Good day, mate
Laurie Rudman et al.
Sex Roles, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sociocultural and biological frameworks suggest a Sexual Advice Double Standard (SADS; wherein heterosexual men are encouraged to have causal sex more than heterosexual women are) motivated by intransigent factors (e.g., patriarchy or evolved dispositions). Alternatively, people generally perceive casual sex as riskier for women, who may be discouraged from sex to protect them from stigma and danger (Rudman et al. 2013). If so, manipulating perceived risk to reduce or reverse the costs of casual sex for men and for women should eliminate or reverse the SADS, respectively. Results investigating American adults (N = 180) supported risk assessment’s explanatory power. When costs to both partners were mild, the SADS was eliminated, but when costs to men were higher, women were urged to have casual sex more than men were. The SADS emerged only when costs to women were higher. The findings have implications for gender equality and sexuality theories, but also practitioners (e.g., therapists, sex educators, and physicians). The SADS is far from intractable, but believing in rigid sexual double standards creates psychological conflict in women caught between motives to be seen as moral and sexually desirable, which negatively impacts their sexual health (e.g., Katz and Farrow 2000).
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Larah Maunder, Dorothée Schoemaker & Jens Pruessner
Archives of Sexual Behavior, February 2017, Pages 441–453
Abstract:
Previous studies have identified a number of factors that contribute to improved cognitive function, and to memory function specifically, in cognitively normal individuals. One such factor, frequency of penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI), has been reported in a number of animal studies to be advantageous to memory for previously presented objects by increasing neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. However, studies investigating the potential benefits of frequent PVI on memory function in young women are to the best of our knowledge absent from the literature. The current study thus investigated whether the self-reported frequency of sexual intercourse was related to memory function in healthy female college students. To determine whether variation in PVI would be associated with memory performance, we asked 78 heterosexual women aged 18–29 years to complete a computerized memory paradigm consisting of abstract words and neutral faces. Results showed that frequency of PVI was positively associated with memory scores for abstract words, but not faces. Because memory for words depends to a large extent on the hippocampus, whereas memory for faces may rely to a greater extent on surrounding extra-hippocampal structures, our results appear to be specific for memory believed to rely on hippocampal function. This may suggest that neurogenesis in the hippocampus is higher in those women with a higher frequency of PVI, in line with previous animal research. Taken together, these results suggest that PVI may indeed have beneficial effects on memory function in healthy young women.
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Natasha DePesa & Jeffrey Cassisi
Journal of Sex Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Disgust has recently been implicated in the development and maintenance of female sexual dysfunction, yet most empirical studies have been conducted with a sexually healthy sample. The current study contributes to the literature by expanding the application of a disgust model of sexual functioning to a clinically relevant sample of women with low sexual desire/arousal and accompanying sexual distress. Young women (mean age = 19.12 years) with psychometrically defined sexual dysfunction (i.e., female sexual interest/arousal disorder [FSIAD] group) and a healthy control group were compared in their affective (i.e., facial electromyography [EMG] and self-report) and autonomic (i.e., heart rate and electrodermal activity) responses to disgusting, erotic, positive, and neutral images. Significant differences were predicted in responses to erotic images only. Specifically, it was hypothesized that the FSIAD group would display affective and autonomic responses consistent with a disgust response, while responses from the control group would align with a general appetitive response. Results largely supported study hypotheses. The FSIAD group displayed significantly greater negative facial affect, reported more subjective disgust, and recorded greater heart rate deceleration than the control group in response to erotic stimuli. Greater subjective disgust response corresponded with more sexual avoidance behavior. Planned follow-up analyses explored correlates of subjective disgust responses.
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Sally Olderbak et al.
European Journal of Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
We evaluated five competing hypotheses about what predicts romantic interest. Through a half-block quasi-experimental design, a large sample of young adults (i.e. responders; n = 335) viewed videos of opposite-sex persons (i.e. targets) talking about themselves, and responders rated the targets' traits and their romantic interest in the target. We tested whether similarity, dissimilarity or overall trait levels on mate value, physical attractiveness, life history strategy and the Big Five personality factors predicted romantic interest at zero acquaintance and whether sex acted as a moderator. We tested the responders' individual perception of the targets' traits, in addition to the targets' own self-reported trait levels and a consensus rating of the targets made by the responders. We used polynomial regression with response surface analysis within multilevel modelling to test support for each of the hypotheses. Results suggest a large sex difference in trait perception; when women rated men, they agreed in their perception more often than when men rated women. However, as a predictor of romantic interest, there were no sex differences. Only the responders' perception of the targets' physical attractiveness predicted romantic interest; specifically, responders' who rated the targets' physical attractiveness as higher than themselves reported more romantic interest.