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

by Ogi Ogas

  Women are more focused on emotional and psychological cues, which generate erotic stories suited for satisfying female appetites. Women respond to a truly astonishing range of cues across many domains. The physical appearance of a man, his social status, personality, commitment, the authenticity of his emotions, his confidence, family, attitude toward children, kindness, height, and smell are all important to Miss Marple’s Detective Agency. Unlike men, who become aroused after being exposed to a single cue, women need to experience enough simultaneous cues to cross an evervarying threshold. Sometimes, just a few overwhelming cues can take a woman there. Other times, it takes a very large number of moderate cues. For a man, a single cue is often sufficient, and sometimes necessary. For women, no single cue is either necessary or sufficient.

  Women have unique psychological cues. Irresistibility and adorability are feelings a woman has about herself that influence her self-esteem. Women are also sensitive to environmental cues, like food, shelter, and security. Unlike the solitary Elmer Fudd, Miss Marple is garrulous, frequently chatting with other detectives. Writing and reading erotica is far more of a social enterprise for women than for men. Women’s desires also change across the monthly cycle and sometimes droop, whereas men’s desires are constant all year long.

  These portraits appear so different as to describe two different species separated by an abyss. And yet, our race has always found harmony within this chasm. Our very lives are a testament to the millions of times our ancestors have bridged this gap and found the cues we craved staring back at us from the other side.

  CHAPTER 11

  Erotical Illusions

  The Creative Power of Cues

  Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

  —Oscar Wilde

  For more than five centuries, the enigmatic smile of Lisa del Giocondo has enchanted millions of visitors to the Louvre. Completed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1507, the painting more commonly known as the Mona Lisa portrays an Italian woman with a famously mysterious expression. The Mona Lisa smile appears to simultaneously convey mischievousness and a staid worldliness. Why does it have such a bewitching, dynamic effect? Because Leonardo da Vinci painted an optical illusion.

  If you peer very closely at Mona Lisa’s mouth, it appears to be rather neutral, almost a horizontal line. However, if you look into her eyes, her expression changes. Now she seems to be smiling merrily, almost like she’s teasing you. How does this work? Margaret Livingstone, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard who studies human vision, discovered da Vinci’s visual trick.

  Our brain perceives high-resolution details in the center of our vision and coarse, low-resolution shapes in the periphery. When you look directly at the high-resolution details of Mona Lisa’s mouth, you see her relatively flat lips. But if you step back and look at her eyes, nose, or forehead—any where but her mouth—your peripheral vision picks up only the coarse details of her mouth: now her lips seem to follow the strong curving lines of her cheekbones and semi-dimpled cheeks into a smile, almost like the Joker’s makeup-extended grin in Batman.

  This juxtaposition of two different visual cues—a high-frequency cue and a low-frequency cue—is the basis of the most famous optical illusion in art.

  Neurally, the Mona Lisa shares something in common with Chicken McNuggets and the luscious desserts at the Cheesecake Factory. The mouthwatering tastes of these foods are also perceptual illusions that have been specifically crafted to exploit our brain’s gustatory cues. Professional “food engineers” at restaurant corporations like McDonald’s, the Cheesecake Factory, and T.G.I. Friday’s combine sweet, salty, and savory tastes to produce entrees that maximize cravability. This is the food industry’s term for dishes that dupe the mind’s gustatory system in order to make diners want more and more and more. “Cravable foods stick in customers’ imagination and bring them back,” explains Bennigan’s chef David Sonzogni.

  The manufactured cravability of Cold Stone Creamery’s Hunka Chunka Burnin’ Fudge or Chili’s Texas Cheese Fries brings together combinations of tastes that never existed before in nature. When they hit our tongue, our brain swoons with a pleasure more intense and thrilling than when we bite into a mere bar of chocolate or fried potato. The unique juxtaposition of tastes, textures, and temperatures in manufactured cravable foods trick the brain in the same way the Mona Lisa smile manipulates the perception of two different visual cues. But if visual and gustatory cues can be combined to produce surprising new perceptual effects, what about sexual cues? Is it possible to create the erotic equivalent of the Mona Lisa smile?

