November 21, 2024 by Merissa Prine
Pornography is a hot topic in sex research, with some of the most common topics studied being frequency of use and the impact of porn use on individuals’ lives and relationships. We’ve discussed porn research on our blog and podcast many times, with recent coverage spanning how pornography impacts adolescents to the history of porn....
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October 24, 2024 by Merissa Prine
It is common knowledge that women sometimes fake orgasms with their partners. At the same time, people seem to think that it’s something men don’t do because it is assumed...
Dating & Relationships, Gender, LGBTQIA+, Sex Q&A
March 28, 2024 by Emily Mendelson
Kimberlé Crenshaw is an African American civil rights activist and one of the foremost scholars on critical race theory and Black feminist legal theory. Her work on intersectionality has had...
Gender, Psychology
August 9, 2023 by Emily Mendelson
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a dick pic, there’s a high likelihood that it was unsolicited. For this reason, a majority of public discourse surrounding dick...
Books & Films, Gender, Media & Culture
May 29, 2023 by Olivia Adams
It’s been a busy month here at Sex and Psychology, but we couldn’t say goodbye to May before taking a deep dive into an important springtime topic: masturbation. Over the...
Gender, Psychology
May 4, 2023 by Olivia Adams
Heterosexual men’s difficulty in finding the clitoris has been a running gag in the popular media for quite some time. And there’s more than a hint of truth to it:...
Gender, Sex Ed
January 25, 2023 by Olivia Adams
The Pew Research Center recently published data covering Americans’ views on gender identity and issues affecting transgender people, with special attention to differences based on age, political affiliation, and other...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
February 14, 2022 by Justin Lehmiller
A lot of people seem to believe in the idea of “love at first sight.” For example, in studies of people who are currently in relationships, as many as 1...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
August 25, 2021 by Justin Lehmiller
The very first sex study that I ever published appeared in the Journal of Sex Research in 2011, and it explored similarities and differences in how men and women approach friends with...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
May 24, 2021 by Justin Lehmiller
I get asked about the future of sex a lot, and one of the topics that often comes up is how robots are going to change our intimate lives and...
Gender, Sex Ed
May 19, 2021 by Justin Lehmiller
A lot of research has examined how men and women respond to proposals for casual sex; however, the bulk of this research has focused on people who are heterosexual. This...
Gender, LGBTQIA+, Sex Ed
May 10, 2021 by Justin Lehmiller
How do you look back on your first sexual experience? For some people, it’s remembered positively, whereas for others, it is a source of regret and shame because they feel...
Gender, Sex Ed
April 12, 2021 by Justin Lehmiller
Our perception of time is inconsistent—and a lot of different factors can affect whether time feels like it’s flying by versus standing still. For example, watching water boil on a...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
November 11, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
When a couple decides to end a relationship, the result isn’t always a clean break. There’s often some degree of contact that continues and, sometimes, that includes sex. But who...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
November 2, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
When it comes to sex toy use, there is a pretty sizeable gap between men and women. Studies have consistently found that women use sex toys during masturbation at much...
Gender, Sex Ed
October 30, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
Some women masturbate right after having sex with their partner. Intuitively, some might assume that this necessarily means she was dissatisfied with the sex and compensating for an unfulfilling experience....
Gender, Videos
October 12, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
Cuckolding is a sexual practice in which one is aroused by the idea of watching or listening to their partner have sex with someone else. I’ve written quite a bit...
Gender, Sex Ed
September 16, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
Popular media reports frequently tout the damage that pornography use does to relationships. Some articles have made pretty bold claims, such as “porn-free relationships are stronger,” “watching porn can diminish...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
July 24, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
Survey studies have found that many men report having sent unsolicited photos of their penises (“dick pics”) to other people before—but how many people say they’ve ever received such a...
Gender, Sex Ed
January 3, 2020 by Justin Lehmiller
Rough sex is one of the most popular sexual fantasies. While it’s a common fantasy theme across genders, it is especially common among women. As I discuss in my book...
Gender, Sex Ed
December 11, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
We all like to imagine that our decision making is clear and logical and that we’re weighing the pros and cons before we act. The truth, however, is that we’re...
Gender, Sex Ed
November 18, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Most people report dreaming about sex from time to time. For example, one study found that 93% of men and 86% of women said they’d had sex dreams before. But...
Gender, Sex Ed
November 15, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Have you ever fantasized about what it would be like to be in a sexually open relationship? If so, you’re not the only one. It turns out that being involved...
Gender, Sex Ed
October 30, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
It is a widely known fact that people sometimes pretend to orgasm during sex. But just how many have ever done it? Why do they do it? And how do...
