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

by Ogi Ogas

98 tolerate a little misogyny and jerkdom Knight (2007).

  98 mate preferences across thirty-seven different cultures Stone et al. (2007). Lippa (2007): “Women ranked honesty, humor, kindness, and dependability more important than men did.”

  99 it was what’s inside that was important From Crumb : “In this strip I talk about all my problems with women, starting with high school, where I learned a lot about women because there was this guy named Skutch . . . who was like this mean bully, but he was also very charming, and all the girls liked him. He was, like, the dreamboat but he was also a bully. . . . [Points to another part of the comic strip.] Here it shows all these girls talking about how one of their friends got a date with Skutch and how envious they all are. And this is how I felt about it.” [Chuckles as he points to a drawing of himself in the comic. He looks distraught and angry, and there is a bubble showing him saying “Arghh!”] “I’m a little bitter about it as you can see here. I show here how I thought that most teenage boys were very cruel and aggressive and everything like that, and if girls could see that I was more kind and sensitive they would like me more, they would be kinda impressed by the fact that I could draw. But I couldn’t understand why they liked these cruel, aggressive guys and not me, ’cause I was more kind and sensitive and everything, more like them, I was more like them. I didn’t realize that they didn’t want you to be like them, basically. I felt very hurt and cruelly misunderstood because I considered myself talented and intelligent and yet I was not very attractive physically, but I didn’t think those things really mattered, it was what’s inside that was important. When I was thirteen and fourteen and trying to be a normal teenager I was really a jerk. I tried to act like I thought they were acting and it just came out all wrong and weird. So then I just stopped completely and just became a shadow, and I wasn’t even there, people weren’t even aware that I was in the same world they were in.”

  100 a man who seems to epitomize the male ideal In an episode of Sex and the City, the women all say their fantasy male is Russell Crowe.

  100 things a guy must do to get back together Abridged from http://www.enotalone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=348168. “I was actually considering getting back together with him (I think I must have forgotten about him sleeping with another girl part) I needed him to 1. introduce me to his parents, 2. change his facebook relationship status 3. Give me all his email, FB and phone passwords, 4. Call his stupid ex and tell her to stop calling him amongst other things. He agreed to it all. . . . to my surprise.”

  101 “She received nice letters in return” http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239749.

  101 415 millionaires, 286 billionaires, and 263 sheiks Scraped from all book titles in the romance genre on Amazon.com in September 2010.

  103 who sit around the house watching TV are never heroes Knight (2007).

  103 date someone who didn’t know how to drive a car See OkCupid data description.

  QUESTION #48960 WOULD YOU CONSIDER DATING SOMEONE WHO DOES

  NOT KNOW HOW TO DRIVE A CAR?

  Straight Males: # of Respondents: 74410; 79.0% YES; 11.72% NO. Bisexual Females: # of Respondents: 9460; 67.73% YES; 20.39% NO. Straight Females: # of Respondents: 49039; 48.00% YES; 37.67% NO.

  The Hadza people are an ethnic group of hunter-gatherers living around the Rift Valley in central Tanzania. For tens of thousands of years, they have survived on the berries and nuts gathered by the women, and the antelope meat obtained by the men. Anthropologist Frank Marlowe asked the Hadza women what characteristic they most desired in a husband. Marlowe always received the same answer. “He must be a good hunter.”

  103 “be confident in his ability” Knight (2007).

  103 hunting or fighting prowess is an essential quality in a man Escasa et al. (2010), Marlowe (2004).

  103 silver-tipped myotis bat has http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article749435.ece

  103 valuation of male creativity and intelligence Miller (2000).

  104 why women are far more interested in older partners Symons (1979). Lists of romance novels with age gaps (in both directions): http://www.likesbooks.com/may-dec.html, http://forums.rtbookreviews.com/viewtopic.php?t=8094. Generally, in historicals, the heroines are either debutantes (eighteen to twenty-two), widows (late twenties to late thirties), or spinsters (late twenties to midthirties). From Kresley Cole’s A Hunger Like No Other:

  She frowned as a sudden thought occurred. “You said ‘every age that I have lived.’ So how old are you? Six hundred? Seven hundred years?”

  “Does that matter?”