  The answer is a resounding yes.

  Certain kinds of sexual stimuli merge together multiple sexual cues in a kind of perceptual trickery we call erotical illusions. With modern technology and some very human creativity, ancient sexual cues are now spliced together in novel combinations that can dupe or hyperstimulate our sexual perception, giving rise to curious new erotic cravings in both men and women. But there is one crucial difference between optical and erotical illusions. In his book Stumbling on Happiness, psychologist Daniel Gilbert asserts that “optical illusions are the same for everyone.” Men and women both perceive the same shifty Mona Lisa smile. But things are quite different with erotical illusions. Since they rely on sexual cues, male erotical illusions have no effect whatsoever on the female brain and female erotical illusions have no effect on the male brain.

  In this chapter, we’re going to review some of these erotical illusions and demonstrate how our brain’s desire software is one of the most potent and overlooked sources of creative inspiration in the human mind.

  FUTANARIA

  Sage Agastya, a renowned Vedic scholar and the author of many couplets in the Rig Veda, occupies a special orbit in the constellation of Indian mythology. According to legend, Agastya came across many ancestors hanging upside down in a cave. When asked why they hadn’t proceeded to their well-earned place in the heavens, the inverted ancestors bemoaned the lack of an heir to continue their line and perform the proper rites to send them on their way. So Agastya decided to create a wife for himself. Using Vedic wizardry, he selected the most desirable parts of various domesticated animals to fashion a beautiful and perfect wife named Lopamudra, which means “assembled from the most beautiful parts.”

  Based on traditional depictions of Lopamudra, we can presume that Agastya selected those body parts that best satisfied his male visual cues: firm breasts, round butt, wide hips, small feet. Similarly, when men search for porn on the Internet, they also seek out the perfect combination of cues. They hope to find a body that maximizes their desire by activating as many cues as possible. Many Web sites make it easy. Thumbnail Web sites like Dan’s Movies, Cliphunter, and Bravo Vids display rows of photographs laid out like a catalog. The images feature attractive female bodies in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. But once in a while, a different kind of body pops out.

  “I call it the ‘Trannie Peek,’ ” explains one industry veteran. “Adult webmasters figured out that straight guys will click on shemales out of curiosity and take a look. It grabs about 5% of the clicks on straight TGPs [thumbnail galleries].”

  The terms “trannie” and “shemale” are frequently used as slang within the adult industry and in adult content for a transsexual woman who has been treated with hormones so that she possesses breasts and a female figure but still possesses a penis. (Some in the transsexual community consider both “trannie” and “shemale” to be derogatory terms.) They are also known as “T-girls” and “ladyboys.” PornHub and many other tube sites also features the occasional T-girl porn on their front page, but they only present gay porn if you actively search for it. This is because the main audience for T-girl porn is heterosexual men.

  “Transsexual Porn is classified as Straight Specialty,” blogs Wendy Williams, a bulky transsexual performer who has starred in eleven movies. “So obviously the adult industry had to market our porn to those who buy it, guess what that is STRAIGHT men. There is no mar
ket for a gay company to produce this content so most are all big straight companies like Evil Angel and Devils Film.” Housekeeper, who runs several transsexual porn sites, including Transsexual Brazil and Stroking Queens, agrees. “My main audience, and the audience for most shemale porn, are straight dudes. That’s how it’s always been. I will say that all of the visitors to transsexual sites are straight. Many of them are married men, men in relationships with real women, and single men.”

