Scanner : studies

We Repeat: Smart Women Have Better Sex

Emily Farris — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:06:00 GMT

We seem to recall a study like this popping up about a year ago, but we're happy to repeat it: intelligent women have better sex.

Apparently, women who have high levels of "emotional intelligence," or the ability to express their own feelings and read others', have more fulfilling sex lives.

[Researcher Tim Spector, of King's College London] quizzed more than 2,000 female twins, aged between 18 and 83, about their sex lives.

The women were asked to rate their ability to reach orgasm on a seven-point scale, ranging from 'never' to always'.

They also filled in a questionnaire designed to gauge their emotional intelligence and covering traits like self-expression, empathy and contentment.

Those most in touch with their feelings also had the most orgasms, the Journal of Sexual Medicine reports.

Lead author, psychologist Andrea Burri, also of King's College, said: 'Emotional intelligence seems to have a direct impact on women's sexual functioning by influencing her ability to communicate her sexual expectations and desires to her partner.'

Perhaps this is also because we know that it is not hellfire that makes us burn in between our legs?

[Daily Mail: Bad luck bimbos: Intelligent women have better sex, study reveals]

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Sloppy Seconds: The Summer Days of Our Slutty Lives

Emily Farris — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:09:00 GMT

Sandra Bullock is "not sure" she wants kids. Apparently this warrants a news story. [Us]

We blame South Park for making us laugh every time we see the word "probe" no matter the context. Today's laughable headline: "Police, 50 Cent see house fire probe differently." Sort-of sounds like something that could be cleared up with a little Preparation H, right? [Yahoo!]

As long as we can remember Emily has been one of the top 10 baby names for girls. This year, we're at number three. And we're pretty sure we've dated at least one of each from the baby boy section. [SSA.gov]

Sorry for the late notice on Free Chocolate Day. [The Inquisitr]

Firtexting: apparently more than just a thing to do when you want some booty. A site? A book? A worldview? [BuzzFeed]

Apparently all of those soap operas we watched with the summer between first and second grade (and second and third and third and fourth and fourth and fifth... well, you get the picture) turned us slutty. [KIDK]

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The Seven Deadly Sins, By the State

Colleen Kane — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Today in highly dubious statistics, the blog chart porn (which, by the way, exists) linked to charts of the United States showing the distribution of each of the Seven Deadly Sins: lust, envy, greed, gluttony, wrath, sloth, and pride. The charts originally ran in a Las Vegas Sun article in March but have been going viral these past few days with headlines like "Highest STD Rates: The Bible Belt." So there's one fun "fact" you've learned already.

Another fun fact-ish item: which state occupied by at least one Scanner is one of the country's most sinful, showing red on five of the seven charts?

Louisiana is in the red on the charts for lust, envy, wrath, sloth, and pride.

But what makes these charts seem so dubious is the arbitrary ways the stats were gathered. From chart porn,

Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line. Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts - robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars. Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes - murder, assault and rape - reported to the FBI per capita. Lust was calculated by compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases - HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea - reported per capita. Gluttony was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita. Sloth was calculated by comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment.

When we saw nearly the entire state of Louisiana was in the red for pride chart, we thought, surely they must be talking about LSU Tiger pride, in which case this chart is dead on. But pride was calculated by aggregating all of the other deadly sins. Huh?

Click here to see all of the charts.

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The 14 Deadly Sins: How Guilty Are You Now?

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Sloppy Seconds: Trent Reznor's Love

Emily Farris — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:33:00 GMT

Dom DeLuise, actor, chef, all-around awesome dude, is dead at the age of 75. [The Feed]

The NIH is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on "the prevention of HIV" by studying patrons and proprietors in gay bars in Argentina. FYI: Next time the NIH wants to do a study on drinking and sexual promiscuity, we're available. Hit us up at Scanner@nerve.com. Buy us a drink and we'll give you whatever information you want. [CNSNnews]

A Kansas City newscaster interviewed Guy Fieri, that annoying guy from the Food Network, during a Royals game last night. Except it wasn't Guy Fieri. Oops. [Kansas City Star]

Scanner Crush (we know Scanner Brian is with us on this one) Jeff Tweedy, frontman of Wilco, is being sued by an ex-bandmate. Jay Bennett, who played with Wilco from 1994 to 2001 wants $50,000 for five albums he recorded with the band. [BBC]

Trent Reznor has decided to tie the knot with girlfriend Mariqueen Maandig. [The Inquisitr]

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Today in Fuzzy Math: Sex + Alcohol = UTI?

Emily Farris — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:57:00 GMT

UTIs, or urinary tract infections, are the worst. Are we right, ladies? The constant feeling like you have to pee and not being able to until finally an itsy bitsy bit comes out and it burnslikeamuthafucker. And you still have to pee. But you can't until you do and it burnslikeamuthafucker again. This goes on until you can flush enough cranberry juice through your system to get it all out or, if you, unlike us, have health insurance, can get a little pill from your doctor. We usually get them after sex, especially after we have sex when we haven't had sex in a long time (which is about every time we've had sex for the past couple years). Peeing afterwards helps, and should help, but it turns out that maybe there's another way to avoid the burn.

