Welcome to part two of the craziest and sexiest research.
Sexual arousal eliminates disgust
Disgust is an uncontrollable emotional response that has evolved with humans over millions of years serving as a self-protective function. Thanks to disgust, we instinctively reject bad food, but did you know that sex can temporarily suspend this primitive instinct? This makes sense because sex can involve odors and fluids that in another context are not desirable… but during moments of pleasure, are totally fine.
This was demonstrated in a study by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They asked a group of women to watch an erotic movie, a sports video or a “neutral” video of a train. Then they asked them to do slightly unpleasant things, such as eating from a plate that someone else had already started. They found that the women who had watched the sex acts found these tasks slightly less disgusting.
We become obsessed with love
Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain shows that when we are in love, the same areas of the brain involved in obsessive-compulsive behaviors are activated. This explains why we can only think about a new partner and why we idealize them and ignore their flaws.
Sex makes you fit and slim
We knew this intuitively already, but how much? Well, according to a study by the University of Quebec, getting it on can burn the same number of calories as jogging for 30 minutes.
The researchers asked 21 couples between the ages of 18 and 35 to wear watches that calculate calories burned while running on treadmills and while having sex. They observed that men burned an average of 4.2 calories per minute during sex, while women burned about 3.1. Overall, men and women burned approximately 101 and 69 calories per session respectively.
Semen has a number of benefits (yeah…plural)
It seems that semen has other uses besides procreation. Apparently, it also relieves nausea in pregnant women, softens and moisturizes the skin and can be used as invisible ink (this is how some spies did it during World War II). Anyway, it’s wonderful, what else do you use it for?
Countries with the most and the least
Greece appears to be the most sexual country in the world. Greek couples report having an average of 138 sexual relations per year. That’s once every three days. The Japanese, on the other hand, are in the caboose with only 45 sexual encounters a year. Could it be because they work too much and watch too much Hentai? We may never know!