Althouse: "[I]n women, the same areas that tend to become active when viewing sexual imagery that neuroscientists have deemed pleasing also became active in response to photos of vomiting or feces."

September 19, 2019

"[I]n women, the same areas that tend to become active when viewing sexual imagery that neuroscientists have deemed pleasing also became active in response to photos of vomiting or feces."

"What scientists tend to regard as 'arousal' on brain scans could also be its opposite, or perhaps some combination of each."

From "What Can Brain Scans Tell Us About Sex?" (NYT)(noting a study that reported that "what happens in the brains of female study subjects when they look at sexual imagery is pretty much the same as what happens in the brains of their male counterparts").

42 comments:

henry said...: Shows how much neuroscientists know about pleasing women.

The brain remains a mystery. The neuroscientists might want to remember that before deeming themselves into another corner.; 9/19/19, 7:05 AM
Seeing Red said...: The neuroscientists have deemed pleasing?

Did they record themselves?; 9/19/19, 7:14 AM
rhhardin said...: Disgust is what breaks theories of art. Derrida, Economimesis.; 9/19/19, 7:16 AM
rhhardin said...: What happens in women's brains when they view a wealthy, handsome bachelor.; 9/19/19, 7:19 AM
mccullough said...: I’m curious as to what sexual imagery neuroscientists deem pleasing. They seem like kinky folks; 9/19/19, 7:20 AM
rhhardin said...: Dog owners view vomiting and feces with indifference. Simple Solution works great, fact cleanup.; 9/19/19, 7:21 AM
Jeff Brokaw said...: Don’t worry—all the other conclusions the medical profession “knows” are 100% spot-on.

Take it to the bank. 96% confidence. Really, pretty sure.; 9/19/19, 7:37 AM
rhhardin said...: It's not the brain you want to be looking at in detecting women's sexual response. I bet it's different there. At least I assume so.; 9/19/19, 7:39 AM
Sebastian said...: "What scientists tend to regard as 'arousal' on brain scans"

Careful phrasing.

What scientists tend to.

What scientists tend to regard as.

'Arousal,' in quotes.

On brain scans.; 9/19/19, 7:42 AM
rhhardin said...: Sexual imagery, vomit, feces and an elephant ought to have been the test template.; 9/19/19, 7:42 AM
Mattman26 said...: Just more pootriarchal bullshit.; 9/19/19, 7:56 AM
Earnest Prole said...: One of the previous studies showing radical differences in how men and women respond to sexual imagery, documented in What Do Women Want?; 9/19/19, 7:56 AM
wild chicken said...: "aberrant sexual pleasures we now know are healthy."

Haha, riiight...; 9/19/19, 7:57 AM
Wince said...: Lends a new meaning to the lounge lizard line "I have that effect on women".; 9/19/19, 8:11 AM
Fernandinande said...: This is the timeworn stereotype that science has long reinforced.

IOW, "it's true, but we wish it weren't."

pretty much the same means "different".

Male and female sexual behavior is so different that not finding significant differences in brain activity just means that they're looking at the wrong areas if they want to imply something about behavior.; 9/19/19, 8:19 AM
Fernandinande said...: I remember reading about The Rape of Berlin, wherein the German women raped as many Russian soldiers as they could.; 9/19/19, 8:38 AM
h said...: In the Washington, DC area, there are frequent stories about public schools that have rules about dressing, and whether those rules are sexist because (it is felt by many) the rules put more restrictions on girls than on boys.
tion
“Skirts and dresses must not show private areas when sitting, walking, climbing stairs or doing normal school activities,” the new principal at Albert Einstein High School, Christine C. Handy, wrote in an email last week. “Shorts must not expose private areas when sitting, walking, climbing stairs, or doing normal school activities.”

Also forbidden: “Bandeaus, backless tops, exposed midriffs, or visible undergarments.”