Gender, Sex Ed
October 14, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Casual sex is common, and studies suggest that most people will have it at one point or another. However, despite its prevalence, casual sex is widely misunderstood. Here are nine...
Gender, Sex Ed
September 11, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
How does attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affect people in adult life? Specifically, what are the implications for people’s sexual and romantic relationships? For the answers to these questions, I spoke...
Gender, Interviews
September 2, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Narcissism is a frequently maligned personality trait that involves being self-centered, entitled, and holding grandiose views of oneself. Sex researchers have long been interested in how narcissism plays out in...
Dating & Relationships, Gender, Sex Ed
July 17, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Three Women is a bestselling new book on sexual desire written by journalist Lisa Taddeo. It offers a deep dive into the sex lives and relationships of three American women...
Gender, Interviews
July 15, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Who’s your celebrity crush? I surveyed more than 4,000 American adults about their sexual fantasies for my book Tell Me What You Want and, among other things, I asked them...
Gender, Sex Ed
June 28, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
People can predict with modest accuracy whether a man (but not a woman) has cheated before based solely on the appearance of his face, according to a recent study published...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
June 26, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Much has been said and written in the popular media about the length of time it typically takes men and women to reach orgasm; however, most of this information is...
Gender, Sex Ed
June 5, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
There are lots of articles out there describing the most-viewed porn categories on Pornhub and other popular adult sites—however, that’s not what this article is. While big data insights from...
Gender, Sex Ed
May 27, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
The internet is rife with articles describing people’s frustration with online dating apps like Tinder. It’s interesting when you think about it because these apps were designed to make dating...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
May 24, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
The way we think about casual sex is all wrong, as Dr. Terri Conley argues in the TEDx talk below. Conely walks us through some of the key findings from...
Gender, Videos
May 15, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
When asked to describe a memorable regret, the things people mention most often involve love, sex, and romance. Common regrets include lost opportunities (like “the one that got away”), cheating...
Gender
May 3, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
According to countless popular media articles, there is a massive disparity between heterosexual men and women when it comes to giving oral sex. Some of these articles suggest that, in...
Gender, Myth vs Fact, Sex Ed
April 24, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Sex and aging is a topic that has been underexplored in sexuality research, given that the bulk of sex studies to date have focused on college students. However, we’ve learned...
Gender, Sex Ed
March 13, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Which sexual fantasies have you had? I surveyed 4,175 Americans about the content of their sex fantasies for my book Tell Me What You Want and found seven major themes...
Gender, Sex Ed
January 23, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
Purchasing sex used to be a very common behavior among American men. For example, Alfred Kinsey’s famous studies of human sexual behavior from the 1940s and 50s found that 69%...
Gender, Sex Ed
January 7, 2019 by Justin Lehmiller
The human body produces a number of different fluids—and those fluids represent a sexual turn-on for some people. From semen and sweat to blood and breast milk, almost any body...
Gender, Sex Ed
December 14, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
In studying the sex fantasies of more than 4,000 Americans for my book Tell Me What You Want, I discovered that there’s one person who’s more likely to appear in...
Gender, Sex Ed
November 23, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
I surveyed more than 4,000 Americans about their sexual fantasies for my book Tell Me What You Want and I found that group sex was one of the most common...
Gender, LGBTQIA+, Sex Ed
October 1, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
Psychologists and psychiatrists use the term paraphilia to refer to unusual sexual interests. In other words, a paraphilia represents a desire for an uncommon sexual object or activity. Hundreds of...
Gender, Kink & BDSM
September 3, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
I shared an article on Twitter the other day about the prevalence of infidelity, which prompted a response from my pal Dan Savage about how cheating is associated with the...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
August 8, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
One of the most reliable findings across studies of human sexual behavior is that heterosexual men report substantially more lifetime sexual partners on average compared to heterosexual women. In theory,...
Gender, Sex Ed, Videos
April 13, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
How many different reasons are there to have sex? At least 237, according to one study. However, that study was primarily based on young college students, which begs the question...
Gender, Sex Ed
April 11, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
There’s a lot of research out there looking at how many people have cheated, their reasons for cheating, and what “counts” as cheating; however, surprisingly little work has looked at...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
April 9, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
Are Americans today more or less likely to cheat on their spouses than they were in the past? And how have their attitudes toward infidelity changed—have they become more or...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
March 5, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
Several studies have found that women are more likely to have regrets about their previous experiences with casual sex than men. While men can certainly have regrets about casual sex,...
