Searching all the porn on the Internet might not seem like the most scientifically productive activity, but computational neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam did it anyway.
For their new book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest ExperimentReveals about Human Desire, Ogas and Gaddam analyzed the results of 400million online searches for porn and uncovered some startling insights into what men and women may really want from each other -- at least sexually. I spoke recently with Ogas.
Why did you decide to analyze online porn searches?
I'm acomputational neuroscientist. I view the mind as software. Most computational neuroscientists study higher functions like memory, language and vision. Wewanted to apply the same techniques to a lower part of the brain, the sexual part.
So is "Rule 34 -- true -- that if you can imagine it, there's porn of it?
When we first started, Rule 34 was almost a guiding idea. The Internet has every kind of imaginable porn; searches are going to reflect immense diversity. We quickly realized that [the data] didn't really support that.
Even though you can find an instance of any kind of porn you can imagine, people search for and spend money and time on 20 sexual interests, which account for 80% of all porn. The top five are youth, gays, [sexy mothers], breasts and cheating wives.
Why are cheating wives so popular?
You'd expect that would not be something men would like to think about. It's one of the top interests all around the world. Men are wired to be sexually jealous. And, certainly, men can fly into murderous rages, but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused.
This is an example of what biologists call a sperm competition cue. Across the animal kingdom, when males see other males mating, it tends to provoke arousal. If he is going to compete with the other male, he has to produce more sperm. Human men also respond like this, if a man sees a woman -- including his partner -- with another man, he becomes more aroused.
There's been a lot of concern that porn is getting more violent and more misogynistic and that the Internet is making it harder for women because porn makes men want more extreme sex. What does your research show?
It's not at all more violent or misogynistic. We really looked at all porn searches.Truly violent pornography is extremely rare. It truly is rare and the kinds of people who watch it are a clearly identifiable group.
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