Many people seem to overlook what I regard as an obvious fact: Many (most? all?) boys are attracted, titillated, intrigued by the sight of, or suggestion of a girl's breasts, buttocks, and vulva (even lower stomach and shoulders -- but I think these areas because they hold the promise of access to the big three). Girls know this. So they wear skin tight pants (tights?) that reveal the exact shape of their buttocks; they wear low cut shirts and bras that hint at the size and shape of their breasts; they wear short skirts and thong underwear that promise a brief glimpse of a barely covered vulva and the subtle promise of more to come. They wear these things in the hope of attracting attention from boys. Of course, any one girl only wants attention from one boy (or a small number of boys); but the unwelcome attention from the "wrong" boys is called stalking or worse.

The research in this article confirms what I already knew (didn't we all?): that women are not attracted titillated intrigued by the sight of or suggestion of a boy's penis and scrotum. Girls might giggle, but that is out of nervous discomfort. And boys know this, which is why men do not wear clothing (outside of male clothing designed to attract sexual interest from other men) that reveals their private parts. One can imagine such clothing: loose, but very brief shorts, so that penis tips are visible; very tight clothing (perhaps from the same form-fitting fabric used to make yoga pants) which would allow the outline of a penis to be seen. But boys wouldn't wear it, and girls would not be attracted to it.; 9/19/19, 8:41 AM
madAsHell said...: Just women??

When I was in high school, I had the locker next to the women's bathroom. A wonderful mix of hormones, perfume, and bovine gases would waft out the bathroom door.

I would always walk away from the locker feeling slightly nauseous, but my man parts would be tingling.; 9/19/19, 8:45 AM
CJinPA said...: I've always thought those 'brain activity' claims were overblown and oversimplified. Beyond that, nothing NYT reports about gender can be trusted.; 9/19/19, 8:49 AM
Brian said...: The way I read this passage:

"Those participants had then been put in an fM.R.I. scanner — which detects changes in blood flow associated with neuronal activity — and been shown the most arousing images as well as neutral, nonsexualized ones. What Noori’s team found was that image type — whether it was a picture or a video — was the strongest predictor of differences in which parts of the brain became engaged. Unexpectedly, the weakest predictor was the subjects’ biological sex. In other words, when men and women viewed pornographic imagery, the way their brains responded, in the aggregate, was largely the same."

is something like: the brain has to do so much work to process *any* video that the signal we're looking for about *what's in* the video is swamped.

Which is in turn to say that our current combination of tech and experimental design can't detect what we're looking for. That's an important result, and it's a shame that it's buried inside all this NYT-y nonsense about "social stigma, prejudice and misogyny" or whatever.; 9/19/19, 9:00 AM
Jeff Brokaw said...: I love stories that can be summarized “welp we were wrong again!”.

Remember all that stuff we said before on this topic? Whoopsie! But we got it right THIS time.; 9/19/19, 9:47 AM
PM said...: A sexy woman vomiting arouses a man's desire to go home.; 9/19/19, 10:15 AM
n.n said...: Sex, gender, and the limits of scientific viability.; 9/19/19, 11:01 AM
gilbar said...: Girls know this. So they wear skin tight pants (tights?) that reveal the exact shape of their buttocks; they wear low cut shirts and bras that hint at the size and shape of their breasts; they wear short skirts and thong underwear that promise a brief glimpse of a barely covered vulva and the subtle promise of more to come. They wear these things in the hope of attracting attention from boys.

now! Now!! NOW!!
I happen to be familiar with, at least One women; that while in high school wore tight miniskirts... And SHE didn't wear them to attract attention from boys; She wore them because her pervy father would leave playboy magazines on the coffee table, so that his daughter would know what would 'look good' on her; 9/19/19, 12:23 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: "What do women want?" Women are probably at least, if not more, sensitive to sexual arousal but they also are also have to be cautious in allowing those impulses full expression, not only because of unwanted pregnancies but to avoid bad sex partners. Women want sexual attraction/satisfaction and in the long term protection and security. If they are intelligent they also require strong signals that the guy is not selfish or inconsiderate, i.e., bad in bad. Women require screening mechanisms which seem to be more sophisticated than males and able to repress sexual arousal at times it is inappropriate. (vomit and feces do the trick); 9/19/19, 1:21 PM
FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/19/19, 1:35 PM
Narr said...: "Wow, Arnie, look at the scans on this babe!"

