Eroticism differs from animal sexuality in that human sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboos. – Georges Bataille
As so often happens these days, reporters looking for clickbait to draw eyeballs to their flashing, jiggling banner ads were recently all a-buzz about a new study which purported to discover which sexual fantasies are “normal” and which are “abnormal”. Aside from the disturbingly-judgmental bias in what should be an objective study, a lot could be said about the flaws in the experimental design; I asked my go-to methodology guru Kevin Wilson about it, and he said:
…The sample was recruited primarily online and via ads, social contacts, etc; it’s probably best considered to be a convenience sample and is almost certainly not representative of the adult population at large. As such, it’s hard to trust the prevalence rates generated by the data, or that they generalize to the general population from which the sample was drawn…Originally, each fantasy was presented to participants in the survey along with an eight-point scale measuring intensity of interest in that fantasy (where zero = “not at all [interested]” and seven = “completely [interested]”). The authors coded responses of three or higher as indicating an interest in a given fantasy; this is arbitrary and no justification appears to be offered…the authors’ definition of unusual (endorsed by 15.9%) and rare (2.3%) sexual fantasies is likewise arbitrary…They could just as easily have said, “less than 1% is rare because… 1% is a small number” and had it been just as valid…
But there’s a bigger problem, which as it turns out I’ve written on before when the titillation du jour was the claim that fewer men were paying for sex:
…the General Social Survey…has one huge, massive flaw that was mentioned by my psychology professors way back in the Dark Ages of the 1980s, yet seems not to trouble those who rely upon it so heavily these days: it is conducted in person, face to face with the respondents. And that means that on sensitive topics carrying criminal penalties or heavy social stigma, the results are less than solid; negative opinions of its dependability on such matters range from “unreliable” to “useless”. The fact of the matter is that human beings want to look good to authority figures (like sociologists in white lab coats) even when they don’t know them from Adam, so they tend to deviate from strict veracity toward whatever answer they think the interviewer wants to hear…
So, what does this study say constitutes an “abnormal” fantasy?
“Clinically, we know what pathological sexual fantasies are: they involve non-consenting partners, they induce pain, or they are absolutely necessary in deriving satisfaction,” Christian Joyal, the lead author of the study, said…The researchers found that only two sexual fantasies were…rare: Sexual activities with a child or an animal…only nine sexual fantasies were considered unusual…[including] “golden showers,” cross-dressing, [and] sex with a prostitute…
Joyal’s claim that sadistic and rape fantasies are innately “pathological” is both insulting and totally wrong; we “know” no such thing. And did you think it was a coincidence that pedophilia and bestiality were the only two fantasies to fall into the “rare” category during a time when those are the two most vilified kinks in the catalog, kinks which will result in permanent consignment to pariah status if discovered? Guess again; as recently as the 1980s it was acceptable to at least talk about both of these, and neither is as rare as this “study” pretends. But Man is a social animal, and even if someone is absolutely certain of his anonymity (which in the post-Snowden era would be a much rarer thing than either of those fantasies), few are willing to risk the disapproval of a lab-coated authority figure even if he isn’t sitting directly in front of them. What this study shows is not how common these fantasies actually are, but rather how safe people feel admitting to them. And while that’s an interesting thing in itself, it isn’t what everyone from researchers to reporters to readers is pretending the study measured.
The thing is, those who would mold public opinion know perfectly well that
“And that means that on sensitive topics carrying criminal penalties or heavy social stigma, the results are less than solid; negative opinions of its dependability on such matters range from “unreliable” to “useless”. ”
If the “results” suit their desired ends, they quote them anyway. Given their obvious opinion of the public they wish to control, it’s interesting that they feel the need to actually do the “research” in the first place.
A parallel example; Every few years we hear that smoking among teenagers is down. Oh, really?!? My take is that (assuming the numbers quoted aren’t simply made up) that fewer and fewer teens trust those placed in authority above them enough to tell them much of anything. Given what we are constantly hearing about how children are treated in school, I personally would trust a “confidential” survey about my personal habits about as far as I would an irritated cobra.
That smoking is down among teenagers is confirmed by everything from surveys to how often you see teenagers smoking to how many teens show up at the hospital for smoking-related problems (and yes, teens can suffer smoking-related problems).
Teen pregnancy is also down, for the record.
But again, cspschofield, the devil is in the details. Is smoking down? What about vaping?! Like in another of Maggie’s articles, what is the difference between a survey that asks “have you ever paid for sex” and “have you ever hired a prostitute.” But I do wish I could believe teens didn’t trust authority, I can no longer trust anything on the TV anymore, but all those people who do trust the TV news or the talking-head opinion shows, or those who believe the paradigm of “lesser of two evils,” they’re all coming from somewhere. I think they’re coming from those teens you mentioned.
Vaping isn’t the same as smoking. I don’t think the two should be confused – though, for obvious reasons of appearance – they are.
Also because the Anti-Smoking Crusaders absolutely cannot tolerate that people might take up a substitute for smoking that THEY DIDN’T APPROVE.
Maggie herself has brought this up in her columns that I’d like to point out. There are many men who fantasize about having sex with a teenage girl but won’t say anything for fear of being perceived as a pedophile. I’m not saying that it’s right, but lusting after a 19-year old is not the same thing as an 11-year old.
I don’t think the smoking numbers are fake since cigarette sales are way down from their peak.
On topic:
I think it’s true that certain fantasies will be undercounted in such surveys if they are illegal or face censure otherwise.
It seems like they assumed a Standard Normal Distribution to categorize fantasies as unusual (1 standard deviation above normal) or rare (2 standard deviations above normal). Those terms can be defined differently, but I don’t think it matters.