  She shook his hand free. “How—old?”

  “Roughly twelve hundred years.”

  She gasped. “Do you know what ‘robbing the cradle’ means? I am almost seventy-one. This skeeves me out!”

  104 “I’ve had enough of the boys” Abridged from http://www.blogher.com/dating-older-men-how-old-too-old#comment-119801. “I am stuck I guess. I want a mature strong man and I feel I cannot find that with a guy my age or in his 20s. I like older men but I want one who has his sh!t together and is compassinate and I just feel like I can communicate with older guys better. Communication is very important. Being able to TALK instead of having to explain EVERYthing to a childish BOY is something I have to go for. I’ve had enough of the boys.” Nineteen-year-old actress and singer Gabriella Climi did an interview with Gossiptiva.com about how she wants to date older men like Robert Downey Jr. and John Travolta. http://gossipvita.com/2010/06/gabriella-cilmi-likes-date-older-man-sex-boyfriend-love/. Lily Allen talks about why she likes to date older men: “They make me feel grown up.” http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/830110-lily-allen-i-date-older-men-as-they-make-me-feel-grown-up.

  104 natural leaders, rich, powerful, and well connected On Support and Advice for Escorts (www.saafe.info), women explicitly look for “sugar daddies” (wealthy men who pay women to be their girlfriend): “The only sugar daddy that I could tolerate would have to be super-mature, handsome, fit, funny, witty and too busy with his amazing life to be whiny or insecure. Because it sounds like the sugar daddy relationship is way too up-closeand-personal, despite the money (which has to be disguised as gifts? WTF? I can’t eat shoes!) so if you don’t actually like each other, it’s a nightmare. I have rather high standards for my male company unless I’m getting an hourly fee.” http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=2755.30

  105 what a movie might look like that simultaneously appeals Salmon & Symons (2003).

  106 “the reader is satisfied with a Happy For Now ending” Personal e-mail communication with Susanna Carr, April 22, 2010.

  106 “Wedding” and “fucking” Number of searches for “wedding”: 406,416. For “fucking”: 321,198.

  106 each subsequent book’s focus on a new hero and heroine For example: the Desperate Duchess series stretches the story arc of Elijah and Jemma, the duke and duchess of Beaumont, through Books 1 to 5 (Desperate Duchesses, An Affair Before Christmas, Duchess by Night, When the Duke Returns, and This Duchess of Mine). In Desperate Duchesses (Book 1), Elijah has called Jemma home from Paris, where she has been living for many years during their estranged marriage. She left him because she walked in on him with his mistress, but now it’s time for him to have an heir, and he’ll need his wife to do it. Throughout each novel, they fight and make up, are pulled emotionally apart, and then brought together. This Duchess of Mine (Book 5) features Jemma and Elijah as the main couple, and it’s in this novel that they finally get their Happily-Ever-After.

  CHAPTER 6

  108 In one TV ad for Fair and Lovely http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9tcXpW1DE.

  109 “Being desired is very arousing to women” Meana (2010).

  109 “The Magic Hoo Hoo does it all” Wendell & Tan (2009).

  110 “the way women feel about themselves may be very important” Meana (2010). “An increasing body of data is indicating that the way women feel about themselves may be very important to their experience of sexual desire and subjective arousal, pos
sibly even outweighing the impact of their partners’ view of them.”

  111 half of women’s fantasies reflect the desire to be sexually irresistible Ellis & Symons (1990).

  112 Women frequently fantasize about being a stripper Strassberg & Lockerd (1998). Forty-seven percent of women reported the fantasy of “seeing themselves as a striptease dancer, harem girl, or other performer,” and 50 percent had fantasized about “delighting many men.”

  112 “If a woman’s got a pretty body” Levy (2006).

  112 sexting http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/18688245/detail.html, retrieved September 12, 2010.

  112 Real Sex for Real Women Berman (2008).

  113 a parallel between female irresistibility and a sexual cue in the female rat Meana (2010).

  113 Both pacing and the reward for pacing are controlled by software Becker (2008). Also Meana (2010): “Bancroft deftly reviewed research suggesting that in the proceptive phase, female rats are in control, darting and hopping around the interested male, thereby pacing the frequency of his mounts. These sexual contacts have been shown to be rewarding (as evidenced by the conditioning of place preference) to the female rat, quite apart from intromission.”

