Myth #44: There's No New Sex Research

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Well, and on that note, shout out to Vancouver. That city was so LGBTQ friendly. Everywhere we looked, there was rainbows and flags and just a real positive vibe. Birkenstocks, Subarus. We got it all. Lots of dogs. Lots of dogs.

I mean, obviously the conference was in Canada, but researchers came in from Australia, South Africa, the UK, and to present what is kind of new and cutting edge in sexuality research. And also a big theme this year was reproductive justice. Well, yeah. There was a lot of talk about that. Well, yes. Yeah. So the myth of this episode is kind of just the myth that there isn't new research. Well, we know everything we need to know about sex and sexuality. Not even close. Not even close.

to your attention, Shannon, was a study conducted by Justin Lee Miller. And Justin is a professor who has written several books. And I actually use his Psychology of Human Sexuality book for my psych classes. Cool. And also has a book called Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want.

Well, and what was really more shocking is he looked at fantasies across the lifespan and what he found looking at trends over three, 4,000 people that he interviewed was that for fantasies about non-monogamy, which means, you know, more than two people. Sure. I know words. The lowest number of, was 18 to 29. The interest in couple, in group fantasies went up and peaked between the ages of 40 and 60. That is interesting.

Which we were like, oh, because there's a cultural norm that says, oh, it's the young people that are into all this fantasy. All this experimental whatever. Not so much.

Yes. As you go across the lifespan, in the middle from 45 to 55, the genders switched. And all of a sudden, women were more interested in BDSM than men. Interesting.

So for all of the kinks, other than, um, actually all of them, polyamory, open relationship, swinging, cuckolding, when you watch your partner with somebody else. For all of them, the age group from 18 to 29 had the lowest percentage of adults fantasizing about those things. Guess what's the highest percentage of fantasies involved for young adults? Monogamy. Monogamy. Oh, wow. So romantic relationships is what they fantasized about. Oh, I feel like so many people need a hug.

Okay. The largest reported fantasy group that had the most reported fantasies was 40 to 49. Huh. The highest in polyamory, the highest in open relationships, the highest for swinging, and So just to be clear, because you said these were kinks, but this is fantasy. The fantasy is about polyamory or open relationships or swinging or cuckolding or monogamy. Again, hilarious that monogamy in and of itself is a fantasy. But I just want to make sure we're not conflating the term kink with fantasy.

No, no. And some of the questions that he had, the BDSM question was really about. But what he was talking about, and that is fantasy. Exactly right, Shannon. The questions we said was, what is future research? And so what his research was for this study was what people fantasize about. His next study is going to be what people act on. Interesting. Also, man, so sad, young people.

But it does make sense because those older groups probably have had more experience with monogamy, so they're going to fantasize about what they haven't had, much like younger folks are going to fantasize about what they haven't had. And here's another Here's another thing from psychology. And Justin Lee Miller also spoke about this as well. In psychology, when we talk about personality theory, you know, ocean openness to experience the five personalities. The big five.

Well, what we have found in psychology is as you get older, you become one personality. more open to experience, and two, more extroverted, which really lends some support for these findings that fantasies involving other people become more predominant. Less insecurity. Yep, that's interesting. Third factor we talked about in one of our episodes. When you've been together a really long time, what do we look for in sexual activity? Novelty.

So it makes sense that people who are between 40 and 59 and 50 and 59 are looking for the novelty of different types of relationships. Tater tot starts looking pretty good when you've had mashed potatoes your whole life. It's the same, right? So there you go. Interesting findings. That is interesting. Okay. Next one I wanted to talk about, because we've also talked about gender identity on several episodes.

And specifically- Katrina Pereira, who is a professor at San Diego State University, conducted a study, a qualitative study, which, as we know, means talking to people. Hate it. Yep. Talking to parents who had children who changed gender as they transitioned. You mean transitioned? Okay. Well, some transitioning, some transitioned. Mm-hmm. And what she was trying to learn. So just outside the binary as well. Yeah, outside the binary.

So some were trans, some were non-binary, some were gender fluid. And she talked to these parents as she tried to get fathers. But every time she said, hey, does the dad want to get involved? They're like, no, no, no, he doesn't need to talk about it. Okay. But here's something that I found really interesting about this study. We've talked before, especially with LGBTQ, the importance of community.

Yep. Well, her findings was it was so important to parents to find a community and a supportive community to help them through the process.