  T-girl porn has exploded in popularity over the past decade, with a dazzling variety of sites on the Alexa Adult List: She Gods, Shemale Fly, Evil Shemales, TranSex Domination, and Submissive SheMale. In fact, if you categorize the sites on the Alexa Adult List by the names of the sites, then T-girl sites are the fourth most popular category of adult Web site. “Transsexual porn is one of the largest-selling niches in all of straight porn. It’s a huge moneymaker,” asserts Wendy Williams. T-girl porn is popular in every country on the Internet, but especially in Brazil and Southeast Asia. “Shemales” is the sixteenth most popular sexual search on Dogpile, more popular than “butts,” “threesomes,” and “interracial sex.”

  Here is the search history for one T-girl fan, Mr. Miami Latino.transexuales calientes

  chat de transexuales latinos

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  Most men who search for T-girl porn either search exclusively for T-girl content or a mix of T-girl porn and straight porn. But there is a minority of men who search for both gay and T-girl content. For example, Mr. Squirt.absolute shemale

  squirt

  gay male porn galleries

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  Does this suggest that perhaps some gay men really do like T-girls? Not necessarily. Two sociologists visited a Chicago bar frequented by transsexual women and their male admirers. Scientists refer to these T-girl fans by the rather intimidating term gynandromorphophiliacs. The sociologists approached various men at the bar and interviewed them about their sexual orientation and tastes. So how many T-girl fans were straight? About 60 percent. And the others? The remaining 40 percent were bisexual men. There were no gay men at the bar.

  So what drives straight men’s interest in T-girls? The fact that as represented in online porn, the T-girl is an erotical illusion.

  The T-girl consists of the novel juxtaposition of two kinds of male visual cues. First is a set of cues for femininity: breasts, butts, curvy figures, and feminine facial features and mannerisms. All of these cues trigger the male brain’s usual arousal from an attractive female body. But there is another vivid cue: the penis. As we’ve learned, the penis has a special power to activate the male sexual brain. When you superimpose these two cues, the result is an erotic version of the Mona Lisa smile.

  “I like her soft looks, sexy body. Very nice long legs,” muses one T-girl fan on Fantasti.cc. “And then there’s that added bonus . . . I can’t really explain why it affects me.”

  A sense of inexplicable enigma often colors men’s response to shemale porn, similar to most people’s reactions to optical illusions. “I’m enchanted by her figure. It’s svelte, and the long hair is really nice and feminine. Plus a sex toy that just kind of pops out in my brain,” explains another shemale fan. Wendy Williams is used to it. “They like the feminine qualities that make us a transsexual and the dick is sort of a fetish.” The femininity cues are the reason gay men aren’t interested.

  Like Agastya’s hand-crafted Lopamudra, the T-girl porn is an erotical illusion comprised of a conjunction of different anatomical cues. Many men who search for T-girl porn also search for specific female body parts, such as Mr. Sexy:shemale galleries

  sexy butt babes

  sexy boob babes

  sexy bikini babes

  sexy boobed babes

  Searches for T-girl porn are also highly correlated with searches for strap-on dildos. The nature of the erotical illusion of T-girl porn is made even more vivid in artistic erotica freed from physical constraints. In Japanese anime, transsexual characters are known as futanari. Futanari porn reveals exactly what appeals to straight men about T-girls. Futanari characters are drawn with hyperfeminine bodies, typically very young, with large round breasts and hourglass figures, large eyes with long eyelashes, and beautiful faces. They also possess giant horse-sized penises. Typical futanari features schoolgirls with giant protrusions beneath their plaid skirts, teenage girls with pink hair and a bulge in their jeans, slender ballerinas in tutus sporting erections as long as their slender legs.

  Recently, contemporary adult webmasters have begun to understand the precise appeal of T-girl porn. They’ve found ways to manufacture “artificial shemales” that do not involve the use of actual transsexual actresses. One site, Futanaria.com, uses real women. The women are voluptuous and curvy, with enormous strap-on dildos that look like authentic if colossally oversized penises. The site is full of scenes of attractive, busty women stroking their giant artificial manhood until geysers of fake semen spray across the room. The site makes the erotical illusion very clear: visual cues of femininity juxtaposed with the visual cue of a penis. What about the opposite? What about someone with strong muscular arms, tattooed biceps, a bald head, a beard—and a vagina? The most famous (and perhaps only) transsexual male porn star is the cigar-puffing Buck Angel. Buck Angel combines a number of visual cues of masculinity with the single feminine cue of a vagina. Straight men express no interest in Buck Angel, and some find him disquieting. Many gay men, however, find Buck Angel extremely intriguing. “I would definitely love to try out Buck,” explains one thirty-two-year-old gay man. “He’s hot, and there’s just something very dizzying about him that whirls around in my brain.”

