt like it was going that way and just imagining that happening is enough to get me to break it off.

On the other hand, you can take almost anything if you put yourself in the mindset that it is sexy and acceptable. I found that while the idea of my girlfriend being with another man makes me angry, I think its sort of cool when random men compliment her on her looks. She's coming home to me, so I know if I am seen with her, a bunch of guys are going, "Damn, he scored". Perhaps some people take it one step further, although I would think that you lose points if you have to share a hot girl with other guys.

Right of Passage

[retroworks]

Well, you have to have people criticize your methodology to be taken seriously. That's how Kinsey Institute got its mojo.

Speaking of which, Kinsey Institute has many similar findings in previous research. http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/FAQ.html#fantasy Now, I did find myself wondering, since I never heard of a MILF before the past decade, whether people are searching for something until they FIND it and then look for it over and over and over again. Survey may be biased against people who use bookmarks. So I've heard.

Re:Right of Passage

[mjwx]

Now, I did find myself wondering, since I never heard of a MILF before the past decade,

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front terrorist group based on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines has been around since 1981 but have been pretty well overshadowed by their bigger, meaner cousin Abu Sayyaf.

Being from a region far from SE Asia it's understandable that you haven't heard of them until recently.

Don't have to search

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to search for porn with thin females, its the norm. So how do you know men prefer heavier woman from this data? Personally I like a healthy weight, not too thin, but not fat either.

Re:Don't have to search

[Dunbal]

GP just has to stop including the word "walrus" in his searches.

Re:Don't have to search

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Let's compare the trends for "black women" and "white women":

Google trends for "white women" vs. "black women" (+ sex).

Does this mean people are 5 times more interested in black women? Or maybe white women are just easier to find online, so there's no need to refine the search. Likewise:

Google trends for "gay sex" vs. "straight sex".

I guess this proves "scientifically" that 98% of the population is gay...

Re:Don't have to search

[jon_doh2.0]

Point well made there.

Re:Don't have to search

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, the fact that straight porn spends half the time with the camera zoomed in on a dude's ass, sack and penis proves that much of the male population is at least bi.

404

[hitmark]

link two seems to be dead.

Top 10

[__aazsst3756]

Since it was /.'ed

• 1- Youth (13.5%)
• 2- Gay (4.7%)
• 3- MILFs (4.3%)
• 4- Breasts (4%)
• 5- Cheating wives (3.4%)
• 5- Vaginas (2.8%)
• 7- Penises (2.4%)
• 8- Amateurs
• 9- Mature
• 10- Animation

Re:Top 10

[Anonymous Coward]

No tentacle rape of herm furries? You people make me sick.

Source of bias:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in English.

You don't know what you are talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

From http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/17/the-neuroscience-behind-sexual-desire-authors-of-a-billion-wicked-thoughts-answer-your-questions/:

Some comments contend that our alma mater Boston University disclaimed us, revoked our websites, and rescinded our emails. This is just plain silly. Though we’re now alumni, we still maintain the same BU web addresses we’ve always had, and still have access to our same BU email accounts, though we now rely on non-university accounts.

Neither the Boston University IRB nor our former department (nor any other BU entity) ever issued any reprimand because we did not violate any university policy or regulation. Though it’s true that many colleagues in our former department were uncomfortable with our choice of research subject—some explicitly tried to dissuade us from studying sexual desire—there’s an enormous gap between disliking our research and disclaiming it.

So, well done spreading that particular line of FUD.

I’m not saying that these researchers did everything right (they almost certainly did not), but really, what sort of methodology *would* these people like to see? It is basically impossible to do *any* research in this area, as has been stated repeatedly both in the book and in the discussions online, due to how politically and emotionally charged these issues are. It’s like complaining that scientists using telescopes to find planets with habitable atmospheres are doing bad science because they aren’t there scooping up samples of the atmosphere to check its actual composition.

It’s also totally unclear to me as to what these people are complaining about since there is absolutely no mention of what the problem is in either of the two journals you linked to. As far as I can tell, it seems some people believe the entire book is based on a single survey posted to LiveJournal, which is great for their egos but entirely non-factual.

Atrocious, indeed.

Re:You don't know what you are talking about

[pixline]

I had to work with them setting up some resources while working for a major adult website, as far as I can tell they just had talks with a lot of people in that community (450K+ people) about why they like and don't like. Don't know if this qualify as 'methodology' but at least they bother to talk with actual people and their approach was quite professional and scientific (given their public talks at least). Apart from that I'm just happy those hours setting up blogs had a reason :-)

MILFs

[ian_from_brisbane]

I love how MILFs is translated for the mainstream:

The top five are youth, gays, [sexy mothers], breasts and cheating wives.

