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

by Ogi Ogas

  Straight Males: # of respondents: 300,402; 72.1% YES; 20.4% NO.

  Bisexual Females: # of respondents: 33,592; 61.0% YES; 30.0% NO.

  Straight Females: # of respondents: 195,689; 10.4%; 40.7% YES; 48.9% NO.

  66 test compound known as 5 cyclic GMP-specific phosphodiesterase inhibitor Ghofrani et al. (2006), Terrett et al. (1996), http://inventors.about.com/od/uvstartinventions/a/Viagra.htm, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  67 its share price doubled http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/16/viagra-pfizer-drug-pill-profit, retrieved on October 1, 2010.

  67 multinationals turned their attention to developing “pink Viagra” An academic review of the search for female Viagra can be found in Brown et al. (2007).

  67 twice as many women as men suffering First & Tasman (2010).

  67 Vivus vasodilator failed to boost female desire Rosemary et al. (2002). http://medicaldevicelicensing.com/public/companies/view/1382/vivus.

  68 stimulating female desire through “peripherally acting agents” Brown et al. (2007).

  68 to find out what turns women on Chivers et al. (2004). http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2010/marapr/features/mosher.html. Of the forty-five women in Mosher’s survey, thirty-five said they desired sex; thirty-four said they had experienced orgasms; twenty-four felt that pleasure for both sexes was a reason for intercourse; and about three-quarters of them engaged in it at least once a week.

  68 plethysmograph “The first invention came in the 1950s. Soldiers could get out of the Czech army by claiming they were gay, and researcher Kurt Freund needed to find a way to confirm their orientation. He invented a kind of barometer that measures changes in air pressure around the penis when a man has an erection. A more modern device—nicknamed a ‘peter meter’—uses mercury and an electrical current to measure changes in the size of a band placed around the penis. In women, scientists use a tampon-like gizmo that shines light into the vagina and tracks blood flow by measuring the diffusion of light in the surrounding tissues.” http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/04/63115, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  69 “all this conflicting stuff flying around my brain and body” http://letters.mobile.salon.com/mwtbroadsheet/2006/11/27/porn/view/index13.html, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  69 “being aroused by something that disgusts you” http://letters.mobile.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/11/27/porn/view/index11.html, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  69 Chivers reviewed 132 different laboratory studies Chivers et al. (2010).

  69–70 vaginal lubrication is a poor predictor of what she is actually feeling Meana (2010): “The best predictors of sexual distress were general emotional well-being and emotional well-being with partner during sex. Arousal, lubrication, and orgasm were poor predictors of sexual distress.”

  70 women report lubrication and even orgasm during unwanted and coercive sex Meana (2010).

  70 if a man is erect There are exceptions; men can have spontaneous erections (morning wood) after sleep.

  70 rare sex survey in the 1920s http://sexademic.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/before-there-was-kinsey-mosher-davis-and-dickinson-surveyed-victorian-sex/. “In his survey of one thousand married women he found that they most frequently complained about failure to reach orgasm and that obstacles to sexual pleasure were primarily inorganic, i.e., not physiological in nature.”

  70 likely involve conscious mechanisms Brown et al. (2007). “The failure of the peripherally acting PDE5 inhibitors, coupled with the clinical findings that subjective and objective arousal in women may be different, suggested that centrally acting agents may be more appropriate for the treatment of FSD. Indeed many animal studies have shown the importance of the brain, especially a number of hypothalamic nuclei, in mediating female sexual response in rodents. Thus, attention has turned to centrally acting agents in the search for an effective treatment of FSD.”

  71 why are they separated in women? Meana (2010). “The model of sexual response propagated by Masters and Johnson (1966), by Kaplan (1974), and by the third and fourth editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; American Psychiatric Association [APA], (1987; 2000) has problematized women’s sexual experience through the damaging application of a male analog.” “The accumulation of data [supports] the existence of quantitative and qualitative gender differences in desire.”

