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A Billion Wicked Thoughts: Science Bangs our Dirty Minds

If you are waiting for someone to loan you 50 Shades of Grey or you are trying to pace yourself through the Game of Thrones series so you don't have to anxiously wait umpteen years for the next book like this stupid blogger, then I have a great book to recommend for you called A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

I can remember as a little nerd hooka in training, going to the library and seeing the Hite Reports on Female and Male Sexuality, which were probably the largest sex studies after Masters and Johnson, and Kinsey.  Even though I remember the reads being very "sciencey" and staid, I was fascinated, and always made a point to peek at one when I was there. It's good to know that the interest in what turns people on visits onto the third generation and evolves, and becomes A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

The authors, two neuroscientists named Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, have brought the sexual attraction study game into the 21st century in a huge and interesting way ~ and in a sense, it went viral:  they examined what people do on the internet.  According to them, they studied "a billion web searches, a million websites, a million erotic videos, a million erotic  stories, millions of personal ads, and tens of thousands of digitized romance novels."  By combining this online behavioral data with neuroscience and past studies, they were able to give some sometimes surprising truths and insight about what turns us on.  Past research combined with more current genetic discovery led to some very interesting theories about why we feel funny about certain unexpected things and people and why.

Ogas and Gaddam theorize about a lot of things, including why women are turned on by the dirtiest shit imaginable, and why we (as women) don't realize or admit it consciously, but why we need to do it that way, and how they test this.  Why are straight men are obsessed with being dicks?  Oops, I mean big dicks- and not even their own; big cocks, black cocks, aggressive cocks having sex with their partners while they watch- cocks you would think they wouldn't think about so often-hell, at all- but they do and why, and how they test that. And how, in light of all of this aforementioned research, straight men can think that they are so different than gay men, which they are not but for their sexual hungers and desires? (Duh.)  How bisexual women answer sex questions more like straight men than they do gay or straight women (What you talking 'bout, Scientist?!), and how straight women love gay porn, its growing digital popularity, and how that's pretty normal.

I think that last thing is what made me love this book even more because for years I have battled straight female friends about my preference for gay porn over het porn. Even if the authors of this research are wrong in their theories, I finally feel vindicated. The Bible says it takes a child to lead them, but sometimes, it takes a loud drunk chick who thinks she knows what sexy is. 

You may have an "a-ha" moment as you read, you may have to call bullshit and put it down for a minute, but you"ll have to admit, regardless, that it's very interesting.  And I totally recommend it.

Coregasms: I Worked Out, I Saw, & I Came

According to an article at thebodyodd.msnbc.msn.com, women have reported having exercise-induced orgasms, called "coregasms" because of their apparent link to exercises for core abdominal muscles.

The online surveys conducted by Debby Herbenick, the co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, and her colleagues might not have been the most scientific ever conducted, but the results were interesting nonetheless.

Herbenick's data included 124 women who had experienced exercise-induced orgasms (when they weren't having a sexual fantasy or thinking of someone to whom they were attracted) and 246 women who revealed that they experienced exercise-induced sexual pleasure. Most of the respondents identified as straight, they were married or in relationships, and the average age was 30. Roughly 45% of the women said that their first experience was linked to abdominal exercise-mostly after multiple sets of crunches in which they really exerted themselves- while a significantly lower number replied that their "coregasms" were linked to biking/spinning, climbing poles/ ropes, weight lifting, running, yoga, swimming, elliptical machines, or doing aerobics.

It's not surprising to me that women can experience orgasms or sexual pleasure after working out, particularly after intense core work outs. Pilates looks to create a strong foundation for movement, which engages the pelvic floor muscles, including the PC (pubococcygeus muscle) muscles. The PC muscles are also essential in strengthening the Kegel muscles, which reputedly help with incontinence as well enhancing sexual pleasure. Even without doing Pilates or specific Kegel exercises, when we work out our abdominal muscles, particularly when we move into certain angles or positions, it has to affect our pelvic floor muscles as the muscles are all related.

And it's also not surprising that the vast majority of the respondents were of an average age of 30 and in relationships because I think that the older we get and the more sex we have, whether alone or with someone, we learn how to move our bodies and become more aware of how to achieve orgasm.

For me personally, while I learned how to best achieve orgasm with my ex-boyfriend, since I have become single again I have become an "onan-artist", and have learned (for me) that I can intensify my orgasms by flexing my abdominal muscles before I come. Since I have become aware of that sexual component of abdominal/pelvic floor/ PC muscle flexing, I have definitely noticed that when I do lots of core stomach exercises, there is a very real element of sexual pleasure. I haven't reached the apex of wondrous bliss of the 124 women in Herbenick's study while working out, which is good because I'd probably have a 24 pack on my stomach, but an underdeveloped everything else.