  Women have created their own parallel world of protagonists accessorized with unnatural add-ons. But in keeping with the kind of female cues preferred by Miss Marple, these extra appendages are of the emotional and psychological variety.

  VAMPIRE ANGST

  Beth’s neck jacked back up as she met the man’s steady, feral gaze. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes through the glasses, but his stare burned.

  As he stopped in front of her, she felt a blast of pure, unadulterated lust. For the first time in her life her body got wickedly hot. Hot and wet.

  Pure, raw, animal chemistry. Whatever he had, she wanted.

  On impulse her hands went to the lapels of his jacket, and she tried to pull him down to her mouth. He captured both her wrists in one of his hands. “Easy.”

  She struggled against his hold, and when she couldn’t get free she arched her back. Her breasts strained against her T-shirt, and she rubbed her thighs together, anticipating what it would feel like to have him between them. “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. She smiled up at him, relishing the sudden hunger in his face.

  Wrath was dumbfounded. And he wasn’t a vampire who got struck stupid very often.

  This half-human was the hottest thing he’d ever gotten anywhere near. And he’d cozied up to a lightning strike once or twice before.

  This abridged passage, from J. R. Ward’s Dark Lover, is representative of a female erotical illusion that has rocketed to the top of best-seller lists and the heights of box office sales: paranormal romance. Over the past decade, sexy vampires, lusty werewolves, and a wide variety of supernatural beasties have replaced mere mortals as the most popular romance heroes and heroines. Stephenie Meyer leads the pack of paranormal authors with her Twilight series of novels about a pretty high school senior named Bella Swan who must choose between angsty vampire hottie Edward Cullen and loyal werewolf hottie Jacob Black. Twilight is so popular that U.S. senator Amy Klobuchar asked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan if she belonged to Team Edward or Team Jacob. At times Meyer’s Web site has received more than a million visitors a day. The vast majority
of her fans are women.

  The rapid rise of the paranormal in romance is largely due to an extraordinary variety of erotical illusions. The paranormal takes the psychological cues inherent to the genre and twists them into marvelous new variations that satisfy Miss Marple in deliciously fresh new ways. Paranormals are the cream cheese sushi of the female sexual brain.

  Consider paranormal heroes: wizards, necromancers, werewolves, and—most common of all—vampires. These supernatural males are alphas among alphas. Vampires are exceptionally strong and powerful. They’re often immortal. They know how to fight and are willing to annihilate the competition. They are fully capable of protecting the ones they love from a range of mundane and otherworldly dangers. In most tellings, such as Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series and Anne Rice’s Lestat series, vampires are fabulously wealthy, having acquired land and treasure across centuries. They’re prone to owning mansions and castles, and inevitably have far-flung networks of “old money” and behind-the-scenes power. The Validus vampires in F. E. Heaton’s Winter’s Kiss, for example, are a one-thousand-year-old vampire bloodline that influences European politics.

  “Edward Cullen has, for millions of passion-starved better halves worldwide, become the undead embodiment of everything the contemporary schlub seems to have shed: danger, poetry, strength, speed, eternal devotion, and an insatiable hunger for the jugular,” complains Jeff Gordinier, the editor at large at Details magazine. “Meanwhile, the defanged mortal males of Earth, their rumps firmly planted in front of the flat-screen and their breath faintly fragrant of Pirate’s Booty, have become, thanks to Edward, one big collective cuckold.”