What Internet Searches Reveal About Human Desire 224
Hugh Pickens writes "Time Magazine reports that computational neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam analyzed the results of 400 million online searches for porn and uncovered some startling insights into what men and women may really want from each other. In the first place, although you can find an instance of any kind of porn you can imagine on the internet, people search for and spend money and time on 20 sexual interests, which account for 80% of all porn — the top 10 sex-related searches include variations on youth (13.5 per cent), breasts (4 per cent), cheating wives (3.4 per cent) and cheerleaders (0.1 per cent) among others. Many are surprised that "cheating wives" is such a popular search but Ogas says that it's one of the top interests all around the world because men are wired to be sexually jealous but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused. Women prefer stories to visual porn by a long shot and the most popular erotica for women is the romance novel because female desire requires multiple stimuli simultaneously or in quick succession."
Re:Expectation (Score:2, Insightful)
Well it was a surprise to me.
The men liking heavier women thing wasn't a shock, however. I've long known that negative body image issues among females are caused by other females trying to make each other feel inadequate or sell products, it's not men pushing those preferences.
[captcha: economy]
false cheating wives conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
well known men on dating sites like to seek cheating wives because they are more likely to be discrete, have same risks associated with discovery, than single women who might try to attract attention to disrupt marriage for their benefit.
Re:Expectation (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, in science even what "everyone knows" doesn't count until it's published and somebody's rivals can kick the crap out it. A necessary first step to getting beyond common sense is putting common sense to the test. Sometimes common sense is just wrong. If you flip a coin and get heads three times in a row, your chance of getting a head on the next flip is 50%. Rockets with motors on the top aren't more stable than ones with motors on the bottom, and disconnecting the front brakes of a tractor trailer truck doesn't make it more stable in a dynamic braking situation.
The list of mathematical or physical common sense intuitions that are provably wrong is long. With issues of psychology it's a lot harder to put commonsense notions to the test, because they involve fuzzily defined concepts, like "personality".
Since the first step is disproving common sense, no doubt disproof is sometimes found simply because people are looking for it. So what is "unexpected" in the literature might well be predicted by common sense. Science doesn't pile up truths like a stack of coconuts; it approaches the truth by successive approximations.
Re:Expectation (Score:2, Insightful)
Your post saddens me in ways that I shouldn't even consider. What does it mean when you say you're 'sickened' by something? Does it mean you feel you're unlikely to do that thing, or that the thing in question would make you physically ill, and you might vomit. Would you be prepared to try it to find out, or are you so certain it's... well, not 'wrong' per se, but 'sickening', that you'd be unable to physically contemplate it?
I'm gay, and I regularly place other men's penises in my mouth. Well, one man in particular, actually, in the same way that you probably place your penis in your wife's mouth, vagina or, judging from your post, not her anus. One might ask why it's acceptable for you to push it in her mouth or vagina but not her anus, and while that's entirely the point here, let's not go there. Oh, look - I made a nearly-funny.
I sleep with my partner, and what we do in the bedroom involves inserting parts of me into parts of him, in the same way that you insert parts of you into parts of her. Nothing's dirty or nasty; you don't even know which parts go into which parts. In fact, there are millions of people who insert parts far weirder than you've even considered into places you've never even imagined parts can be inserted. You can buy the DVDs if you're interested. I'm not: what I'm interested is in if you can convince me that you placing your most private, most intimate part into someone else's most private, most intimate part is somehow more special and somehow sacred than me placing my most private, most intimate part in someone else's chosen private, most intimate orifice?
In short, Mr. 'I'm sickened' - oh, whatever. I've been gaybashed on the street by thugs who made a more eloquent argument.
Re:Fake "Science" (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't know as much as we would like about the brain; but we know enough to say that it looks very, very, very unlike a "computer" or something that "runs software" except for near-uselessly broad definitions of those things. If anything, the more or less complete annihilation of analog computers by cheap, fast, transistors and the brutally fast Von Neumman architecture devices that they make possible have made the "brain = computer, mind = software" analogy less useful than it used to be(ironically, of course, at the same time, those same not-very-brainlike machines have brute-forced their way ever closer to being able to model biological neural networks of non-useless size...)
Search doesn't equate to browsing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets say I'm really into Strategy games. So I search for strategy games once or twice. Find some awesome strategy games sites, bookmark them, and then visit the bookmarks directly. I'm not generating search traffic for strategy games. But I will generate a lot for FPS, games and maybe sports games, because I'm not to into those, and when I do want to find something on them, I have to search for it.
Porn is, in that sense, no different that a series of specialized niche markets. If you're really into something and, through a successful search find that 'thing', well...then you don't search for it anymore. Differentiating between traffic and search is probably not trivial however. Search to me represents traffic that is under represented, or that is advertised badly (imagine if I did a search for 'news for nerds' and didn't find /. that would not say much about interest in news for nerds, only that one of the biggest sources of news for nerds wasn't providing good results).
Re:Expectation (Score:5, Insightful)
It sickens me in much the same way that my eating meat sickens vegetarians. I accept that people do what people want to do and I in no way want to impose my own ideology on anyone else. But I shouldn't have to conceal my straightness any more than you should have to conceal your gayness. I spent a couple of years working at an "alternative news weekly" and I'm quite sure at least 30% (and possibly even up to 60%) were gay or bi- or whatever. There's simply no problem with it.
As for my wife letting me put my stuff in her stuff? Well -- it's nature. She likes it and I like it. On the other hand, if she wanted me to put it places I don't want it, we might have to do some negotiations on the matter.
