OT Study: Who pines away the longest, men or women?
kkramer
BOSTON (AP) - So who pines away the longest, men or women?
Researchers say the more time spent apart after sex, the more eager men were
to copulate with their lovers again. It turns out women don't feel the same
way - and it doesn't matter how much time has gone by since the couple last
had sex.
In a survey of people on and around college campuses, women were generally
unaffected by separation, according to the study led by Todd Shackelford, an
assistant professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University.
The researchers propose in a paper presented Friday at the annual meeting of
the American Psychological Association that men are unwittingly responding
to an urge from way back in human evolution.
Basically, the researchers suggest, the urge that drives a man to want sex
after separation is the thought that another man might have gotten there
first and beat out his sperm in the race to fertilize his partner's egg.
After all, in the view of evolutionary biology, passing on genes to the next
generation is what sex is all about.
The notion of ``sperm competition'' has been well-studied in non-humans, but
whether it significantly shapes sexual behavior in people is open to debate.
Shackelford acknowledged the measured effect of time apart on men's
attitudes about sex is small. Many other factors could effect how interested
a man is in sex on a given day. The results of the study are preliminary and
can suggest only that time apart affected men's attitudes, because they come
from a one-time survey.
The researchers gave anonymous one-time questionnaires to 388 women and 304
men who said they were in committed sexual relationships. The participants,
in their mid-20s on average, were recruited at universities and nearby
public areas in Texas, Florida and Germany.
Participants rated their current interest in their partner on a 10-point
scale. Results suggest that for every 100 hours of time apart since the last
time they had sex with their partner, men's interest in doing it again rose
an average of about one point, and their rating of their partner's
attractiveness rose about a half-point.
Similarly, the less time men had spent with their partners since last
intercourse, the higher they rated the partner's sexual interest in
themselves and her attractiveness to other men. It didn't matter how much
total time had elapsed since the last copulation.
Women, in contrast, appeared unaffected by the amount of time spent apart.
The new work proposes a psychological underpinning for earlier controversial
research. The prior work found evidence that the more time a man spent apart
from his sexual partner since they last had sex, the more sperm he
ejaculates at the next copulation.
But Timothy Perper, an independent sex researcher in Philadelphia and author
of ``Sex Signals: The Biology of Love,'' said he doubted that Shackelford
had really detected a psychological signal of sperm competition.
For one thing, Perper said, the researchers didn't directly test whether the
male-female differences were big enough to be considered real, rather than
just a fluke. If there's no real difference, there's no evidence for sperm
competition, he said.
He noted that the results didn't support two other tested predictions from
sperm competition theory. Time apart was not related to how much a man
figured his partner was sexually interested in other men, nor how distressed
he was if his partner refused to have sex.
Shackelford said the questionnaire may have just done a poor job of asking
about those things.
Donna
kkramer <kkr...@2xtreme.net> wrote in message
news:NUtv3.403$xM1.1...@news-west.eli.net...
>
> Basically, the researchers suggest, the urge that drives a man to want sex
> after separation is the thought that another man might have gotten there
> first and beat out his sperm in the race to fertilize his partner's egg.
> After all, in the view of evolutionary biology, passing on genes to the
next
> generation is what sex is all about.
>
> The notion of ``sperm competition'' has been well-studied in non-humans,
but
> whether it significantly shapes sexual behavior in people is open to
debate.
>
That is so retarded. I'm sick of bullshit like this coming out of moron's
mouths.
--
_____
Donna
"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Ben Franklin--
Volfie
>but
>> whether it significantly shapes sexual behavior in people is open to
>debate.
donnabert wrote:
>That is so retarded. I'm sick of bullshit like this coming out of moron's
>mouths.
It isn't shit and it doesn't come out of their mouths.
Volfie -> I know someone who skipped Health class a little too much