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"

[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"

[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"

[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"

[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:Expectation

[pasv]

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

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?

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.

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: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.

Error establishing a database connection

[rizole]

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

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: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

[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: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:Expectation

[seanvaandering]

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

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: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.

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.

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.