  “Although there have been suggestions that this gender difference may be a function of measurement artifacts or socially desirable responding on the part of women, the bulk of the data generally does not support these possibilities. More pointedly, they suggested that, in contrast to men, women’s genital arousal had a weaker relation to their sexual preferences.”

  71 dramatic differences in how these Meana (2010). “The accumulation of data supporting the existence of quantitative and qualitative gender differences in desire.” “It appears that physical sexual arousal is the same in men and women—what differs is the way the conscious mind processes and reacts to it.”

  Walter, Bermpohl, et al. (2008). “men recorded approximately 7.2 sexual fantasies per day as compared with 4.5 for women” and “men estimated they had approximately one sexual fantasy per day, whereas the women estimated they had only one sexual fantasy per week.” Leitenberg & Henning (1995). “Male university students were found to masturbate to ejaculation about every 72 hours, and “on the majority of occasions, their last masturbation is within 48 hours of their next in-pair copulation.”

  http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=one-reason-why-humans-are-special-a-2010-06-22, retrieved on August 20, 2010. “If they’re not having intercourse every day, men tend to pleasure themselves to completion no more than two days prior to having actual sex.”

  71 low sexual desire much more often than men “The most common presenting sexual complaint in women attending clinics is low desire. In contrast, men most often present with erectile difficulties. Bachman surveyed 1,946 health professionals attending four major specialty conferences (the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Endocrine Society, the North American Menopause Society, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine) and found that 67% of respondents reported that low sexual desire was the most common type of sexual dysfunction among their female patients. Of note is the fact that 85% of these health professionals believed HSDD to be a medical disorder.”

  71 “theory of women’s desire as being substantially different” Meana (2010).

  71 separation of the physical from the psychological Becker (2009). “Sex differences in motivation are apparent for the motivation to engage in sexual behavior, the motivation to take drugs of abuse, and the motivation to engage in parental behavior. In both males and females there is an increase in NAcc DA associated with motivated behaviors. Here it proposed that sex differences in the regulation of DA activity in the ascending mesolimbic projections may underlie sex differences in motivation. In particular, sex differences in the neuroendocrine regulation of this brain system play a role in the expression of sex differences in motivated behaviors. Here it is proposed that sexual differentiation of motivation is mediated, at least in part, by a novel mechanism in which ovarian hormones secreted at puberty in the female actively feminize the DA system.” Also see Lippa (2009).

  73 a section called Missed Connections Craigslist is the largest free online classifieds Web site in the United States. See http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites. We scraped posts/classifieds from listings in the following 52 American cities and regions: Akron, Anchorage, Albany, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Buffalo, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbia, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fresno, Hartford, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Orange County, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Raleigh, Richmond, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Tu
cson, and Washington, D.C.

  Classifieds on Craigslist are categorized into several specific subcategories. Our scraping included six subcategories in the personals section: m4m (Men Seeking Men), m4w (Men Seeking Women), w4m (Women Seeking Men), w4w (Women Seeking Women), mis (Missed Connections), msr (Miscellaneous Romance). Missed Connections is a section where men and women post messages for people they desire to reconnect with. These messages can be for long lost friends and acquaintances, or strangers encountered in everyday life. We scraped 565,597 listings in this category. Listings by men for women and vice versa are denoted by using m4w and w4m respectively. Men post roughly twice as often as women. Analysis of the most frequent two-word phrases in post titles by men (for women) and women (for women) reveals that “looking for” and “miss you” are among the ten most common phrases used by both sexes. Relative frequency of usage shows that women are more likely to use the phrase “miss you” and men use “looking for.” Expanding the relative frequency of phrase usage analysis to top fifty phrases reveals that men are looking for women they met “at Walmart” or at the “gas station.” Women on the other hand confess they “love you” and are thinking “about you.”

  74 A physical detective Ellison & Gray (2009), Jasienska & Ellison (2004).

  74 He’s Just Not That Into You Behrendt & Tuccillo (2004).

  75 women ruminate over emotional situations more than men Bjorklund & Kipp (1996), Arrais et al. (2010), Thornhill & Gangestad (2008).

