That’s just it, flojo…the ideas I proposed aren’t “non-intuitive” to me at all. The moment I read about this study, I thought “ACK! I could never go home with a total stranger – what proof do I have that he’ll care about my pleasure? What proof do I have that he’ll respect my boundaries if I say ‘no’ to something? What proof do I have that my body won’t end up in his freezer in 75 individual plastic bags?”

Furthermore, any dating or sex talk I’ve had with another woman has always held the underlying assumption that going home with a strange man (or any man) is a risky thing to do. We’ve been told pretty much from birth that any given man might rape us and that if he does, chances are it’s kinda-sorta our own fault for going home with him. This training is not conducive to us hooking up with strangers. I don’t know how anyone could live in this society without seeing that.

And the fact that most women need external clitoral stimulation to get off and some men can’t be bothered to provide it is hardly a secret, either.

I can only surmise that Guéguen has never known or spoken to a woman, like, EVER. :P

To play devil’s advocate briefly (very briefly, because the depth of thought in the discussion is barely noticable), it is important that these observations were made systematically and are now part of the corpus so that they can be discussed, referenced, refined, and torn up in future research. This guy apparently found a hole in the literature and is recording systematically data that reinforces what most people think is obvious and normative.

Of course, if her were truly talented, he would first set up the norm and then vivisect it to display the non-intuitive complexities of the sort proposed by cowgirl.

Finally, Thomas, I’m not sure where you’re located, but if you are eager to get access to full articles, tap your academic friends. I know at Stanford, it’s pretty trivial (and free) to sponsor someone for a username and password that gives access to full articles. Also, most authors will send you copies gratis if you email them, especially if you’re such a public face.

Thanks for writing.

greetz & cheers

The only thing amazing about the type of scholarship that researchers like Guéguen, Orgas and Gaddam is that it continues to be funded by institutions. Evolutionary pysc and social pysc are disciplines where circular reasoning abounds.

Perversecowgirl, you hit the nail on the head. Thanks for your input too.

They sound like pretty much a textbook example of scientists setting out to prove ridiculous gender stereotypes.

Of course articles attempt to interpret the correlations they find, and there are all kinds of interpretations, often influenced by the culture and its most frequent stereotypes. But the point is that, in a healthy academic community, other interpretations (as well as criticisms of the original ones) are naturally produced and proposed for studies which do show solid correlations, and these are discussed and discussed and discussed again. It’s not simply “Dr X published a paper claiming that X”, it’s more like “Dr X published a paper with this and that data, which s/he interprets in the following way…” buuut then “Drs Y, Z, and W have provided criticism of Dr X’s opinion, along with their own hypotheses for the data in Dr X’s study,” and so on and so forth. Perversecowgirl above gives a good example of the kinds of criticism and other interpretations found in scientific debate.

It’s usually the desire for sensationalism in the press that leads to exaggerated claims (“Dr. X has proved/confirmed/demonstrated scientifically that…”). Especially with studies relating to sexuality: everybody is interested, everybody has some strong opinion or other to defend.

@perversecowgirl: I’m hoping I see the day when a lot of bio-engineering ( for perfect pregnancy control and disease prevention ), a lot of social engineering, and a whole lot of self-respect gives us a society where your second paragraph comes true.

I can’t speak for all women, of course, but if I know that if I orgasmed every time I had sex (from the penetration alone, without needing anything “extra”) and felt completely confident that my sexual boundaries would be respected and I wouldn’t get slut-shamed afterward, I’d fuck all kinds of random guys.