From why we have sex in the first place, to marijuana lube for your lady parts, here's what we learned about sex this week.
1. If you have to cheat on a straight man....
David Frederick, an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. wanted to look at the different ways people respond to sexual infidelity, which he defines as having sex but not falling in love, as opposed to emotional infidelity, or falling in love but not having sex. For the study, 64,000 Americans expressed via an online survey how they would respond to sexual and emotional infidelity. The participants also indicated their gender and sexual orientation (straight, bisexual, gay/ lesbian). Only one of the groups was more upset by sexual cheating than by emotional cheating. And that was...straight men! Fifty-four percent percent of heterosexual men were more upset by sexual infidelity, compared to 35 percent of heterosexual women. Sixty-five percent of straight women and 46% of straight men said they would be more upset by emotional cheating. For bisexual men and women as well lesbians and gay men, only around 30% would be more upset by sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity.
2. The mystery of why we have sex, solved at last.
As you may have noticed, humans reproduce sexually, while other species like jellyfish or plants can create offspring asexually. And for a while, scientists had a theoretical understanding of why. Fun factor aside, combining genetic information from two individuals is less efficient than doing it solo, but it’s healthier because as Jesse Hollister, a former University of Toronto post-doc fellow, puts it, "Asexual reproduction leads to a buildup of deleterious mutations over time; it's called Muller's Ratchet.” Of course! Muller’s Ratchet! Hollister explains, "The species' average fitness is reduced and they are less able to compete in the ecological arena than sexual species, so they have an increased probability of extinction."
But as any scientist knows, theories are great, but they don’t hold a candle to data. Thanks to Hollister we have empirical evidence backing the theory and the evening primrose. The evening primrose! Some evening primroses, or EPs as I like to call them, have evolved to reproduce sexually, while others reproduce asexually. In a totally incomprehensible process, Hollister and his colleagues were able to document that the EPs which produced sexually were healthier.
3. The first lubricant designed to get your lady parts high.
Ladies, the world is full of lubes and other products that promise to improve your orgasms and your sex life. And the world is also full of pot, which can relax you and thereby also improve your orgasms and your sex life. But how about a product that’s a lube, and gets your vagina high?
Enter Foria, an edible, coconut oil-based spray, which contains marijuana extract that can apparently “create the relaxation needed for sensual experience.” Just spritz some Foria on your lady parts 30 minutes before having sex. So far, the product is only available in California, but next week, it hits shelves in Colorado, thanks to the state’s legalization of pot.
Men can use it, but it won’t really do anything because they don’t have the vaginal membrane necessary for it to work. As Foria creator Matthew Gerson explains, the product draws on a long and rich tradition of vaginally introduced drug-taking: “Introducing medicines, compounds and different drugs through the vagina is something that both modern doctors and doctors throughout history have done.”
But Foria doesn’t get you high through your vagina; it gets your actual vagina high. Foria user and writer Amelia McDonell-Parry explains, “Your vagina will feel stoned. Just your vagina though....the best way I can describe it is the feeling you get when you take a hit, hold it in and then exhale, and then that warm, tingly, vaguely lightheaded feeling washes over you — imagine that feeling, but more subtle and constant, just in and around your vag.”
If vaginas could talk, they would probably tell Foria, “I love you, man.”
4. Men seeking relationships.
A new study shatters the myth that men are hardwired to prefer wham-bam thank-you ma’am. According to conventional wisdom, men are more interested in sex and women are more interested in relationships. According to conventional evolutionary psychology wisdom, this behavior is the result of biology: women have to be pickier about whom they sleep with because pregnancy and childbirth is kind of a big-deal investment, whereas ejaculating isn’t quite as much commitment.
But researchers from the University of Utah found some interesting results when they lived among the 13,000 Makushi people near the southwest border of Guyana with Brazil, who are expected to engage in premarital sex and then marry monogamously. Makushi live in villages of between 160 and 750, but the male-to-female ratios vary based on migration patterns. In urban areas, for example, the women outnumber the men, while men outnumber the women in mining, farming and logging areas. Anthropologists Ryan and Jacque Schacht studied the typical patterns of one-night-stand-seeking men and relationship-seeking women in areas with balanced male-to female-ratios and compared them to places where women outnumber men. It turns out that when women are scarce, men look for long-term commitment. Or, as Schacht says: "Commitment to a relationship is influenced by the availability of partners. So we can think of the number of men and women in a population as a potential mating market where the principles of supply and demand hold sway… when women are difficult to find, they become valued resources, so men will attempt to attract and maintain a single partner because it is costly to lose a partner when partners are rare."
So, ladies. If you’re finding that a good man is hard to find, get thee to a loggery.
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