I won't trust any of this until they see what happens in neuroscientists' brains when they look at what happens in the brains of men who are looking at what happens in the brains of women who are looking at images of neuroscientists.

Narr
"Hey kids, let's do a grant proposal!"; 9/19/19, 1:47 PM
Tina Trent said...: Neuroscientists have been using the same "scientific" methods to advocate for releasing serious violent offenders on the grounds that they care not responsible for their actions.

And yes, it's just as entirely irrational and unprovable, but it works on the criminal courts.; 9/19/19, 1:50 PM
bagoh20 said...: That's OK, Honey. I'll hold your hair.; 9/19/19, 2:27 PM
Bilwick said...: The story may be apocryphal, but someone whose scholarly credentials I respect told me a while back that there was a study in which straight men were shown photos of attractive naked women. The photos invariably caused the men's pupils to dilate. Straight women were then shown photos of attractive naked men. No dilation, or not as much. What did cause the straight women's pupils to dilate? Photos of babies.

Given how women tend to vote, I would guess that a photo of a handsome, jackbooted IRS or ATF agents would cause major dilation, if not orgasms.; 9/19/19, 2:37 PM
Martin said...: "arousal" in the sense of increased blood flow, possibly to fuel increased cellular activity, does NOT mean the same a "sexual arousal."

And some people wonder why others of us are skeptical about hare-brained pseudo-scientific hypotheses that are shouted at us by people with obvious ulterior motives.; 9/19/19, 3:12 PM
Fernandinande said...: people with obvious ulterior motives.

One thing you can count on is:
NYT and its ilk = propaganda. They're always as dishonest as they can get away with.; 9/19/19, 3:42 PM
Fernandinande said...: Neuroscientists have been using the same "scientific" methods to advocate for releasing serious violent offenders on the grounds that they care not responsible for their actions.

Cite?; 9/19/19, 3:48 PM
Fernandinande said...: not responsible for their actions

FWIW, I think that crazy and/or poor impulse control is a good reason to NOT release someone, at least not until They can "fix" 'crazy and/or poor impulse control'.; 9/19/19, 4:02 PM
D 2 said...: wait. Don't dogs display a lot of interest in any vomit or feces they find on a walk? And who doesn't have a story about a dog and their crazy mating habits? Are these neuroscientists saying that ..... women are like, dogs?

Because that would be problematic.; 9/19/19, 4:51 PM
Baronger said...: Or it indicates that women are aroused, when their caretaker instincts are activated.; 9/19/19, 8:15 PM
Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...: Neuroscience claims to explain so many things about humanity. Yet it does not explain the human condition. That’s why I don’t take much of it seriously.; 9/19/19, 11:27 PM
Darrell said...: It's not the brain you want to be looking at in detecting women's sexual response.

I check for a flooded basement.; 9/20/19, 6:08 AM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: This is the root cause of TDS. It’s a fetish, they get pleasure from it.; 9/20/19, 8:07 AM
mikee said...: Sex, done well, is both a disgusting physical act and extremely pleasurable, simultaneously.
As foretold in the prophecies, and now as proven by science.

Robin Williams did a bit about males being repulsive yet attractive while sexy, where he'd imitate Charles Laughton as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, croaking out, "Do you find me ... repulsive?" Then immediately he'd switch to a piratical buckaroo whooping out, "Send the bitch back to me, NOW!"; 9/20/19, 10:27 AM
Tina Trent said...: @ Fernandistan: Brain Injury and Crime, British Psychological Society, is a good summary of applications including efforts to use not just brain injuries/disease but abnormalities as mitigation factors in sentencing.

MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience is doing the stateside advocacy for mitigation claims.; 9/20/19, 1:05 PM
Tina Trent said...: Also @ Fernandistein: of course a sane person would suggest that people whose brain scans "prove" criminality impulse issues should be less likely to be released, not more. But we're talking about the criminal courts here. You're being far too rational and sane.; 9/20/19, 1:09 PM