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November 30, 2007

Why do men like porn more?

Faye Flam in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

20071126_inq_carnal26aNeurobiologist and anthropologist Michael Platt of Duke University is studying differences in how the sexes respond to pictures in general. On average, his research shows, men will pay to see images of women. But you have to pay women to look at images of men!

Platt started with similar studies in monkeys. While most animals are indifferent to photos even of individuals in their own species, monkeys and apes respond to pictures much as humans do.

Rhesus macaques that Platt studied, for example, easily recognized the faces of familiar monkeys. And they liked some faces more than others, though the face wasn't always the favorite part.

Platt found that male macaques strongly preferred to look at pictures of females' rear ends and dominant males' faces. They liked them enough to pay, by sacrificing a chance to get a treat. But you had to bribe those same monkeys with treats to persuade them to look at female macaque faces or the faces of subordinate males.

More here.

Posted by Abbas Raza at 06:20 AM | Permalink

Comments

I am getting seriously, seriously sick of the public's obsession with drawing hideously inappropriate conclusions about humans based on the behaviour of animals. Pornography is a massively complex social phenomenon, and I'm quite skeptical about the conclusions we can draw about it based on the preferences of monkeys.

The ignorance of the social in mainstream science "journalism" is alarming.

Posted by: Nick Smyth | Dec 1, 2007 3:31:49 PM

Men watch porn, women watch soccer.

Posted by: Sajia Kabir | Dec 1, 2007 6:33:21 PM

"hideously inappropriate conclusions" - such as what? The article makes clear that these studies only mark a beginning and the second mentioned deals only with human test subjects. Was there really no flash of recognition that male macaques enjoyed looking at pictures of female macaque's derrieres? The shared primate love of ass is probably not so news worthy, but the study of these monkeys is valid for its own sake. If more nuanced tests reveal overlap in urges and behaviour what is the harm?

Posted by: Jesse | Dec 1, 2007 9:13:23 PM

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