Posted: Mar 08, 2014 10:25 pm
Interesting article, although it's always frustrating trying to get a clear sense of what the data says from a newspaper report.
One problem I can see is this:
I've read about the pornography experiment before and it's fascinating. Doesn't it kind of destroy the point it's trying to prove though?
It's supposed to indicate that women's self reports of desire levels are not to be trusted, because of the disconnect between what they actually feel and what they're willing to admit to themselves and others. And yet "to find out what women really want in the bedroom, Bergner interviewed sexologists, ordinary women...".
If women's self reports are worthless, then how can an accurate idea of what they really want be gained by interviewing them?
One problem I can see is this:
To find out what women really want in the bedroom, Bergner interviewed sexologists, ordinary women, scientists working on the development of a female Viagra and spent a week at a primate colony.
He discovered women actually lose interest in their long-term partners quicker than men do, are more likely than men to want to receive sexual pleasure than give it, and get much more turned on by strangers than known lovers. The revelation that women are just as lusty as men could spell real danger for monogamy - except women are unlikely to own up to their true desires.
Canadian psychologist Meredith Chivers starkly illustrated the female desire disconnect in a series of experiments that prompted Bergner's book. She placed a miniature light bulb and sensor (called a plethysmograph) inside the vagina to measure the blood flow as her female subjects watched a variety of pornography. To establish what turns women on, Chivers showed them sex between men and women, men and men, women and women, and a pair of bonobos (a type of chimpanzee) while she measured their physiological reactions. The women also had to rate their own feelings of arousal on a key pad.
According to their self-reports, straight women were indifferent to the bonobos, and not especially turned on by gay sex involving men or women. Yet their plethysmograph readings told a different story, soaring no matter who was on the screen and what they were doing.
''Chivers found there was a very consistent difference between what women say turns them on, and what their bodies say turns them on,'' Bergner explains.
When Chivers conducted the same experiment with men, their physical and mental responses matched. Straight men were unaffected by the bonobos, sort of turned on by male sex, very turned on by heterosexual sex, and incredibly aroused by lesbian encounters. So why are women less in tune with their sexuality than men?
I've read about the pornography experiment before and it's fascinating. Doesn't it kind of destroy the point it's trying to prove though?
It's supposed to indicate that women's self reports of desire levels are not to be trusted, because of the disconnect between what they actually feel and what they're willing to admit to themselves and others. And yet "to find out what women really want in the bedroom, Bergner interviewed sexologists, ordinary women...".
If women's self reports are worthless, then how can an accurate idea of what they really want be gained by interviewing them?