Let’s take a trip in the Way Back Machine to this post where I promised to write about any abortion-related info I could glean from reading Predictably Irrational. Well, abortion be damned because the real juice is about irrational decisions we make when aroused.
Lucky for me, my procrastination provided opportunity for Elizabeth Pisani to blog about the study and provide a link over on her Wisdom of Whores blog (she also links to hootchi cootchi, which is very flattering!).
In a nutshell, being horny makes you do stupid things. I love science! Let’s talk methodology, because really how do you figure this stuff out? From Pisani’s blog:
Using a one-handed keypad the boys answered the on-screen questions twice. One time flaccid, another time “in a state of arousal”. Yes, the boys were paid US$ 10 to wank while they answered questions — the “arousal” round of questions was accompanied by on-screen porn.
In the arousal state the guys changed their answers in ways that demonstrate wanking = wanker. A small selection of questions that showed the strongest significant differences are listed below. This means that these questions were answered by guys one way while unaroused, and then consistently showed a shift in attitude towards the more taboo during arousal.
The kinda funny ones:
- Are women’s shoes erotic?
- Can you imagine being attracted to a 12 year-old girl? 40 year-old? 50 year-old? 60 year-old?
- Could you enjoy having sex with someone you hated?
- Would it be fun to tie up your partner?
- Would you find it exciting to have anal sex?
The not-so-funny and sorta scary ones:
- Would you keep trying to have sex after your date says “no”?
- Would you slip a woman a drug to increase the chance that she would have sex with you? (!)
Not as strongly shown to be significant, but a weird inclusion that I feel I must highlight:
- Could it be fun to have sex with someone who is extremely fat?
This is a pretty small study and really just a sample from Berkeley boys, but still. Pretty crazy stuff. It’s worth going to Pisani’s blog and downloading the PDF of the study to read the questions. And also, when are they going to study the girls?
