You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Ok, I actually could make this stuff up. But I didn’t. Really.
I recently wrote about groundbreaking research that determined sex can make you smarter. Beyond those two studies, there are three more that deserve, at least momentarily, our undivided attention. These three separate sex studies recently crossed my cluttered desk, and I once more must venture entirely off the employment risk reservation to provide my thoughtful and gentle analysis. I have no idea who thinks of these things, or even more incredulously, wonder who funds them, but some of the sex research out there should really make men in particular stand up and take notice.
One study apparently found that “feelings of disgust in women are diminished by sexual arousal”. A second, seemingly unrelated study found that male genitalia is apparently getting smaller, even when we haven't been in the pool. Yet another found that men who have been castrated live longer.
It didn’t bother to inquire if they would want to.
Let's delve a bit into the first study, if we may.
A reported 90 women at the University of Groningen were placed into three groups; sexual arousal, non-sexual positive arousal, and neutral control. Each was shown film clips designed to create the desired emotions in participants. Then, “each group took part in 16 tasks, both of a sexual and non-sexual nature. Activities allegedly included lubricating a vibrator and drinking from a cup with a large insect inside.”
This sounds more like a bad Saturday Night Live skit than a University study.
Researchers measured the impact that sexual arousal had on the participants' individual levels of disgust and avoidance behavior in varying situations. (Yes, but now that you’re horny, how does that make you feel?)
Where did this come from? What researcher developed a hypothesis that sexual arousal would diminish feelings of disgust in women? It was probably some nerdy science type who routinely disgusts women. And now that we know this, what, pray tell do we do with this little nugget of information? Who actually says, “Drinking from that glass with a cockroach in it isn’t all that bad when I am hot and bothered, and hey, that nerdy, pimple faced researcher is kind of cute?”
Here is the bottom line. Guys, if you are interested in a woman who is thoroughly disgusted with your very essence, the road to sexual arousal for her is going to be fraught with peril for you. And it may likely include some type of sexual harassment charge.
Maybe the article got it wrong. Maybe they meant to say “feelings of sexual arousal in women are diminished by disgust”. Now that is a theory that makes sense to me. In fact, they didn’t even need a study to prove that. Many men prove it every day.
The second study, conducted in Italy, concluded that men’s genitalia are getting smaller. Researchers say they can prove that the average male penis is 10% smaller than 50 years ago. Apparently researchers say that reasons for the shrinkage include weight gain, stress, smoking, alcohol, and air pollution. The source for this info is the highly credible sounding website ChaCha.com (which I did not link since they push a bunch of pop up ads at you). They do not divulge how they came to this conclusion, so we can only speculate, which is frankly how I often get in trouble.
Who the hell volunteers for a study like this? Did they just approach people in the cafeteria with a ruler and say, “Pardon me, we would like to measure your schmekel?” Or they may have paid volunteers in a sort of “Shekels for Schmekels” exchange. And where, pray tell, did they get the data on the comparison group of more than fifty years ago, the so called “Über Schmekels”?
And finally, not to be outdone by the prior two, in the last study researchers in Korea have shown castrated men who lived centuries ago outlived intact men by a significant margin. Apparently these men lived on average 14 to 19 years longer.
Researchers studied genealogy records of noble members of the Imperial court of the Korean Chosun dynasty to produce these results. They claim that people at that time kept careful genealogy records as proof that they were of the noble class. According to the study, “The castrated boys in Korea lost their reproductive organs in accidents – usually after being bitten by dogs – or underwent castration purposefully to gain early access to the palace.”
What we can take away from this is that we should never adopt a dog from Korea. They are clearly too vicious. The article also fails to explain why castration was considered a fast track method to gain access to the palace. I would've preferred buying a tour ticket, myself. Researchers also may have failed to take into account other life factors. For instance, it is possible that castrated men lived longer lives because they were statistically less likely to be caught by the royal guards hiding in the Queens closet. But that would be rampant speculation on my part.
So what do we now know from all these sex studies? It appears that men are getting smaller while women's disgust is easily aroused, and sex makes us smarter but men die younger for the effort.
All in all, seems like a fair trade. I guess we can learn something from this after all.