Would you have casual sex with a stranger? How about a close platonic friend? How about with Johnny Depp? Getting more interested, ladies? If so, you’re adding to the evidence that some widely accepted beliefs regarding men, women and short-term sexual encounters may be significantly off-base. In a newly published paper describing a series of studies, University of Michigan psychologist Terri Conley asserts that “when women are presented with proposers who are equivalent in terms of safety and sexual prowess, they will be equally likely as men to engage in casual sex.” Her ... Read More
Circumcision: The Surgical AIDS Vaccine
February 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Voters in San Francisco — the city that has probably suffered from AIDS more grievously than any other in America — may soon vote on whether to ban a safe, one-time procedure that protects against the virus that causes AIDS almost as effectively as the annual flu shot protects against the flu. Millions of dollars and years of research have thus far failed to overcome the diabolical obstacles to making an HIV vaccine. No doubt exists, however, that another treatment provides protection so effective that health experts have called it a "surgical vaccine." Unlike a flu shot, this protection ... Read More
For Women, Biological Clock Is an Aphrodisiac
June 28, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
According to conventional wisdom, men have sex on the brain from puberty until, roughly, death. The Kinsey Institute, which uses somewhat more refined measurements, reports 54 percent of men think about sex every day or several times a day. It adds this is true of only 19 percent of women, making for quite a gender gap. However, new research suggests that for females, the answer to that question may vary considerably depending upon one’s age. According to a new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, women’s interest in sex peaks between age 27 and 45. ... Read More
Make Birth Control, Not War
April 12, 2010 • By • 15 Comments
Close your eyes for a moment and cast your mind back to the dominant news stories of early 2010. The economy in tatters? Certainly. Global stalemate on climate negotiations and unbreakable gridlock in Congress? Of course. And don't forget the terror — on Christmas Eve, 2009, a lone Nigerian man boards an airplane in Lagos and travels some 18 hours toward Detroit in what can only have been a dizzying combination of anxiety, fear and elation, and a grandiose sense of his own destiny. It all ends with a little ineffectual fumbling in the underpants, cut short by the heroism of Umar Farouk ... Read More
A Whiff of Desire: Testosterone Levels Sensitive to Scent
January 13, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
For centuries, women have worn perfume in an attempt to attract the attention of men. But newly published research suggests the most seductive scent may be one their bodies produce naturally. Writing in the journal Psychological Science, Florida State University psychologists Saul Miller and Jon Maner find evidence of a connection between male testosterone levels and the scent of an ovulating female. They describe a study in which 68 male undergraduates, age 18 to 23, put their nose to the opening of a plastic bag containing a T-shirt and inhaled deeply three times. They repeated this ... Read More
Love, But Not Lust, Inspires Creativity
August 31, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Over the centuries, romantic love has inspired countless composers, poets and painters. But what exactly is the link between artistry and amour? Newly published psychological research refines this eternal equation, suggesting that while love does inspire creativity, thoughts of sex enhance analytical thinking. "Love and lust lead to different ways of perceiving the world," the research team, led by psychologist Jens Forster of the University of Amsterdam, reports in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. While love inspires musings about long-term outcomes (having kids, growing old ... Read More
Sex Appeal May Have Hurt Sarah Palin
March 4, 2009 • By • 28 Comments
In a Sept. 4, 2008 column, just after Sarah Palin accepted the Republican nomination for vice-president, Will Wilkinson wrote admiringly of her “sexual power,” adding: “I think she is a tremendously sexy woman. How this will affect the race, I have no idea, but it’s just got to.” New research suggests the Cato Institute research fellow was right. The Alaska governor’s attractiveness may indeed have affected the race — by making voters less likely to support the GOP ticket. In a paper just published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, psychologists Nathan ... Read More
‘Pink Viagra’ Boon or Bust for Equal Rights?
June 25, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
Despite Hillary Clinton’s near win in the Democratic presidential primary, decades of anti-discrimination laws and wagonloads of proof that women can do anything men can, sexual equality is a hard sell to the less-fair sex. This collective stance is based on reason: A new study by Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute says women do a month more of housework per year than men. For fellows, what’s not to like about that? Notwithstanding such logic, Michael Snabes, vice president for clinical development at the Illinois biotech firm BioSante, is on a mission to convince men ... Read More
A Prophylactic for Free Speech?
May 2, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
The 50-year war on cigarette companies prepared disease prevention experts for another public health foe: Websites that help spread disease by accelerating casual sex. But while big tobacco escaped significant regulation for decades with pseudo-science and lobbying efforts, commercial websites such as Adam4Adam, AOL and Craigslist may possess a more formidable weapon: the First Amendment. Big tobacco sold a product subject to regulation; sex sites sell a means of constitutionally protected communication — no surgeon general's warning required. "I'm not aware of any newspaper that has ... Read More
