Is your erotic Parks & Rec fanfic fixation getting out of hand? Does your ideal sexual situation involve getting jiggy with your partner and another consenting adult? A newly-published study from the University of Montreal has attempted to get to the bottom of what gets people off, investigating the most common desires and “erotic thoughts” of men and women.
The Courier Mail report that just over 1500 people participated in the study, with a fairly even mix of genders. 85% of those surveyed identified as heterosexual, 3.6% reported that they were homosexual, while the remaining 10.4% fell into the delicious, gooey area that the study determined “somewhere between.”
The key claim made by the study is that women have “a much clearer delineation between fantasy and desire”. In simpler terms, that means that the majority of men surveyed indicated that they wanted their sexual fantasies to become reality, whereas the majority of women reported “little interest” in moving beyond them.
Here’s where it gets more interesting – or problematic, depending on how comfortable you are with the idea of university study having your sexual desires all figured out.
The results indicated that a “statistically significant” portion of women in the study – between 30 and 60 percent – fantasise about “themes associated with submission”, from light bondage to more extreme and forceful sex. Sex with strangers was also a commonly-reported desire. The survey indicated, however, that the women surveyed “never want these fantasies to come true.”
Allegedly, both men and women fantasise about threesomes in equal numbers, but men report a “much stronger desire” for these fantasies to actually come true. Men tend to fantasise about cheating on their partners more than women, and interestingly, the object of fantasy tends to be “someone they know.”
Popular fantasies across the genders include, sex in romantic locations, receiving oral sex (not giving … which is typical), and group sex, although once again, according to the study, men are more likely to want to turn group sex fantasies into a reality.
Many men reported fantasies of watching their partner have sex with another man, although apparently, few women share this fantasy. The results also indicate that heterosexual men express a significant interest in the idea of anal sex.
The researchers behind the study say that their conclusions may be “helpful in unwrapping the secret desires of women, who in general tended to be less graphic in detailing their desires.” There is a chart here that breaks down the responses given, divided along gender lines.
So what does this information mean for you? Are your sexual fantasies ‘usual’ or ‘unusual’ in comparison with the rest of the adult population, and more to the point, do you actually give a shit?
Interesting though they may be, the study’s conclusions seem as if they could be very easily misinterpreted and misconstrued, and used to further old-fashioned notions about what is normal and abnormal when it comes to sexual desire.
At the end of the day, dear reader, you should go on doing you and letting your freak flag fly, and if you happen to be one of the reported 10% of men of 3.5% of women who reported a desire to have their partner experience golden showers, we hope you find that special person to pee on you.
Image via Universal Pictures