Al-Anon is for families of recovering folks. Exactly. It's like you, yes, the person who's actually, you know, has this challenge in their life needs community to work through it, but their families and their friends also need a community to work through it because they're trying to be supportive, but you can't be supportive without support. learning.

Well, and even despite the higher numbers of young people who are identifying as trans or non-binary, it's still very new for parents to go through the process. Generationally. Yeah. And what was really interesting about her findings was that it was a process that even these super supportive moms grieved a bit.

Yeah. And you know what the, the, the, the number one story is, grieving the loss of the name yep yep because how important it is naming your child that's actually something that um we've talked about the l word and we've talked about the new season of the l word a few times on the show and like yes there are many gripes to be had with it but that is one of the narratives that they cover with one of the trans character stories that their mother is uh his mother is very supportive but openly

grieves the fact that her Well, and kind of similar to what Christy was talking about a couple of weeks ago. Grace. Parents talked about their children giving them grace, as long as they apologized and said, I'm trying. I'm trying. I made a mistake. I'm trying. But one of the stories that really wasn't a dry eye in the house, one parent was like, her child said, I want you to pick my new name because you gave me the first one. Oh, that's really sweet.

Well, and I think it does follow, though, right? Because a lot of folks who transition... you know, if there is a significance to their name before transitioning, they do try to maintain some elements of it. Like when we had Benny on in our first semester, Benny chose Benny because Bernadette was a family name.

That they just embraced their child as their child. It's your child. And that it really... wasn't that hard to celebrate the joy and the wonder that their child still is. Right. And as Glennon Doyle always says, anyway, we can do hard things.

So whether it's a phase or not, these parents all say... Yeah, it doesn't really matter. Let things happen organically. Exactly. Organically and healthy. Just love on your child as they're going through this gender identity process. Interesting. Really cool. The name thing is a really interesting takeaway. I appreciate that there's research behind that.

Yeah. So another study that I wanted to... talk to you about because we've talked about consensual non-monogamy several times on on the podcast and the young folk pining for monogamy which i get i love my girlfriend i like that i don't have multiple which which as we've said whatever you like whatever you choose monogamy is awesome okay consensual non-monogamy is awesome as long as it's a choice that you make healthy happy communicative relationships are awesome Continue.

Anyway, so Amy Moores and her group out of Indiana University did a recent national survey about the prevalence of attitudes towards polyamory and consensual non-monogamy, looking at 3,000, 4,000 adults across the country. So here's what they found. One out of six people report desire to try polyamory. Okay, one out of six. Which is as common as... However, many people in the United States would like to move to another country. Is that pre- or post-Trump? Yeah. I think post.

The surveys were done in 2019, so middle of. Interesting. Okay. One out of nine people have engaged in polyamory, which is as common as the number of people in the United States that have earned a graduate degree. Okay. Negative attitudes, however, are very common. Sure. Which is part of the reason, by the way, we have covered it so often on this show, is to kind of combat those negative attitudes.

And what they've said is almost 86% of people who were not interested in polyamory, so all of the other folks, reported they do not respect people engaged in polyamorous relationships. Rough. However... One out of 15 people know someone who has been or currently in a polyamorous relationship. Well, and here's the crazy thing, right? You've got 16, 70% of young adults in the United States being interested in it. And then the other percentage being like, no, not for me. But that's okay.

Can we get to a place where we say, it's not for me, but let's not be negative and stigmatize the people it is for? Yeah. I think that's where we need to get to. So wait, what was the age range of the participants in the study? Hang on one second. Was it the youths or was it a range? No, it was a range. I don't see the exact amount. Oh, and it was a sample of single adults. It is, though it's very funny. The survey is called the single sample, but it does have people in relationships.

It's just not... people who are immediately in a racial relationship. So as opposed to doing a survey of married people, they're single today, but it doesn't mean they were always single. So they could still report that they are interested in polyamorous relationships or have engaged in polyamorous relationships. It's just like right now that they're not. Got it. But it's basically a survey that they do in waves so they can keep collecting this data.

And it's a way that researchers can draw on all this data. The only thing I have here is that it was all adults. But generally speaking, this survey, the group that does these surveys do consider them adults.

nationally representative they specifically target people from different groups and different demographics to see where all of that um where all of that plays out what you are the other thing that you're seeing in this research is that you do have more interest in open relationships, consensually anonymous relationships in sexual minority individuals. Interesting.

What they found that was really interesting is that demographic variables like socioeconomic status and political affiliation actually don't impact those numbers at all. So you're still talking about 17% of this survey being interested in polyamory. Yeah. Which is actually in line with the trends towards more LGBT as well. So those numbers seem to be lining up.