Gender, Sex Ed
February 21, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
Pink and blue are colors that are commonly associated with gender in many Western cultures. Specifically, pink is widely considered to be a “girl color,” whereas blue is widely thought...
Gender, Videos
January 26, 2018 by Justin Lehmiller
A reader asked:“What percentage of men and women actually enjoy giving or receiving oral sex?”Good question! Let me start by saying that oral sex has become an incredibly common sexual...
Gender, Sex Q&A
October 4, 2017 by Justin Lehmiller
Study after study has found that men and women have different age preferences when it comes to choosing both sexual and romantic partners. On average, men seem to prefer partners...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
August 30, 2017 by Justin Lehmiller
My social media feed has been blowing up lately with links to article headlines like this one from HuffPost, “Women Want More Sex Than Their Partner Does, According To New...
Gender, Media & Culture, Myth vs Fact
March 10, 2017 by Justin Lehmiller
The question of whether men and women differ when it comes to intelligence has long been a subject of scientific debate. For instance, some researchers have argued that men have...
Gender, Videos
February 27, 2017 by Justin Lehmiller
Much has been said and written about the "orgasm gap," or the idea that men tend to have far more consistent experiences with orgasm than women. However, the vast majority...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
February 15, 2017 by Justin Lehmiller
Several studies have found that men and women have different age preferences when it comes to selecting romantic and sexual partners. Generally speaking, it appears that men tend to prefer...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
January 18, 2017 by Justin Lehmiller
Pornhub recently released their annual year-in-review of users’ viewing habits and, as usual, the results were fascinating. Among other things, they reported that nearly 92 billion videos were viewed on...
Gender, Potpourri
December 16, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
The amount of sexual experience you have (or don’t have) could potentially affect how willing other people are to date or have sex with you, according to a new study...
Gender, Sex Ed
November 24, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
Several studies have found that men and women have different age preferences when it comes to selecting romantic and sexual partners, with men preferring partners who are somewhat younger and...
Dating & Relationships, Gender, LGBTQIA+
November 9, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
Most Americans who are in relationships have a spoken or unspoken agreement to be monogamous. In other words, they've agreed not to have sex with anyone but each other. Let's...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
November 4, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
Would your ideal relationship be completely monogamous, completely open, or somewhere in between? One thousand Americans adults were recently asked this question as part of a national YouGov survey and...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
August 17, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
There are undoubtably some important differences between the male and female orgasm. Among other things, men tend to reach orgasm more often, women are more likely to have multiple orgasms,...
Gender, Videos
August 8, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
Most of us—men and women alike—have been turned on by the thought of a threesome before. Indeed, study after study has found that this is one of the most common...
Gender, Sex Ed
June 15, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
Why do humans have sex? This is a question few scientists have bothered to ask, probably because the answer seems obvious: pleasure and reproduction, of course. However, research suggests that...
Gender, Sex Ed
February 26, 2016 by Justin Lehmiller
When men mistake women’s politeness or friendliness for flirting, this is known as sexual misperception. And it’s incredibly common. However, it’s relatively rare for this to go in the opposite...
Gender, Videos
December 21, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
If a stranger on the street asks for help, how likely would that person be to receive assistance? If the requestor is a woman in high heels or a man...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
October 15, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
Most scientific research on attraction and mating preferences has focused on what we desire in a romantic or sexual partner. But what about the things that completely turn us off--the...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
June 18, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
For much of our history, our bodies have been used to separate us into categories that tell us who we are (e.g., male vs. female). However, the more that science...
Gender, Videos
March 20, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
Although internet pornography is frequently criticized for depicting gender inequality, surprisingly little research has examined the actual gendered content of online porn. Moreover, what little research does exist in this...
Gender, Sex Ed
February 20, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
People have a tendency to think of child sex offending as being largely, if not exclusively, attributable to male perpetrators. This likely stems, at least in part, from the way...
Gender
February 13, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
Survey research has consistently found that men and women differ in the degree to which they desire certain traits in their romantic partners, with men placing relatively more value on...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
January 8, 2015 by Justin Lehmiller
“The birds and the bees” talk is an important, but oftentimes awkward milestone in children’s lives during which their parents explain sex. Although public opinion polls have found that most...
Gender
December 12, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
A new study claiming to demonstrate bias in how college students evaluate female instructors has been making a lot of waves in the media recently. The study, published in the...
Gender, Myth vs Fact
November 20, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
Pubic hair removal has been the subject of a growing amount of research attention; however, surprisingly little work in this area has addressed the question of how men and women...