According to a new study (we just love those) alcohol is as much to blame as sex:

Sexual activity had the strongest influence on a first UTI, but alcohol use correlated with the two strongest risk factors, both of which involved sexual activity, Charles Vincent, M.D., of the University of Florida in Gainesville, reported at the American Urological Association meeting.

But even if we cut back on the alcohol, we may still be screwed, or burned as it were:

More surprisingly, frequent consumption of caffeine also emerged as a risk factor for UTI.

Unfortunately this reeks of "one of those" studies that really just says "people who drink alcohol are more likely to engage in sexual activity and therefore.... x = y: or some shit:

"Few studies have suggested a relationship to coffee or tea consumption and alcohol consumption. Though causative relationships are not evident, these behaviors may suggest lifestyles that predispose risk factors of UTI development," he added.

Wait for it... wait for it...

The analysis also revealed a strong trend toward association between alcohol consumption and number of sexual partners within the past two weeks.

We're not the best at deciphering medical jargon (clearly) but you can read the rest of the article at Med Page Today—if you can tear yourself away from the booze and sex for a few minutes, that is.

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You Can Take the Boy Out of Chelsea...

Emily Farris — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:01:00 GMT

In their 1979 book "Homosexuality in Perspective" William Masters and Virginia Johnson claimed they'd successfully "converted" more than 70 percent of of men and women who were homosexuals but didn't want to be. We can laugh and point all we want, but we're just a bunch of crazy sex-crazed armchair anthropologists on the Intertubes. But now, someone who is far more respectable than we are is doubting, officially, that Masters and Johnson could have pulled off such a feat.

In his new biography of the sexologists, "Masters of Sex," Thomas Maier questions the validity of the study, and summarizes his doubts in Scientific American:

Most staffers never met any of the conversion cases during the study period of 1968 through 1977. . . . Clinic staffer Lynn Strenkofsky, who organized patient schedules during this period, says she never dealt with any conversion cases. Marshall and Peggy Shearer, perhaps the clinic’s most experienced therapy team in the early 1970s, says they never treated homosexuals and heard virtually nothing about conversion therapy.

When the clinic’s top associate, Robert Kolodny, asked to see the files and to hear the tape-recordings of these “storybook” cases, Masters refused to show them to him. Kolodny—who had never seen any conversion cases himself—began to suspect some, if not all, of the conversion cases were not entirely true. When he pressed Masters, it became ever clearer to him that these were at best composite case studies made into single ideal narratives, and at worst they were fabricated.

Eventually Kolodny approached Virginia Johnson privately to express his alarm. She, too, held similar suspicions about Masters’ conversion theory, though publicly she supported him. The prospect of public embarrassment, of being exposed as a fraud, greatly upset Johnson, a self-educated therapist who didn’t have a college degree and depended largely on her husband’s medical expertise.

With Johnson’s approval, Kolodny spoke to their publisher about a delay, but it came too late in the process.”That was a bad book,” Johnson recalled decades later. Johnson said she favored a rewriting and revision of the whole book “to fit within the existing [medical] literature,” and feared that Bill simply didn’t know what he was talking about. At worst, she said, “Bill was being creative in those days” in the compiling of the “gay conversion” case studies.

As the New York Times' John Tierney asks, does being "creative" mean "making it up?" Um, probably.

[Scientific American via Tierney Lab]

Related:

The New York Times Knows What Women Want, And It's Not Bonobo Porn (Or Is It?)

Sloppy Seconds: Who Says Homosexuality and Polygamy Are The Same Thing?

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Want A Happy Marriage? Here's the Solution

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:26:00 GMT

MSNBC has a story this morning on a study of the happiest and unhappiest marriages in the United States. What's the secret? Great sex at 52? Living the high life in Brentwood, with gaggles of friends, cocktail parties, and sleek new cars?

Well, MSNBC isn't entirely sure. However, it reports on an eight-year-long study (you know, an actual study, not a telephone survey that will be disproven next week) of 218 married couples and charted their level of happiness over time. The results will come as no surprise to those pessimistic about the perks of bringing children into the world...

The main point uncovered by the study: 90% of couples reported a huge decline in marital satisfaction due to the presence of a child. This we already knew-- but that suspicion was mainly due to sex and the possible lack thereof after children enter into the picture. This study, however, notes an overall dissatisfaction with the marriage itself after the birth of a baby.

The professor of psychology at the University of Denver where the study originated added that other couples experience a decrease in satisfaction over time, but not nearly as rapidly as couples with children. And yes, we probably suspected as much already.

However:

An unrelated study in 2006 of 13,000 people found parents are more depressed than non-parents. Scientists speculate that the problem is partly a modern one, because parents don't get as much help at home as they did in previous generations.
There are key variables to note in the new study.
Couples who lived together before marriage experienced more problems after the birth of a child than those who lived separately before marriage, as did those whose parents fought or divorced.

