Female Sexual Arousal
by Jonathan Quince
Thursday, January 1, 2004 10:52:29
PervScan.com pointed out that a Stanford University study purportedly finds evidence of something that most of my readers here already know: Porn arouses women. Unfortunately, the article Hindustan Times carried is badly written and offers few details, zero hard science, and no citation info.
A few moments with Google turned up a locational fix on the paper in question. Here’s the abstract. ScienceDirect.com is selling the PDF of the paper for USD $30 a pop through that link.
Here’s the full cite as I found it:
Female sexual arousal: a behavioral analysis
Polan, Desmond, Banner, et al.
Fertility and Sterility, Volume 80, Issue 6, December, 2003
More information about Fertility and Sterility is available at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Since I know how badly scientific research can be distorted when it hits the popular media, I have a hankering to lay out the cash so that I can read the actual paper; and I may just do so if I have the time. (Unfortunately, I do not currently have access to a good library.)
Now for the interesting part. I’m really quite curious to know in rigorous scientific terms exactly what the conclusions of the study are; I’m also interested to know what similar studies there have been in the field. For one thing, human sexual machinery is a beautiful creation; it’s always fascinating to understand just a little bit more about what makes it tick. A survey of pornography’s impact on the female psyche is interesting in its own right. For another, this (and similar research) has social implications. Loathe though I may be to politicize science, I can’t help but notice how useful objective findings may be in arguments with prudes who take it as a matter of accepted fact that females hate porn. (Though on second thought, throwing facts at closed minds is like farting into a hurricane.)
I am not a professional in this knowledge domain, and I have not read the paper in question. I’d welcome responses from bona fide experts or from anybody who has read the paper and can offer intelligent analysis.
(By the way, did anybody notice that the study was supported in part by a grant from Pfizer, Inc., the makers of Viagra?)
Thanks to Fleshbot for pointing out the PervScan article.