  76 women’s sexual fantasies have higher romantic and emotional content Meana (2010). “The research on sexual fantasy has repeatedly shown that women’s fantasies have higher romantic–emotional content than those of men.”

  76 “sex differences in the human brain may be the norm” Gillies & McArthur (2010).

  76 men are more likely to suffer from Parkinson’s Gillies & McArthur (2010), Blakemore (2008), Burnett et al. (2009).

  76 twice as likely to suffer from mood disorders Becker (2008).

  76 susceptibility to mood disorders is one of the costs Paus et al. (2008), Perrin et al. (2008).

  76 The insular cortex and the hippocampus are both involved During the luteal phase, women show more activation in the emotionrelated areas. Superior activation for luteal women in anterior cingulate, left insula, left orbitofrontal cortex. Gizewski et al. (2006), Bartels & Zeki (2004), Bush et al. (2000), Van Overwalle (2009), Arnow et al. (2009), Bianchi-Demicheli & Ortigue (2007), Arrais et al. (2010), Rupp et al. (2009).

  78 women performed better than men on verbal tasks Kansaku et al. (2000), Burman et al. (2008).

  78 More women than men use social networking sites http://www.briansolis.com/2010/08/influence-is-bliss-the-gender-divide-of-influence-on-twitter, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  78 greater connectivity between the two cortical hemispheres Van Overwalle (2009), Insel and Fernald (2004).

  79 or a celebrity’s views on mental health http://newsinfo.iu.edu/tips/page/normal/10912.html, Baumeister (2000), Baumeister et al. (2000).

  79 likely to attribute sexual anxiety to social pressures Meana (2010).

  80 behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate in a given situation Rupp et al. (2009), Harenski et al. (2008), Fumagalli et al. (2010), Baron-Cohen et al. (2005), Kaasinen et al. (2001).

  80 “Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today” Georgiadis et al. (2006), Arnow et al. (2009), http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm.

  82 “The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” Gottlieb (2010).

  83 objectum sexualis http://www.ejhs.org/volume13/ObjSexuals.htm.

  84 Erika Naisho, married the Eiffel Tower http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/sunday-review/living/i-married-the-eiffel-tower-832519.html.

  CHAPTER 5

  86 “romance for men” Here’s one guy that likes romance: “Hi! I’m that odd guy out who reads romance novels, and lots of them :) The reason that I read romance novels is that my Mother read, amongst many other things, romance novels, and therefore a lot of the books in the house when I went through my ‘read everything I can lay my hands on’ stage were of that genre. And quite a few of them I enjoyed. So I picked up the habit at an impressionable age and never stopped.” http://pandagon.netindex.php/site/comments/why_dont_men_read_more_romance_novels/,retrievedonAugust30,2010.

  86 Catherine Salmon and Donald Symons in their book, Warrior Lovers Salmon & Symons (2003).

  86 Pamela was one of the earliest bestsellers Doody (1995).

  86 1972 novel The Flame and the Flower Woodiwiss (1972).

  87 90 percent of these readers are women http://www.laweekly.com/2009-12-17/art-books/man-on-man-the-new-gay-romance/, retrieved on October 15, 2010. http://www.rwanational.org/cs/the_romance_genre/romance_literature_statistics, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  87 about 100 million men in the United States and Canada Albright (2008). Also see Edelman (2009).

  89 erotic story “Princess and the Pirates” by Hamilton_g Abridged from http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=100201, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  89 what romance author Nora Roberts called “nursing mother covers” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_collins, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  90 “success of the ebook is being fueled” http://www.bookpatrol.net/2009/08/romance-and-erotic-novels-drive-ebook.html.

  90 offer their existing titles in digital formats http://eromancewriters.com/publishers.cfm.