The most interesting result we came across noted that those who said kids made their marriage stronger were making more money and had been married longer.

Via MSNBC.

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Drunkenness No Longer an Excuse for Being a Creepy Old Man

Emily Farris — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:33:00 GMT

According to a new study, alcohol does not impair a man's ability to tell whether a girl is legal or not. The study, published by the University of Leicester in the British Journal of Psychology, found that alcohol had very little impact on men's perception of the ages of women in pictures.

A total of 240 members of the public in bars and cafés were asked to look at composite photographs of ten young women aged 17 and asked to rate their attractiveness.

Some of the photos were digitally altered to give the faces a younger or older appearance and make-up was applied in some cases. Half of the participants questioned had consumed at least some alcohol before the task and their blood-alcohol level was measured by a breathalyser test.

The study found that participants consistently overestimated the age of the girls in the images by an average of 3.5 years. But although men and women rated younger-looking faces as more attractive on average, “contrary to expectations, alcohol and make-up did not inflate attractiveness ratings”, the researchers write.

The lead researcher, Vincent Egan, said: “This study suggests that alcohol consumption and make-up use do not interfere with how old we perceive someone to be.

“Another interesting finding was that, overall, participants who drank alcohol actually rated all the women in the photos as less attractive, compared with the participants who had not drunk alcohol.

“This seemingly flies in the face of the commonly held notion of ‘beer goggles’.”

So stop blaming your perverted (or preverted, as Scanner Colleen would say) ways on the beer, old men, and just admit you like little girls, okay?

[Telegraph: Men may not be able to blame alcohol for underage sex]

Related:

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Smile, or You'll Get Divorced

Colleen Kane — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

A recent study (you know how we love those) linked the smiles people sported in their high-school yearbook photos with the success of their marriages.

Psychologists rated people's yearbook smiles in intensity from 1 to 10. None of the top 10 percent of smilers had been divorced, whereas in the bottom 10 percent, nearly one in four had divorced.

(We're not good at math or anything, but this doesn't add up. We thought something like half of all marriages ended in divorce...?)

In another trial utilizing childhood photos of subjects over 65, 31 percent of frowners had been through a divorce. Guess it just goes to prove that lyric sung by Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm in their hit single, "Let the Sun Shine In": "Smilers never lose, and frowners never win."

More details and speculation on why, here.

Related:

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Maine Wood Frogs More Despreate For Sex Than We Are

Emily Farris — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:59:00 GMT

It turns out that a colony of wood frogs in Maine are more desperate for sex than we are. The 2 to 2 1/2-inch frogs that quack like ducks are in some serious trouble. You see, once they come out of hibernation, the little guys and gals have what they call "Big Night." It's their annual spring mating ritual, and it generally coincides with the first warm spring rain. But up in northern Maine, their favorite orgy pool, "Club Amphibian" is still iced over. And it gets worse.

Unlike some of us who eat too much to make up for the fact that we haven't had sex in, say, five months, wood frogs cannot eat until they've mated.

"There's a little, little bit of open water around the edges, so the animals usually hang out around the edges, waiting to get in," Aram Calhoun, a University of Maine associate professor of wetland ecology and a wetland scientist for Maine Audubon in Orono, said. "Isn't that something? That must be depressing for a cold-blooded animal. You get to the edge of the pool, and the whole bloody thing is frozen and they're probably saying, 'I told you it was too early to go.' There will be a lot of salamander divorces this time of year," she said.

Salamanders, however, apparently have many years to breed while wood frogs need to make it happen. Now. "Wood frogs are explosive breeders, yet they only live 3 to 5 years, so they only have a couple of times, if that, to breed," Calhoun said. "So, they're very anxious. Much more than the salamanders, which live 15 to 20 years."

This might explain why wood frogs are so damn horny:

Salamanders gather congress-style - they all get in the pool together - and do a little courtship dance, and no one gets hurt. With wood frogs, it's not good to be a female. "It's not uncommon for the females to drown, because she has three or four males on top of her," Calhoun said.

Wood frogs are the only frogs she knows of that attempt to mate with non-frog species.To illustrate just how crazy wood frog sex can be, Calhoun's graduate student, Kevin J. Ryan, who is working on his study site in Canterbury, Conn., photographed a wood frog trying to mate with a salamander."We've had wood frogs mating with our data loggers," Calhoun said. "The data loggers, they're in little plastic containers and they're mating with the containers. They don't care. It's just something to put your arms around. It's been a long winter, you know?"

Oh, we know. It has been a long winter.

But back to the frogs... if "Club Amphibian" doesn't thaw soon, they'll most likely move onto a new orgy pool, which, as Calhoun points out, could result in many squished frogs in the road.

Godspeed, little wood frogs!