I wouldn’t discount the study too much though: I was surprised how commonly people admitted to BDSM or transgender fantasies. I would not have expected that. In my opinion that is a sign that maybe the study isn’t too far off.
Are they, now? Or is the black market alive and well? Are people smoking tobacco marketed as “pipe tobacco” which just happens to have the PH of cigarette tobacco.(Yes, this is a thing.)
So much hogwash has been spewed by all sides of the smoking question for so long that it resembles the Drug War; how do you tell some statistic is a lie? Somebody published it.
Don’t know about sales – but tax revenues from tobacco are up … up … up!
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=403
This Guy!
By the way … I got involved in a huge, heated debate with a Catholic who called me a “sicko” … LOL. It was over some case where a 28 year old male teacher had sex with a 14 year old female student. I state, repeatedly, that I don’t condone that – but I did support a jury’s finding that girl wasn’t entitled to “pain and suffering” because she had an established track record of that kind of sexual conduct and she appeared to be an “adult” capable of determining right and wrong.
Anyway – since the gal I was arguing with was Catholic – I decided to see just what the Catholic rules were on this. According to PRESENT Canon law – the church endorses marriage of girls who reach the age of 14. Even if her parents do not approve of the marriage.
The only reason that the Catholic church doesn’t perform 14-year old marriages in the US is because it’s contrary to state law in all 50 states.
LOL – so I took great glee in pointing out to this Catholic that … “Hey, you’re calling me a “sicko” because I think – MAYBE – some 14 year old girls should be treated as adults – meanwhile YOUR OWN CHURCH says that they should certainly be treated as adults!”
Thought some might find it useful to read the following excerpts from Roman Catholic canon law bearing on matrimony as it stood as of 1983:
http://www.catholicdoors.com/misc/marriage/canonlaw.htm
“Canon 1083.1 A man cannot validly enter marriage before the completion of his sixteenth year of age, nor a woman before the completion of her fourteenth year
Canon 1072 Pastors of souls are to see to it that they dissuade young people from entering marriage before the age customarily accepted in the region.
Canon 1071.1.6 a marriage of a minor whose parents are either unaware of it or are reasonably opposed to it;
Canon 1071.1.2 a marriage which cannot be recognised by the civil law or celebrated in accordance with it;
Canon 1084.1 Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have sexual intercourse, whether on the part of the man or on that of the woman, whether absolute or relative, by its very nature invalidates marriage.
Canon 1095.1 The following are incapable of contracting marriage:
Canon 1095.1.1 those who lack sufficient use of reason;
Canon 1095.1.2 those who suffer from a grave lack of discretionary judgement concerning the essential matrimonial rights and obligations to be mutually given and accepted;
Canon 1095.1.3 those who, because of causes of a psychological nature, are unable to assume the essential obligations of marriage.
Canon 1096.1 For matrimonial consent to exist, it is necessary that the contracting parties be at least not ignorant of the fact that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman, ordered to the procreation of children through some form of sexual cooperation.
Canon 1096.2 This ignorance is not presumed after puberty.”
Note that the female age of sexual consent, although implied, is set at age fourteen also that civil laws addressing age-of-consent are recognized (although, according to other parts of the canon I omitted above, civil law is authoritative only if it does not impinge divine law, so is merely applicationally, not absolutely, binding); also that sexual interaction is integral to the Romanist definition of marriage, and that a woman is assumed to know so after puberty.
Yep … thanks for that. Although sex with a 14 year old is a BIG turn-off for me personally (and I’m not lying about that) …
When I went back through history I found that marriage and ages of consent in the later teens is a relatively recent development. It’s not just the Catholic religion – it’s virtually all of the Western cultures prior to the early twentieth century.
And – Spain, only last year, raised the age of consent from 13 to 16.
If we have to have an arbitrary number – I don’t really have a problem with the age of 16 as age of consent / marriage.
16 is about the age I quit “maturing” anyway! 😛
Yep, on the age-of-consent-through-most-of-recorded-history. Humanity apparently recognized and accepted the biological reality that around age fourteen, a female can conceive and that, therefore, she is old enough to consent to sex.
While it obviously did not, the advent of effective contraceptives should logically have reaffirmed the thinking that a female can consent around-age-fourteen, since contraceptives minimize the main (biological) incentive for her to abstain, namely, potential for an unwanted pregnancy.
The deterioration of this aspect of societal thinking toward human sexuality seems to me integral to post-1900 Western social trends of redefining and infantilizing what we’ve come to call “adolescents”. It’s no secret that a boy of age sixteen and a girl of age fourteen were more-or-less capable of running a farm and a household by those ages before 1900; but modern industrial trends and urbanizations radically changed that, and, consequently, adolescents no longer possess the levels of maturity and experience their predecessors did at their ages. A fourteen year old girl in the USA today is typically NOT equipped for even simpler responsibilities of cooking meals and handling household chores, never mind being being fully responsible for child-raising or mature social relationships. So, I can see that raising the age of consent is an expedient — but, I don’t see it as the “enlightened social progress” many claim, but rather, as a tourniquet to address what has been societally lost..
Myself, ditto about girls age fourteen. — in fact, as a long-time swinger and husband in an open-marriage (married 35 years, by the way), I’ve found that I prefer over-40 women. Sure, youth is physically attractive, but as far as mutually-enjoyable sex and sensuality, the skills, self-awareness and self-knowledge, attitudes, and experiences that an older woman has usually only acquired through years can’t be matched by young women.
And yeah — I’ve said for most of my 58 years that “I’m still 16 in the head!”
Mississippi allows 14yo girls to marry with parental consent. I’d guess few do.
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