Cheating wives? WTH?

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife cheated on me and I was not turned on at all!!! I searched the internet for help to understand why and half of the stuff that turned up was cheating wife porn. It disgusted me to no end. It seemed to be one of those fantasies that is better as a fantasy and not a reality. I would do anything to NOT have had my wife cheat on me; I deal with the psychological effects everyday even though it's been over a year this month.

The internet did have some help, but I wonder if some of those searches were just guys looking for help with real cheating wives?

AOL

[smisle]

I was mildly interested until they said that they had only used AOL search data ... wow. No wonder there's so much old lady porn, it's the user base.

Re:AOL

[Hognoxious]

They aren't the users, they're the producers!

True dat

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were in japanese the list would be tentacles, demons, and schoolgirls. And yaoi, proving that women like to watch two guys shag each other all around the world.

First suspicious data point

[Livius]

"female desire requires multiple stimuli... in quick succession."

No, it requires it dragged out for as long as possible, to demonstrate that the male has resources (including time) to spare. Hence the plots of romance novels/chick flicks typically revolve around pointless hesitation and inefficiency.

drag queens

[Anonymous Coward]

It's finding drag queens in beautiful dresses that is difficult.

Re:"mind as software"

[TaoPhoenix]

I would like to provide a counterpoint position. Borrowing echoes of "soul in the machine", let's call the body below the neck as basically "hardware". Skipping for the moment the folks with special needs, we all have quasi-comparable hardware. At our best we tweak the opportunities between short folks going for horse jockeys or maybe swimming, while the stocky types go for construction or he military (to use random examples.)

But all the excitement is in the mind. It's like a play of operating systems and distros - there's New Jersey Urban, Southern Belle, MidWest Heartland, California Coastal etc. Now within the huge variants, of course each of us is unique - the famous example is geeks who haven't yet polished up to be rounded category-killers. Then there's the All American Entrepreneurs, who find their way to defining positions of the decade.

Now of course "mind emerges from the neurons", so not everyone can be John Von Neumann. But within our raw abilities (mildly adaptable!) it's up to us to find a "software package" that gets us happily through life. I think it's fun to watch "solid" people who might not be able to flash the wild reaches of topics, but make up for it with "horse sense and steady nerves".

Granny porn?

[VortexCortex]

From TFA:

It's youth by a wide margin, like cheerleaders. But we were surprised to find that even though men prefer youth mostly, there's also a very significant interest in porn with women in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. That's called granny porn.

I beg to differ, "granny porn" sounds like porn designed for grannies, and this is not the established term eg:

"Guess what you are a GMILF. That is a grandmother that I would like to..."
- Skwisgaar Skwigelf

"Multiple Stimuli"

[Anonymous Coward]

So wouldn't this lead us to conclude women prefer a multimedia porn presentation?

Re:"Multiple Stimuli"

[Anonymous Coward]

You got a Power Point there...

So you are saying man need's to write a novel?

[SluttyButt]

OK, let us be specific here in order to make everyone happy.

So, woman needs multiple stimuli simultaneously in quick succession, and the most popular erotica for women is the romance novel?

So if a man were to woo and seduce a woman, he's to write his perhaps 500-page novel, while at the same time hoping his erection does dissipate by the time his novel is done?

Ladies, don't complain that you don't get laid enough.

Very good point

[Paul1969]

And it applies to many of the "scientists" touted by global warming deniers. An astrophysicist, for example, may think he/she has spotted a flaw in the interpretation of the data, and will announce loudly that he/she has "disproved" AGW while failing to see the fatal flaw in his own interpretation.
This is of course not true of the pure sellouts, who simply repeat the scripts provided by their paymasters: "We have no conclusive proof that cigarettes cause lung cancer, Senator."

ANALYZE THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

Ogi Ogas, Sai Gaddam

What were the states of mind of their parents when they came up with these names?

Search?

[oldmac31310]

I would have to guess that most people looking for pron know where to find it and do not do a search. Lots of tube sites with thumbs. Who needs to search? How is this meaningful? The searches are those of the inexperienced and possibly desperate. The rest of us know where to find what we're looking for. Am I wrong?

Re:Search?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are only turned on by very specific things (e.g. fetishes) and don't like to browse through 'boring stuff' they aren't interested in. Search is a pretty useful feature there.