[Sun Journal: Driven to mate, frogs on the move to orgy pools]

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Chimps Will Put Out for a Piece of Meat, And So Will We

Emily Farris — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:09:00 GMT

JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS STORY WHEN SCANNER COLLEEN DID IT A WEEK AGO (BECAUSE SCANNER EMILY DID—FLUCK!)

And by piece of meat we don't mean that beefcake from the elliptical machine—or the nearest tree if we're talking about chimps. No we mean delicious, bloody, iron-filled, gets-stuck-in-your-teeth meat.

Researches recently found, after following around 20 adult chimpanzees in Côte d’Ivoire's Taï National Park, that female chimps put out more often for males that shared food with them than for those who didn't.

Now, the chimps aren't going on dates, exchanging meat for sex that night. The barter happens over the course of weeks or months, with the males "accruing credit" by supplying the lady chimps with meat from multiple hunts.

"They can keep track somehow of what they have received or given in the past," said one of the anthropologists involved in the study. "It doesn't mean they're aware of this. It could be emotional. In humans, you don’t even really know how many coffees someone has bought for you in the past, you just generally feel that this person is nice to you. It creates a positive feeling toward that person."

Makes sense. If a guy was constantly bringing us steak sandwiches, steak frites, juicy hamburgers and street meat, we imagine it'd only be a matter of time before we'd want to get our hands—and mouth—on his meat. And if that makes us no better than a monkey, well... we'd rather be a monkey with a steady stream of steak and sex than a respectable human without either.

[FOXNews: Chimps Exchange Meat for Sex, Study Finds]

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Can't Get No Satisfaction? Try Oxytocin

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:25:00 GMT

A new study indicates that the hormone oxytocin, normally used to facilliate birth and breastfeeding, can help you get over the fact that you're not attracted to damn near everyone around you.

An ABC News report says that oxytocin, which is available for purchase in the form of a nasal spray or injection, helps people develop bonds with strangers and to become more attracted to people they might not otherwise have been attracted to. Are we sure this is a good thing? Won't every guy in the world spray his bottle into a club full of women and then start prowling around? Can relationships survive this medical miracle?

A new study shows that men and women who inhale a whiff of the hormone oxytocin rate strangers as more attractive.
This effect adds to the hormone's known role in human relationships. One study found that oxytocin levels spike after new mothers look at or touch their newborns and may help bonding.
No matter their sex or mood, volunteers who received oxytocin rated male and female strangers as both more attractive and trusting.
Theodoridou's study did not examine how oxytocin could affect social judgements, but she speculates that the hormone dampens brain activity in a region involved in processing fearful emotions, called the amygdala.

Emphasis added. Before you all call up your uncle the shady doctor for a prescription (if you even need one), consider this partial list of side effects:

Impaired uterine blood flow, pelvic hematoma, tetanic uterine contractions, uterine rupture, postpartum hemorrhage.

In other words, completely harmless. Via ABC News.

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Chimps Pimp Selves Out for Meat

Colleen Kane — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Chimpanzees: They're just like us!

A study following 20 chimpanzees on the Ivory Coast found that lady chimps put out more often for male chimps who have shared meat with them, as opposed to the ones who did not share meat. (We're talking about food here, not using any euphemisms.)

This correlation was noticed because the researchers watched the chimps over a long-term period, rather than just tracking immediate behavior.

So how did they know that simple friendship wasn't the motivation for sharing the meat?

By tracking association patterns between pairs, the scientists found that males didn't just give meat to females they hung around with often. They specifically gifted food to those that they ended up copulating with. Additionally, factors such as rank and age also did not explain the connection between giving away meat and mating success.

Behaviorial ecologist Cristina Gomes explains further, "They can keep track somehow of what they have received or given in the past. It doesn't mean they're aware of this. It could be emotional. In humans, you don’t even really know how many coffees someone has bought for you in the past, you just generally feel that this person is nice to you. It creates a positive feeling toward that person."

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Cougars Make Better Cubs?

Colleen Kane — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:31:00 GMT

In the latest loose interpretation of various studies, it appears that children of older fathers have lower IQs, and that cases of schizophrenia and autism are more common in children whose fathers were older than 45 when they conceived. Meanwhile, older women are shown in certain studies to have smarter children.

Put all these studies together, and you have ~~a mishmash of unrelated data~~ the conclusion that cougars will produce the smartest, healthiest babies!

But you probably shouldn't put all that data together hoping for a scientific conclusion. Still, feel free to site these unspecified studies if need be, or make up your own to suit your particular argument.

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The Gays Won't Save the Economy Either

Emily Farris — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:11:00 GMT

Gay couples don't all live in fabulous bungalows in California, spacious lofts in Chelsea or cozy one-bedrooms in Park Slope. Still, many of us, when we imagine the lifestyles of same-sex coupes—especially those who don't have children—think about all of that disposable income they must have. This dear readers, is the "gay affluence myth."

While it is true that many gay couples in major metropolitan areas are more well off than their straight counterparts, a new study reports that same-sex families, as a rule are poorer.