  The female giraffe also performs a kind of pacing. http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/Behavior/Spring2004/breedlove/matingsystem.html.

  113 Anorexia and bulimia Becker (2008).

  113 Women express much greater body image self-consciousness Meana (2010).

  114 “One Rape, Please (to go)” http://www.viceland.com/int/v14n8/htdocs/rape.php, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  114 widespread prevalence of female coercive fantasies Critelli & Bivona (2008).

  114 an understandable source of discomfort and hand-wringing Meana (2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?pagewanted=all, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  Leitenberg & Henning (1995): Thirty percent of women had the fantasy “I’m a slave who must obey a man’s every wish,” and 22 percent had the fantasy “I’m made to suffer before a man will satisfy me sexually.”

  114 “Arousal is not consent” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?pagewanted=all, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  114 Christine Monson’s 1984 Stormfire “Because as I’ve said before, if the hero had a beer gut and one droopy eye with caterpillar eyebrows, the woman would be screaming her head off and running for the sunset. But if the hero is a ‘dark Irish devil’ with all the beauty of a fallen angel and abs like rock-hard nuggets of goodness, the woman would be screaming her head off and running for the sunset but not upset if she gets caught by him again.” http://www.ripmybodice.com/2010/04/05/even-with-1-ball-more-alpha-than-the-rest/.

  115 It’s the wish to be beyond will http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?pagewanted=all, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  115 Literotica is the single most popular English-language erotic story site More on the history of erotic stories on the Web: http://www.asstr.org/~JournalofDesire/v3n2/Jekyll-SexStories.html.

  116 Harry Potter stories on AdultFanFiction.net Top sexual tags for Harry Potter stories on AdultFanFiction.net, scraped in May 2010:

  116 a fan fiction story by Miss Stephanie http://hp.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600025374, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  116 “the explosion that was building within him” One reader admiringly comments on Miss Stephanie’s story, “He may be a psychopath, but a HOT psychopath. Damn. I like how he pulled his cock out of her and slapped her clit with it. Nice visual.”

  117 a scene in Legally Blonde Other movies that feature enhanced male sex appeal due to faked female interest: She’s Out of My League, Love Don’t Cost a Thing, Sex Drive, American Pie, Year One, Along Came Polly, The Heartbreak Kid. Also worth considering: Rachel Uchitel, one of Tiger Woods’s mistresses, is still attracted to Tiger despite—or because of?—all his other mistresses. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/tigerwoods/7962948/Rachel-Uchitel-wants-to-rekindle-Tiger-Woods-romance.html.

  118 the virgin’s Magic Hoo Hoo captures his full attention Similar narratives: The Golden Touch by Laura London. The heroine is a vicar’s daughter, the hero a famous musician. She also wrote one called The Lightning That Lingers, about a librarian and a (male) stripper. Very charming books, and surprisingly un-rapey for the early eighties. There’s Perfect, by Judith McNaught. The heroine is a librarian, the hero a film star on the run. Rock Star by Roslyn Hardy Holco. The heroine is a librarian, the hero is a rock star. The Good, the Bad and the Sexy by Emily Carmichael. He’s a movie star, she owns a ranch.

  118 Former Playboy playmate Kendra Wilkinson Abridged from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/12/hugh-hefner-i-have-sex-tw_n_643303.html, retrieved on August 20, 2010.

  119 “Omega” heroes Knight (2007).

  119 “It sounded very Muggle” http://hp.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600025374, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  120 a type of discussion known as “meta” http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/moonbeam/terms.html.

  120 “the thing that unequivocally sucked me in” http://cesperanza.livejournal.com/174095.html, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  121 pop singer Beyoncé Beyoncé, “Why Don’t You Love Me?”

  121 “nature designed women to be lovable” Roy Baumeister, “Is There Anything Good About Men?”American Psychological Association, Invited Address, 2007. http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  122 the greatest sexual self-delusion in men http://roissy.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/common-shit-tests/.

  122 The male brain is designed for sexual jealousy Symons (1979).

  123 falling in love with the heroine represents an emotional deflowering Wendell & Tan (2009).