  90 actress Felicia Day blogs about her reading tastes http://feliciaday.com/blog/kindle-oh-kindle, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  90 Other e-EroRom publishers Loose Id, LLC—Loose Id (www.loose-id.com), Total-E-Bound Publishing—Total-E-Bound (www.total-e-bound.com), Jasmine Jade Enterprises, LLC—Ellora’s Cave (www.jasminejade.com/default.aspx).

  91 “Girlies like porn too” http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/11/27/porn/view/index9.html, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  92 2 million different stories and more than 600,000 visitors Traffic from Quantcast.com. Also http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Online-Pornography-Why-Men-Are-Visual-and-Women-Are-Textual/print/1, retrieved on August 30, 2010. “The leading site in this category is AdultFanFiction.net, with visitors that are predominately 18- to 24-year-old women.”

  92 “Continuing the stories of favorite characters” Personal e-mail communication with Sylvia Volk, September 2010.

  93 about half of the stories are tagged as “romance” Based on scraping of tags on fanfiction.net in March 2010.

  93 “Four Months Later,” a story pairing Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling Abridged from http://community.livejournal.com/apckrfansfic/113090.html, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  94 derived from the titles of more than 15,000 Harlequin romance novels Cox & Fisher (2009).

  95 absent from the list of romance heroes are blue-collar workers Some other romance heroes: Josef Serafin aka Killian from Anne Stuart’s Ice Storm: For the majority of the book, the reader is led to believe that the hero is “the most dangerous man in the world.” He is portrayed as a well-known warlord and arms dealer who’s caused the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people. It turns out that he was just deep undercover for the CIA portraying the mercenary Serafin. Simon Cross from Linda Howard’s Death Angel: he’s an assassin hired to kill the heroine. Viktor Drakovich from Lisa Marie Rice’s Dangerous Passion: the hero is an arms dealer.

  95 “Alphas are natural leaders” Knight (2007).

  96 processing cues indicating social status Waismann et al. (2003), Allison et al. (2000).

  96 “I’m a lesbian, but the powerful attraction” http://www.thegreatstory.org/stories-awaken.html.

  96 “an inconsiderate asshole beats being a polite beta” http://roissy.wordpress.com/the-sixteen-commandments-of-poon/, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  97 “women like bad boys” Knight (2007).

  98 “I used to write to Richard Ramirez” http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Fi
nd-Serial-Killers-Fascinating/forum/Serial-Killer-Penpals/3533, retrieved on August 30, 2010. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/28/

  BA8M19PDAN.DTL. “Oh my favorite is Kendall Francois he is such a wonderful guy and so friendly and caring.”

  Also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/killer_groupies/message/507. “I write to Richard Ramirez. He is realy nice, sweet & funny. And I’m happy over every day he has.”

  http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Find-Serial-Killers-Fascinating/839889. “Poptart: In the words of Steven Tyler ‘Groupies are fantastic man, they make an old man young, & keep a young man hard-kkkkkkow’! No man i know ever gets tired of hearing a young hot girl say ‘omg i wanna suck your cock’. Well, no hetero man anyway! RichardsGirl: hahaha poptart maybe so but i’d never say it at least, not to richard anyway. okay, maybe not in my FIRST letter, anyway . . . HAHAHA. Poptart: haha now your gettin’ it darlin’—you are a babe—he is gonna luv ya! Good girls corrupted & turned bad are a fave!”

  http://skcentral.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=816&rowstart=100. “I am obessed with them. I have a friend who asks me when I’m going to write one. I say the ones in prison are the safest. Then they can’t cheat on you”—LostLittleGirl

  http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?s=0c41a4ec25d11c09ad6ed34a02e03861&showtopic=64212&st=15

  98 “If I could have died by his hands” http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Find-Serial-Killers-Fascinating/839889, retrieved on August 1, 2010.

  98 regarded by the Yanomamo women as the most desirable Personal e-mail communication with Donald Symons, June 2010.

  98 required to present the shrunken head of a man http://www.bukisa.com/articles/26013_bizarre-culture-of-primitive-tribes-from-around-the-world.