From the study:

-One in five children living in a same-sex household is poor compared to one in 10 for children in opposite-sex married families.

-Nationally, 24 percent of lesbians and bisexual women are poor compared to 19 percent of heterosexual women.

-15 percent of gay and bisexual men nationally are poor compared to 13 percent of heterosexual men.

The study's authors theorized that gays and lesbians might be more vulnerable to poverty because of discrimination (employment, insurance and other rights and benefits).

[The Desert Sun: Study: Gay families are poorer]

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Sloppy Seconds: Gwyneth Paltrow Has a Cure for Joaquin Phoenix

Emily Farris — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:01:00 GMT

A round-up of those who are about to die. On TV, of course. [EW]

Is South by Southwest is a pointlless party? [Gawker]

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson apparently came this close to joining the mile high club on a recent Virgin Atlantic flight. [Mile High Club Book]

Researchers say a compound often found in cosmetics and foods like ice cream could help prevent the spread of HIV when used in lube. [CollegeNews]

When we find out a guy we think is cute can't spell, we get really disappointed. Same goes for Joanna Angel. But hey, she Twitters some pretty great stuff. [Twitter]

Gwyneth Paltrow thinks her buddy Joaquin Phoenix needs some street cred if he's doing to keep rapping. She thinks he should take a trip to the projects. [People]

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Who Does Depression Hurt? Everybody Except Women Taking Semen Vaginally, Says a New Study

Emily Farris — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:35:00 GMT

Women are diagnosed with clinical depression in higher numbers than men. This doesn't mean women are more prone to depression, only that they go to the doctor and get a diagnosis more often than men. But now a new study claims to have found the miracle cure for female depression: semen!

As women, our moods are especially dependent on hormones and, as you might expect, semen is chock full of them. So if birth control supposedly works better when inserted directly into the vagina, like vodka tampons (!?) wouldn't a straight shot of semen right in there work better than say, popping a semen pills, partaking in a Creamy Cum Crepe or even taking a shot of it orally? Yes, say the authors of the study who reported that women who did not use condoms during sex showed lower depression scores than women who used condoms or were not sexually active.

Our first thought, of course, was that women who were not using condoms were probably in long-term relationships and having regular sex, and more often. And sex, as we all know, puts one in a good mood. The authors, however, were less forgiving of women:

The authors acknowledge that there are lots of issues with the study. The women who didn't use condoms could be less depressed just because they are having sex more often. They could also be more likely to engage in risky behavior, though this trait doesn't appear to correlate with depression or lack thereof.

Other interesting results of the study:

Not only that, people who used condoms the most often were also the ones most likely to report having attempted suicide. Whether or not people were in relationships at the time had no effect. Interestingly, they also found that oral contraceptives did not have a significant effect on depressive symptoms. Finally, they found that women who did not use condoms had sex almost twice as often as those who did.

Still, the study concluded that women who have sex without condoms—not women who have more sex—are less depressed. Too bad AIDS is such a downer.

[Neurotopia: Friday Weird Science: Feeling down? Have you tried...semen?]

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Image via ebarney's flickr

Today in WTF: Penis Extenders Actually Work?

Emily Farris — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:13:00 GMT

According to a new study published in the British Journal of Urology International men who subject themselves to devices similar to the torturous one pictured above in hopes of growing their penises actually do grow their penises. And in a pretty big way, if the results are to be believed.

The study followed 21 men in Italy for up to a year as they used penis-enlarging device with "dynamic rods" and—we really can't believe this—some saw a growth of up to 33 percent over six months.

Unfortunately, the entire article is not available for non subscribers but an abstract reported that the average flaccid length at the start was 2.82 inches—after a year, it was 3.72 inches. While there was no increase in girth, erectile function "scores" also improved during the test.

Conclusion? "Penile extenders should be regarded as a minimally invasive and effective treatment option to elongate the penile shaft in patients seeking treatment for a short penis."Iiiinteresting.

If you don't want to see a picture of a penis extender hard at work, don't click here.

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Study: Fat Men are Not Feeling Dead Sexy

Colleen Kane — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 22:08:00 GMT

Researchers at the University of Utah wanted to learn if obseity was biologically associated with an unsatifying sex life, and if so, whether this could be treated. Their study of 64 obese men showed that with increased body mass index (BMI), subjects had lower testosterone rates and "diminished ratings for sexual quality of life."

However, it is reversible: subjects who had gastric bypass surgery showed an increase in those same factors. More studies will be necessary (as always seems to be the case with studies) to further sort out the cause-and-effect relationships.

Related:

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Everything You Never Wanted to Know About "Horrific Beetle Sex"

Emily Farris — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:40:00 GMT

We should probably preface this by letting you know that the article that sparked this post is called "Horrific beetle sex: why the most successful males have the spikiest penises."

So, why is it that the most successful males have the spikiest penises? A possible answer and a terrifying picture after the jump.