  124 “sex is judged not to be worth the risk” Meana (2010).

  124 reason why fetishes are so much more common in men Laws & O’Donohue (2008).

  124 focus attention on female sexual plasticity Baumeister (2000). “The greater consensual lesbianism in prison (as compared with consensual homosexuality among imprisoned males) would be interpreted by the selective control explanation as a sign that prison frees women from the compulsive heterosexuality enforced by society, reinforcing greater female erotic plasticity.”

  125 Anne Heche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Heche, retrieved on August 30, 2010.

  125 found that high sex drive in women Lippa (2006).

  126 FanFiction.net has consistently maintained one of the highest stickiness rating of any Web site http://www.zdnet.com/blog/itfacts/nielsen-stickiest-brands-in-august-2003/4699, http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3096631/Traffic-Patterns-of-September-2003.htm,

  http://books.google.com/books?id=ZKv43-YsSvQC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=fanfiction.net+stickiest&source=bl&ots=K-2GU-YJ6a&sig=eSdMXqUDuQZQBEo2THmjlIDUkwQ&hl=en&ei=sR-NTIbyKoO88ga3t53ICw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=fanfiction.net%20stickiest&f=false, http://www.clickz.com/clickz/stats/1713182/top-us-parent-companies-stickiest-brands-web-december-2008 , http://www.clickz.com/clickz/stats/1703722/top-us-parent-companies-stickiest-brands-web-february-2009.

  126 Men, however, are eminently capable of mentally partitioning sex and romance Fisher et al. (2002).

  CHAPTER 7

  128 The average length of the gay penis Bogaert & Hershberger (1999). Gay men are thicker too: straights have a penis circumference of 4.80 inches, while gay men have 4.95 inches.

  131 “This kid that is here now is so fucking hot” http://thorandrocco.wordpress.com/.

  133 the gay interest in masculinity appears to be as fixed and inflexible APA (2009), Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation.

  133 converting homosexual desire into heterosexual desire through conditioning Moan & Heath (1972).

  133 opposes such ill-advised and ultimately unethical attempts APA (2009), Report of the American Psychological Association
Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation.

  133 a binary “gender cue” Ponseti et al. (2006).

  134 the one hundred top-rated video clips on Gaytube The hundred top-rated videos were retrieved on October 21, 2010.

  135 the seven most popular categories of gay sexual searches See Dogpile data description for more information. Dogpile gay sexual searches:

  136 Tom of Finland http://www.eroticarts.com/.

  137 Below are two lists Gay stories consist of all stories in the category gay on Nifty, scraped in February 2010. Fanfic stories consist of stories across multiple fandoms on AdultFanFiction.net scraped in March 2010. The genres scraped were: anime, books, buffy, comics, Barry Potter, movies, and television. These genres contained the most stories.

  138 sex appears about a quarter of the way into Heterosexual stories consist of all stories in the category erotic couplings on Literotica, scraped in April 2010. Gay stories consist of all stories in the category gay on Literotica, scraped in February 2010.

  Fanfic stories consist of all Harry Potter stories on AdultFanFiction .net scraped in March 2010.

  Percentage of length into a story when a sexual encounter takes places in gay and fan fiction stories (the presence of a sexual encounter in a passage is determined using the density of masculine and feminine pronouns, and anatomical descriptors that were found to be a staple of such descriptions): Harry Potter fan fiction: Median: 50.0%, mean: 48.9% Gay erotica: Median: 20.0%, mean: 26.6%

  138 Psychologist Richard Lippa and the BBC Lippa (2007).

  138 both gay and straight brains exhibited different patterns Safron et al. (2007). “Comparisons of activation to preferred sexual stimuli, non-preferred sexual stimuli, and sports stimuli revealed large networks correlated with sexual arousal, spanning multiple cortical and subcortical areas. Both homosexual and heterosexual men exhibited category-specific arousal in brain activity. Within the amygdala, greater preference-related activity was observed in homosexual men, but it is unclear whether this is a cause or a consequence of their sexuality. In a subsequent analysis of regions hypothesized to support arousal, both participant groups demonstrated widespread increases in evoked activity for preferred stimuli.”