"Republicans and Democrats Don’t Just Disagree About Politics. They Have Different Sexual Fantasies."

Writes Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute (at Politico). I'll just read this and see if it can help me decide once and for all if I'm really a Republican or a Democrat.

I surveyed 4,175 adult Americans from all 50 states about what turns them on and published the findings in a book entitled Tell Me What You Want....

While self-identified Republicans and self-identified Democrats reported fantasizing with the same average frequency—several times per week—I found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to fantasize about a range of activities that involve sex outside of marriage. Think things like infidelity, orgies and partner swapping, from 1970s-style “key parties” to modern-day forms of swinging. Republicans also reported more fantasies with voyeuristic themes, including visiting strip clubs and practicing something known as “cuckolding,” which involves watching one’s partner have sex with someone else.

By contrast, self-identified Democrats were more likely than Republicans to fantasize about almost the entire spectrum of BDSM activities, from bondage to spanking to dominance-submission play. The largest Democrat-Republican divide on the BDSM spectrum was in masochism, which involves deriving pleasure from the experience of pain....

What connects Republicans and Democrats, I believe, is that their fantasies are at least partly driven by what they can’t have... Nothing makes us want to try something like being told you can’t do it. This is why taboos, no matter what they are, often become turn-ons...

Oh, he's coming at this from a completely different angle than I wanted! He's assuming that first, you commit to some values, like monogamy or equality, and then, after you've decided how you're supposed to be, you know what is transgressive, and that's what feels sexy so you go there with your fantasy. I thought the eroticism would come first, and you'd begin with some mysterious, bodily feeling for cuckolding or dominance, and your being that sort of person would explain what you found attractive in the Republican or Democratic party.

In that view, you could analyze the results to mean that people who get excited by a great variety of choices are also attuned to the Republican message of a free market and individual responsibility, and people who get excited by bondage and domination respond the the Democrats' offer of greater regulation and impositions from above about what you ought to be doing. I could see how, intellectually, you might say the Republicans have the better set of values but still find yourself getting excited by what the Democrats say they will do to you.

I've said enough!