According to the blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, Mother Nature graced the male seed beetle with that monstrosity to the right—which obviously injures the female seed beetle—because:

It's possible that the injuries directly benefit the males, either because they stop the females from mating again or spend more efforts in raising their fertilised eggs to avoid the strain of future liaisons.

The alternative is that the spikes could give the males an edge in "sperm competitions", where they compete with rivals not through direct combat, but through fertilising as many eggs as possible. In this theory, the spines are important for winning these competitions, and the wounds they inflict are simply a nasty side-effect.

Sounds a little like some men we know: beating up their women so they'll be in no shape for another man. We can't imagine seed beetles care about monogomy, though, so we're going to go with the second "sperm competition" theory. (But what do we know about beetle sex? Absolutely nothing.)

Also, you've heard of a fluffer right? Well, to find out exactly what a bettle penis looked like, two lucky scientists got to fluff some male beetles:

The duo studied beetles taken from 13 countries across the tropics, from Brazil to the USA, and from Nigeria to Oman. The genitals of these different populations are very varied and to study them under a microscope, Hotzy and Arnqvist first had to fluff their subjects. They anaesthetised the males with carbon dioxide, and erected their penises with an "artificial inflater" - a microscopic plastic tip connected to a pump. Under a microscope, they measured the length of the longest spines and the size of the entire spine-bearing area.

Even after examining the males and females, however, scientists are still unsure of why the male beetle has a penis covered in spikes.

Luckily, for the female seed beetle, she can hold her own. She apparently has a huge amount of connective tissue lining her sexual tracts, so that whatever terrible sexual act the male beetle performs on her, she's not affected too badly. And (this is awesome) when she's had enough, she kicks the male until he lets go, it gets him to cum faster and get that spiky shaft the fuck out of her beetle juice.

Related:

Birds Do It, Bees Do It, See it at Zoorotica

Video of the Day: Isabella Rossellini's Arty, Ridiculous, Awesome Bug Porn

Isabella Rossellini Does Bug Porn

Guess Where the Most Online Porn Subscribers Live?

Colleen Kane — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:00:00 GMT

A Harvard Business student studying the business of online porn crunched the numbers on two years of data from online porn subscribers, which was culled from a company owning over 100 adult websites.

Which state had the most porn subcribers per 1000 broadband users?

Utah, with 5.47 subscribers per 1000 broadband users. The state with the least was Montana, with 1.92 per 1000. Not that big a diff, but still: isn't it always the religious ones crying so much about pornography? Crying all the way to the spank bank!

The entire study is linked here.

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Think Your Online Life's Getting Cheaper and More Anonymous? You Wish.

Hey Ladies: That Pesky Period May Help Prevent Parkinson's

Emily Farris — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:38:00 GMT

I am scared to death of developing Parkinson's Disease. And the reason is pretty ridiculous, I admit. I resemble no one in my family but my paternal grandmother Ruth, whose middle name I also share. We ~~have~~ had the same hands, the same feet and recently my aunt gave me a picture of Grandma Ruth in her 20's. She could be my twin. In her 50's she developed the degenerative neurological disease and by the time I was old enough to communicate, it was full blown. She was shaky, her tongue was always hanging out of her mouth, her speech was slurred and slow. For a while, I was actually sort-of afraid of her. So, regretfully, I never really got to know one of my grandmothers. It was only last year that I learned she was an English teacher (I knew she taught history, but not that she also taught English; this explains why my dad had me quoting Shakespeare at the age of three). And as much as my dad tells me he thinks the factors leading to her Parkinson's were environmental, and no genetic link has been proven, I still worry that someday, I will be shaky Grandma Emily, unable to communicate with my grandchildren.

A new study at least makes me feel a little better about all of this.

Research out of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York found that longer exposure to the body's own hormones, including estrogen, may help protect the brain cells that affected by Parkinson's.

The disease occurs almost twice as often in men, and the study reports that women who menstruate for 39 years or longer are 25% less likely to develop Parksinson's, compared to women who were fertile less than 33 years. (For once, I am sort of glad I got my period at 11, now if I can just keep it going until I'm 50, I'll be golden.)

The study also found that women who have four or more children (like my Grandma Ruth) are at a higher risk for Parkinson's, possibly because "the post-partum period, which is typically one with lower levels of estrogen, subtracts from a woman's total fertile lifespan," according to the study's co-author Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and population health and the principal investigator of the WHI study at Einstein.

Of course, this is one study in probably a million and a study tomorrow could say exactly the opposite, but, hey, it makes me feel a little better.

[Science Daily: Naturally Produced Estrogen May Protect Women From Parkinson's Disease]

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Study: "Back That Ass Up" Will Make You Back That Ass Up

Emily Farris — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:25:00 GMT

Please forgive the incredibly dated reference, but our Hot 97 days ended around the time we stopped wearing eyeliner that was thicker than our eyebrows. It was either that or '"Freak Hoes" Will Turn You into a Freak Ho.' Point being, according to a new study, high exposure to lyrics that describe degrading sex is associated with high levels of sexual behavior in teens.