Still, seeing two guys kiss in the street or in the movies or on TV? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't like it. I don't like the way guys smell -- even with cologne. Women smell good to me usually. There's a lot of nature going on there for me. And I'll be the first to assert that there's a lot of nature going on there with you too. I'm quite certain that you do what you do because it's what you feel compelled to do deep down. It's just that the idea of me doing it is repulsive... and quite likely in much the same way that vegetarians find my eating a chewy bacon and egg sandwich repulsive.
And if anyone is interested, I am not christian. My feelings are not related to any such thing as religious morals and ideology. I didn't choose to be straight and I don't know why I am now defending it.
Re:Expectation (Score:1, Insightful)
I think the first misconception from your post is that the majority of people are, as you put it, normal. In my experience, the vast majority of people have predilections towards things that most people or society as a whole consider abnormal. Huge variety in what humans consider attractive leads to more people being able to find partners. Once you accept that, things stop being a surprise.
Also, your post makes me feel somewhat sorry for your wife. I could be entirely off-base, inferring way too much from such a limited post, but it doesn't sound like you spend much time considering what she wants. You dismiss the women being turned on by gay romance topic based on your own view of it rather than thinking about what the female perspective might be. After all, you'd probably find lesbian porn significantly less "sickening" than you would gay male porn, right? Is it that surprising that someone who is attracted to men instead of women would feel similarly about two men as you, someone obviously attracted to women, feel about two women? And if a big breakfast is what she's getting out of it, chances are there's more to be had there for her...if satisfying her is important to you, you might consider asking her if there's anything else she'd like from your sex life.
But here I am injecting my own preferences into my take on your sex life...my biggest turn on is feeling like my partner is satisfied...it's what ratchets it up a notch for me and takes it from being a solely-physical experience to being something more fulfilling. And I need to realize that not everyone, and probably not most people, are like I am. If that's not important to you and your wife finds the current situation acceptable, who am I to question it? If you're happy in a situation in which I wouldn't be, there's nothing wrong with that.
Like I said above, I could have read way too much into what you wrote, but I just thought it smacked of the oft-quipped "the plural of anecdote is not data." And that's just what our own proclivities and preferences are...a single anecdote in a sea of data. We need to learn to view the situation scientifically and understand that there is a real chance that our own data point is the outlier or that, in the case of your views on gay romance, inapplicable to the conclusion.
Re:Don't have to search (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Let's compare the trends for "black women" and "white women":
Google trends for "white women" vs. "black women" (+ sex). [google.com]
Does this mean people are 5 times more interested in black women? Or maybe white women are just easier to find online, so there's no need to refine the search. Likewise:
Google trends for "gay sex" vs. "straight sex". [google.com]
I guess this proves "scientifically" that 98% of the population is gay...
Re:Search doesn't equate to browsing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I had mod points. Search terms are, if anything, a way to find what people _don't_ browse frequently. I spend plenty of time on Slashdot, but I'm pretty sure I've never googled "news for nerds."
Cheating wives? WTH? (Score:2, Insightful)
My wife cheated on me and I was not turned on at all!!! I searched the internet for help to understand why and half of the stuff that turned up was cheating wife porn. It disgusted me to no end. It seemed to be one of those fantasies that is better as a fantasy and not a reality. I would do anything to NOT have had my wife cheat on me; I deal with the psychological effects everyday even though it's been over a year this month.
The internet did have some help, but I wonder if some of those searches were just guys looking for help with real cheating wives?
Re:Expectation (Score:3, Insightful)
If you flip a coin and get heads three times in a row, your chance of getting a head on the next flip is 50%.
Don't mean to nitpick, especially since I agree with the gist of everything else you wrote but this is not necessarily true. The probability of getting heads on the next flip is only 50% if the coin really is fair. Now, three coin tosses are really not enough to know whether the coin is fair or not but if you flipped the coin a hundred times and they all came out heads then that would be pretty solid evidence that there was some asymmetry in the characteristics of the coin or the way it was being tossed. Of course, even in this case, it is still possible that it was fair but less likely.
I would say that the biggest problem with common sense is drawing conclusions from too small of a sample. However, there is a logic to common sense. If you're in a situation where a decision has to be made then there might not be enough time to determine rigorously the probabilities of costs or benefits. A small number of samples may simply be all that you have to go on. So long as we accept common sense as ONLY a short-term heuristic, to be refined by more careful study, then we should be okay. The problem comes from when people refuse to accept scientific results simply because it contradicts their common sense notions.
Re:Fake "Science" (Score:2, Insightful)
Another example, does 'cheating wives' mean that men are actually desiring to cheat on their wife or fantasize about having sex with a cheating wife?
Like many mammals, male humans are wired to try and mate with as many females as possible, while also defending his breeding stock from being impregnated by rival males.
Like many mammals, female humans are wired to try and mate with only the "best" male candidate, and to "trade up" when a more suitable mate comes along.
So yeah, "cheating wives" makes perfect sense in light of the natural mating habits of our species. Of course the religious nutjobs will be on here screaming about free will and all that jazz. Sure, free will allows us to overcome our instinctive urges, but it does not remove them.
Thus the most searched terms could be the ones that people are just most dissatisfied with in what they find.
Bingo. This applies especially to "youth-related" searches which rank the highest. Go looking for hot chicks 18-21 years old and you either find child porn or a pack of worn-out 40 year old whores. So you spend a lot of time repeating searches with variations until you get lucky and stumble across the one site which is NOT packed full of 60 year old women having sex with animals.