Gender, Sex Ed
August 29, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
The orgasm gap (which refers to the idea that men have more consistent experiences with orgasm than women) has been widely publicized. To date, however, research on this topic has...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
July 30, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
How do you feel about the first time you had sex? If you pose this question to a bunch of different people, you’re bound to find a range of responses....
Gender, Sex Ed
April 30, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
Why do human beings have sex? Surprisingly few scientists have bothered to study this question, likely because it’s one that seems to have an obvious answer: humans have sex for...
Gender, Sex Ed
April 2, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
The term “paraphilia” literally means “beyond typical love.” As a result, it has become the word of choice among psychologists to describe a wide range of unusual sexual interests. However,...
Gender, Kink & BDSM
February 24, 2014 by Justin Lehmiller
Over the last decade, the concept of sexual fluidity has drawn great attention from both scientists and the general public alike. In case you aren’t familiar with it, the basic...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
October 30, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
Despite the fact that sexual scientists have long considered the breasts and nipples to be among the human body's biggest erogenous zones, there has been surprisingly little research on the...
Gender, Sex Ed
September 23, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
In what is perhaps one of the most well-known psychology experiments of all time, a group of attractive research assistants were instructed to wander around a college campus and proposition...
Gender
September 13, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
Every Friday on the blog, I answer people’s questions about sex, love, and relationships. This week’s question comes from a reader who wanted to know whether there is any support...
Gender, Sex Q&A
August 7, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
Over the past two decades, psychologists have devoted significant research attention to understanding the origin and nature of prejudice against gays and lesbians. At the same time, prejudice against bisexuals...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
June 17, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
Media reports tend to suggest that men and women are polar opposites when it comes to romantic attraction. Many news articles boil the difference down to “men care about looks,...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
June 5, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
How are Americans "getting busy" these days? Check out the infographic below to learn what a nationally representative sample of men and women reported doing during their most recent sexual...
Gender, Sex Ed
April 29, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
Many psychologists believe that jealousy has evolutionary roots. The theory is that heterosexual men evolved a tendency to worry about their partner being sexually unfaithful because they want to avoid...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
February 18, 2013 by Justin Lehmiller
Traditional gender roles dictate that men should be the primary breadwinners in heterosexual marriages. Throughout most of modern history, men have almost invariably brought home bigger paychecks than their wives;...
Gender
December 19, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
With the New Year approaching, people are starting to talk about their regrets from this past year and some of us are making resolutions to never make the same mistakes...
Gender
September 19, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
Research from multiple countries around the world has found that men tend to place more emphasis on youth and beauty while women tend to emphasize status and resources in their...
Gender
August 13, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
According to classic psychological learning theory, having a higher drive increases the probability of engaging in dominant (i.e., well-learned) behaviors; at the same time, the likelihood of engaging in non-dominant...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
July 30, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
I recently posted an article in which I concluded that “while it is indeed possible for both men and women to be bisexual, evidence from a variety of sources suggests...
Gender, LGBTQIA+
June 25, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
Sexual scientists have long believed that testosterone plays an important role in generating sexual desire. Just consult any Human Sexuality textbook and you’ll likely find a lengthy section talking about...
Gender, Sex Ed
June 18, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
When someone watches pornography, what is it that first captures their attention? Most people would probably guess the actors’ bodies and/or genitals, especially if they’re talking about male porn viewers....
Gender, Sex Ed
June 6, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
“Research has shown that men are more visually stimulated, while women are more literary; they’re turned on by words or erotic stories.” – Dr. Michael Krychman on Fifty Shades of...
Gender, Myth vs Fact, Sex Ed
May 16, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
You don’t have to be a relationship expert to know that intimacy is one of the cornerstones of a successful long-term partnership. Couple members who make a sincere attempt to...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
February 29, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
A few weeks back, I posted a Top 10 List of Sexual Fantasies, which contained a set of fun fantasies people have anonymously submitted to me over the years. As...
Gender, Sex Ed
February 15, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
Conventional wisdom tells us that women tend to be “choosier” than men when it comes to selecting sexual and romantic partners, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to back...
Gender
February 13, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
Every day, we are bombarded with messages telling us that “bigger is better” when it comes to breasts and penises. From top-heavy Barbie dolls and female celebrities with gargantuan chests...
Gender, Sex Ed
January 5, 2012 by Justin Lehmiller
“Friends with Benefits” (FWB) relationships seem to be all the rage these days. Several recent studies of college students have reliably found that over one half of the students surveyed...
Dating & Relationships, Gender
December 21, 2011 by Justin Lehmiller
"American women as a whole have never been confronted with such a radically shrinking pool of what are traditionally considered to be ‘marriageable’ men—those who are better educated and earn...
Gender