Also a lot of times search engines acts like a bookmark when you don't want to keep real bookmarks in your browser for some reason, the same people who use the private browsing feature in their browser for "some privacy" probably don't really keep bookmarks of where they went. You don't keep web history or bookmark, typing a website name into search engine often brings you there faster than remembering and typing the URL.

This might then bring up a real problem about this study, concerning people who just search for the name of the site they want to go to: if the researchers didn't compile a catalog of websites with porn material (and categorize them), then anybody who searches directly for [some strange-named website containing a specific type of porn] could actually be passed off as not searching for porn at all, even though they probably have the clearest intention of what they wanted and thus could be an interesting demographic for study.

Cheating Wives

[sonicmerlin]

I'd also like to point out this "Fetish" for cuckolding is generally centered around white-dominated societies. I've never seen that kind of interest in Eastern countries. Even in hentai the "cheating wife" is portrayed as a terrible, immoral person who eventually suffers greatly for what she's done.

Only among white people do you see the obsession with women cheating. In fact historically western culture has been far more concerned with the "purity" of women than their fidelity, whereas in Asian countries fidelity and loyalty to the partner and family has always been the most highly valued characteristic.

Correlation and causality

[Anonymous Coward]

The correlation between the amount of available porn and the decrease is not necessarily a causality people. The graphs shown side by side could suggest such a thing, but then it could also show that the amount of porn available forces people to drive too fast in their cars (Yes, try and superimpose the mean speeds recorded on interstate roads with the amount of porn, it is quite clear :D)

There could be a causality, but it needs to be researched in a different way than the correlation. Another argument for the fall in rape cases over the past 40 years could be better education and less social acceptance.

What, no pyronecroxenopedocanophila?

[Disk Pickable]

I always figured my interest in sex with flaming dead alien puppies was a little outside the mainstream, but now I know. Thanks, researchers!

Re:What, no pyronecroxenopedocanophila?

[shikaisi]

I used to be into sadism, necrophilia and bestiality, but then I found that I was flogging a dead horse.

women

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate that it's always assumed that women prefer romance novels to porn. 99% of Porn is not aimed at women, it's aimed at straight men. Think about camera angles and stuff - it all focuses on women's bodies being penetrated by faceless men and having unrealistic fake orgasm. Maybe women aren't searching for it as much because we don't like what's available.

Re:women

[metacell]

I'm honestly curious - what type of porn do women want?

When I ask my girlfriend, she tells me women are not interested in graphical porn (and she's not shy to admit what she likes).

Grant money

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much of their grant money was spent on tissues?

Analyzing Porn Searches

[Anonymous Coward]

What I would really like to know, for openers, is how these would-be researchers found and selected 400,000 Internet searches for porn to analyze. Maybe everybody on SlashDot but me knows, but how do you go about finding and identifying other people’s searches? Who, Google, Bing, the big ISPs, etc., would have to collaborate to enable you to do this, whether you were investigating searches for porn or for some other subject, such as opposing counsel’s confidential legal research for a client? Do they have or can they pull up a matching list of the people or IP addresses making these searches? How do they know if this list represents 400,000 unique people or maybe 400 horny and socially inept guys doing 1,000 searches for porn each? I thought all the other people who were searching for, downloading, or peddling porn on line used precautions and protection, and wonder if that could skew results. Also, is that sample from Google, Bing, etc., or maybe some specialized search engine for porn or certain kinds of porn?
How, in words and in the fancy algorithms that I don’t know how to write, did these “researchers” actually rigorously define porn, or distinguish child from adult porn, etc.? One obvious problem in designing a program to deal with six-figure piles of porn on line would be the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s “I may not be able to define it [in words], but I know it when I see it,” which obvious fact, for anyone, makes writing a definition of it or some subspecies’ of it with sufficient precision to constitute a Constitutionally valid criminal law extremely difficult, to say the least. How did or would they distinguish what may be pornographic, by whatever definition, but not “indecent” or “obscene” or “an appeal to prurient interest without redeeming literary or social value,” etc.
Personally, I consider the Internal Revenue Code and Regulations, which I sometimes have occasion to search on line, and the liberal five Justices of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana, which, as a retired lawyer, I have had occasion to read an analyze, obscene.

Its viceral, you need to see it.can't be described

[danbowers]

http://www.greatestpornsite.com/ greatest porn site is hard to pick but this site does the job well...see to believe.