While we certainly don't think teenagers should be exposed to only degrading music, our first thought, of course, is that correlation does not necessarily equal causation, and it's quite likely that the same kids who are having sex at a young age also enjoy listening to songs infused with sexuality. Our second thought (which kind of ties into the first) is that if parents aren't telling their kids that the lyrics convey degrading acts they shouldn't participate in, they're probably not talking to their kids about sex. Plus (!!) the study was done only in Pittsburgh.

The research, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was conducted in three large urban high schools in the Pittsburgh area, and involved asking Grade 9 students about the number of hours a day they listen to music and their favourite musical artists.

"Music exposure is growing ... there is now unprecedented access to music and it's also becoming more direct, more explicit," said co-author Dr. Brian Primack of the Center for Research on Health Care at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"Adolescents are exposed to six to eight hours of mass media messages per day, and since it is such an important exposure, we need to know if this is affecting health."

"We divided the cohort into three ... those who were exposed to the lowest amount (of music with degrading references), those who were exposed to sort of the medium amount, those who were exposed to the most," he said.

"And those who were exposed to the most were more than twice as likely to have had sexual intercourse, and that's even controlling for all of the other factors that we looked at that we thought might be related to uptake of sexual intercourse."

We'd like to know what other factors they're referring to, but the article doesn't mention them. Read the full article here.

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[Image]

Sloppy Seconds: Nicky Hilton Takes the Law Into Her Own Hands

Emily Farris — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:26:00 GMT

What would Mickey Rourke have said had he won the Oscar? Probably that Marisa Tomei is awesome because "not that many girls can climb the pole, y'know?" [Vulture]

A 30-year-old aspiring male model committed suicide in Brooklyn's Prospect Park last week, after stating his intentions to do so on his Facebook page. [DailyIntel]

Ever wonder why boys (in general) don't like pink and girls (in general) do? If the results of a recent study are to be believed, it's because mens' and womens' brains respond differently to "beautiful" objects. Of course, the study was done with paintings and we're just guessing on the pink thing; we don't think pink is that beautiful, really. [Reuters]

What's in the water in this Brazilian town where 38 pairs of twins were born among about 80 families living in a one-and-a-half-square-mile area? [NYT]

We've always thought of citizen's arrest as this weird thing that people don't actually do. To the best of our knowledge, generally they don't. Unless, of course, they're Nicky Hilton. Surprisingly, we're left with only one question: what the hell was she doing at IHOP at 5 a.m.? [Us]

[Image]

Prevent HPV With...You Know What

Emily Farris — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:51:00 GMT

Ugh. The human papillomavirus. You probably know it as HPV and also as that annoying virus that you have or probably will contract at some point in your sexually active life.

More than 100 strains of the virus have been identified and 30 to 40 are constantly being passed around the sexually active population in the United States. If you've had lots of sex with lots of partners, it's quite possible you have, at one time or another, contracted at least one strain of HPV. The virus can and often does leave your body, but some forms stick around and cause warts and others can lead to cancer—most notably cervical cancer in women.

Unfortunately, condoms can't always protect against it and while little is known about the risk factors associated with HPV in men, a new study purports that there is one way to decrease a man's chances of contracting HPV.

Circumcision.

To investigate, they followed 285 men for about 18 months, testing for HPV every 6 months. Overall, 29 percent of the men became infected with the virus over 1 year; 19 percent acquired an HPV strain linked to cancer.

Men who said they'd had more than 16 sex partners had about three times the HPV risk of those with fewer sex partners. They were also nearly 10 times more likely to contract a potentially cancer-causing strain.

When it came to HPV clearance, circumcision appeared beneficial, the researchers found.

Circumcised men were three times more likely to clear any type of HPV infection by the end of the follow-up period and six times more likely to clear a cancer-linked HPV strain.

The reasons for these findings are not clear, according to Giuliano and her colleagues. It's possible, they suggest, that circumcised men are less likely to get skin abrasions during sex, which might mean that fewer HPV particles enter their bodies.

However, the article does not state how many of the men were wearing condoms, if any. Our limited medical expertise leads us to believe that if there's a condom involved, it wouldn't really matter if the man was circumcised or not. But what do we know? (Not much).

[FOXNews: Study: Circumcision May Protect Men From HPV]

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She's Just Not That Into You. Or Is She?

Emily Farris — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:52:00 GMT

Why is there not a book or movie called "She's Just Not That Into You?" Well, in addition to the fact that, according to society, women are crazy and pine for potential partners in a way that men apparently don't, it might not be so easy to discern whether a woman is into you or not. All the signs may be there when it comes to reading men, but until someone writes a book on it, there's no way to tell with women.

According to a new study, men are much more obvious when it comes to showing signs of attraction. So a woman might not show it if she's into you, but on the other hand, she may look interested when, in fact, she's not.

