Here are a couple of short articles on sex and romance in the Atlantic Monthly - Sep 2007 issue.
Any comments that "hobbyists" are far more enlightened towards women than "civvie" guys ?? Comments from hobbyists and providers ??
Either topic good use of research money ??
You think they ought to apply for an National Science Foundation grant ??
Does econimics still look like a "dreary science" ??
==
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200709/primarysources
What a John Wants
Among men who pay for sex, the repeat customers tend to have the most enlightened attitudes toward women, according to an analysis of johns conducted by four economics professors. Drawing on a survey of 1,342 men arrested for solicitation in four Western U.S. cities, the authors found that men who frequent prostitutes tend to be slightly older and much better educated than the average American male, they have less sex but more partners, and (as you might expect) they have unhappier marriages. The authors split the johns into two categories: regular customers and “experimenters,” who claim to have been with a sex worker at most once before being arrested. Regulars are more likely to view going to prostitutes as a way to have sex without bothering with conventional relationships, and they claim to enjoy sexual variety and tend to be less interested in control during sex. Experimenters are more likely to view visits to prostitutes as a complement to stable relationships, and they tend to have more-negative views of both prostitutes and women in general. Overall, 74 percent reported that they always wear a condom (men with stable relationships were less likely to use protection, at least with prostitutes).
—“What Money Buys: Clients of Street Sex Workers in the U.S.,” Marina Della Giusta, Maria Laura Di Tommaso, Isilda Shima, and Steinar Strøm, Applied Economics ( http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/osloec/2006_010.html )
Let’s Get Physical
Not content with having perfected (at least in their own minds) the language of love, the French are now fine-tuning its body language as well. A researcher at the University of South Brittany enlisted a good-looking 20-year-old male to hit on 120 randomly chosen women at a nightclub in Vannes. “Hello. My name’s Antoine,” he would say. “Do you want to dance?” Then the researcher did another experiment, in which three other Frenchmen accosted 240 young women on the street and asked them for their phone numbers. In both cases, the cruising Frenchmen found that women were much more receptive if touched lightly on the forearm. At the nightclub, 43 percent of the women who hadn’t been touched agreed to dance, compared with 65 percent of the women who had been touched. On the street, one in five women agreed to divulge their numbers after being touched—double the number who agreed without a touch. Other studies seem to confirm the researcher’s hunch that women find touchy men more “dominant” and therefore higher-status and more attractive. He cautions, however, that North America is a less tactile culture, and that a positive response to discreet pawing by a stranger may, in fact, just be a French thing.
—“Courtship Compliance: The Effect of Touch on Women’s Behavior,” Nicolas Guéguen, Social Influence ( http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a778855605&fulltext=713240928 )
==
-- Modified on 9/7/2007 7:15:51 PM
-- Modified on 9/7/2007 7:16:36 PM
