Inspired by the Freakonomics team and their “let the data lead the way” methods, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam talk about their new book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire:
Since we’ve written a book offering new ideas about a very intimate and politicized subject — sexual desire — you may be wondering about our identities and ideologies. We’re both heterosexual males. Ogi is 40 and half-Latino, Sai is 30 and all Indian. We kicked off our controversial research project with one overriding principle partially inspired by Freakonomics: no agenda, no ideology, just follow the data wherever it leads.
And the data led us to some very strange places. Here are some of our findings: heterosexual men like shemale porn, large-penis porn, and fantasies of their wives sleeping with other men. Gay male sexuality is almost identical to straight male sexuality. Women prefer stories to visuals, though women who do prefer visuals tend to have a higher sex drive, exhibit greater social aggression, and are more comfortable taking risks. Men prefer overweight women to underweight women. Heterosexual women like stories about two masculine men sharing their tender side and having sex. Porn featuring women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s is popular among men both young and old. For women, online erotica is often a social enterprise, while for men it’s almost always a solitary one. Most men are wired to be aroused by sexual dominance and most women are wired to be aroused by sexual submission, though a large minority of straight men (and a majority of gay men) prefer the sexually submissive role, and a small minority of women prefer the sexually dominant role.
They then answer a series of questions posed by Freakonomics readers, some of which are quite hostile in tone.
I got as far as this line —
Men and women who had never met were escorted into a small, furniture-less room that was pitch dark. What did these completely anonymous strangers do?
— and I had to retreat to my bunk. We never did experiments like that in my psych classes.
I’d still be in school if we did.
Now if you will excuse me, I need to go to find a mop.
Comment by Lickmuffin — May 17, 2011 @ 13:11
If that brief taste was too much for you to handle, you should probably not check out their blog posts at Psychology Today.
Comment by Nicholas — May 17, 2011 @ 14:19