Skyler Place, a doctoral student at Indiana University who authored the study, picked 28 women and 26 men to observe speed dating videos to determine which men were attracted to which women and vice versa. In many cases, he said, a woman looked like she was being flirtatious, but wasn't really interested in the man she was flirting with.

"Overall, the men are easier to read on average," Place said. "The hardest-to-read women are harder to read than the hardest-to-read men."

We can honestly say, in our own experience, we know we have not helped matters. And we are sorry.

[Forbes: Men, the Obvious Sex]

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No Foreplay For You

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:51:00 GMT

Just in time for Valentine's Day: a new "study" we'll all agree to hate, saying foreplay is completely unnecessary, validating horndogs everywhere...

The findings appear in this week's issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. (Wait, there's a Journal of Sexual Medicine? Why hasn't anyone sent us a subscription?) The article starts out by saying that therapists have been telling dudes for years that they need to warm their ladies up before things really get going. As lazy, selfish men have tried to tell everyone for years, this advice turns out to be irrelevant:

Turns out, [says the study of 2360 Czech women], sex time was correlated with orgasm consistency, but foreplay time was not. The results held even after excluding women who said they were with literal minutemen (these guys may have had problems with premature ejaculation.)

Among all the women, the average reported foreplay duration was 15.4 minutes, and the average intercourse duration 16.2 minutes, significantly higher than has been reported in American samples. The authors write: "It could be that this reflects, on average, a greater appreciation of intercourse and sensuality by Europeans than by Americans." Oh? Is that why Europe is the only continent with a population drop from 2000 to 2005? [Psychology Today]

Hey, leave the jokes to us, Psychology Today... not that we can come up with a comeback or anything...

Of the women who report average intercourse length of 1 to 10 minutes, 50% had an orgasm most of the time and 28% had them in a minority of cases or never. For women who report 11 to 20 minutes, the numbers are 62% and 22%, and for the women who boink more than 20 minutes they're 72% and 13%. On word of this research, I would not buy stock in Trojan Ultra Thins.

Oh. Snap. By the way, you can read more of this at Psychology Today, via Gawker.

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Anti-AIDS Gel is Somewhat Promising

Colleen Kane — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:20:00 GMT

Reuters reports that a microbicide gel formulated by Indevus Pharmaceuticals to protect female users from the AIDS virus does work. The future is here!

The catch?

It's only effective on 30 percent of the test group of 3,000 women. (And how was this conducted? Were they all exposed to the virus without other protection?) Of course it's great that strides are being made in AIDS prevention--but I don't like those odds. Keep trying, science.

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WIRED Analysis: Playboy's Incredibly Shrinking Women

Colleen Kane — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:15:00 GMT

WIRED crunched some numbers, namely the proportions of Playboy models from 1954 to the present day, and determined what we've noticed just through casual observation: earlier Playboy models had a bit more meat on their bones compared to the models of today, who are proportioned more like anime characters. This is in contrast to the average American man and woman, who is getting larger over time. But somehow, the breast sizes of models have mysteriously stayed in the C-D cup range, even though the bust sizes have gone down.

Surprisingly, while to us this study emphasises that women were beautiful back in the 50s and didn't have to mutate to their current unnatural format, the findings have proven rather controversial in the comments of the WIRED article...

LOL! Post a story like this trying to extrapolate that Playboy is sexist and has unrealistic ideals of womanhood, and a bunch of number-crunching nerds go, "wait, the ideal has remained remarkably consistent, modern women are just pigs"... I love it...
Why is this a problem? No, really? It's a mildly interesting fact, perhaps a good cocktail party starter, but . . . who cares? Women who constantly compare themselves to Playboy models (note "models", not "regular women") are like guys who constantly compare themselves to a sports figure or Donald Trump: woefully insecure. Fantasy is fantasy, not ideology, folks.
Playboy doesn't "want" its readers to lust after androids. Playboy simply provides images that guys want to see. If guys liked looking at pics of 200 pound women, that's what playboy would publish. The models are simply getting skinnier and in better shape because they workout, where as in the 60's women never did.
This article is just another in a long line of sad attempts by women to rationalize men's lust for skiny, big boobed hot chicks. Sorry ladies, its not the media or playboy's fault. Nobody has brainwashed us. Its just the way we are.

This response seems kind of grim for the future of women's morphing bodies, or at least the bodies of women who aspire to be in Playboy.

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Who's Got the Syph? We've Got the Syph! (Yeeeeah, We Got It!)

Emily Farris — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases—namely, syphilis and chlamydia—are on the rise.

According to a 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, updated earlier this month, chlamydia infections rose to 1.1 million in the United States, and rates of syphilis have been rising for seven years.

Believe it or not, this could actually be good news.

Some believe that numbers are are growing not because more people are becoming infected, but because more people are being screened and tested. If that is the case, hopefully the numbers will begin to drop off when those testing positive can treat their STDs and prevent their spread.

[Daily Toreador: Rise in syphilis, clamydia rates concern health officials]