So if one out of six people are interested in engaging in polyamory, which is the same amount of people that want to move to another country, what you're saying is we have the opportunity to start an amazing new nation. Is that this political season I'd like to propose? I don't think that's fair. That's not it? Okay. What we are saying is that this idea of consensual non-monogamy is not as outside the box or radical as it once was. As many folks think.

I also want to point out a little bit of a definitional thing because we like definitions and language here. Consensual non-monogamy is really the word that academia uses because consent is easy to understand. Ethical non-monogamy is what you see more often in the real world. Ethical. But as for an academic, how do you operationalize ethical? Right. So they use consensual. That is a good distinction. Thank you. Yeah. And I, well, I specifically asked the researchers that.

So I was like, Hey, how does that work? And that's what they told me. Cool. Makes sense. So a little bit more by the numbers. Want some more numbers from this conference? By the numbers you say? Are we going to talk about bisexuality? We just might be. Great transition. We already talked about gender. The jokes keep coming. Since we're talking about numbers and trends in sexuality, let's talk a little bit about bisexuality.

So as we know, bisexuality in sex research is defined as the potential to feel attracted to and to engage in sexual Mm-hmm. Pansexuality, on the other hand, is a term used to feel attracted to and engage in sexual or romantic relationships with people of all genders. Now, sometimes bisexuality is also used to be the umbrella term, to be bisexuality plus pansexuality. Really? In the research world. Yeah, I don't know about that in the actual lived world. Well, you know what?

In my experience, qualitatively, bisexual does not include pansexual. And we'll have to leave that open for debate. Yeah. Because I've never heard someone describe themselves as bisexual if they are

I feel like that number's higher in the U.S., Well, you're not including the L, the G, or the T. Oh, oh, yeah. Okay, that's interesting. And actually, in the research that I've been doing recently at UConn, the numbers, the bisexual numbers, are tending to be much higher than the gay and lesbian numbers right now. Yeah, but I feel like we could go into a whole unpacking of why that is, because coming into your sexuality is a big experience of pretending you're bisexual.

That's going to be the next study we talk about. That's the next study. Okay, perfect. But here's what I want to do. Also, I didn't say pretending to invalidate the bisexual experience. It's just my own personal experience of being like yeah totally but then I realized that that was not really true and then I'm just kind of queer anyway the positive part of these findings is that if you're comfortable with your sexuality right identifying

I do think there's a social norm that We talk so much about the minority stress model and how negative social stigma is to people who identify as sexual minorities. So the fact that you have, for every category, 80% or more being somewhat or very satisfied, I think is a positive trend. Totally. So there you go. Good job. So the other question you had was this whole issue of Identifying, disclosing, picking, quote unquote, asexual identity.

So there was a small poster presentation at the conference. Chloe Benningfield and her team in the University of Kentucky, of all places. Sure, UK. Had a poster presentation titled, An Exploratory Study of Emerging Adults' Decisions Not to Label Their Sexual Identity. And as you might have guessed, qualitative study. Sure. Because they had to talk to people. So they called it exploratory because at this point they have only talked to 47 participants, which is obviously a very small sample.

But yet it's a sample that has value because it has detail because of the conversation. Sure. 18 to 29, 72% white, 66%. female, and 79% as being part of the LGBTQ community.

And I think, I mean, you've spoke about this before, Shannon, that in some ways labels can be good because it gives you a community, but some ways labels, like binary labels, are bad because they put you in a box. Yeah. I mean, I think even... I haven't read this research and my presumption would be that those categories are that labels are unnecessary, that labels don't fit you, that labels make you feel uncomfortable or ostracize.

Well, so the first theme was labels are unnecessary and you're exactly right, Shannon. The next theme was no label fits. There was no label that describes me fully. My identity is still fluid and I want to stay open to possibilities. So there was a feeling that Why should I pick right now? Maybe I'm too young to pick. And the episode, it is the first season, and it's when Elijah tells Hannah that he's gay, or that he's sleeping with men.

And then he's talking to one of the other characters, and he's like, yeah, but I'm bisexual. And she's like, mm-hmm, okay. And then he tells his boyfriend that he's bisexual, and his boyfriend's like 15 years older than him, and his boyfriend's like, you're not bisexual, honey, you're just 24 years old, and you're trying to pretend that you can still go both

I'm just exploring my sexuality, but that's why... people use the term queer or they don't use a label is because there's also the fear of someone being critical. If you quote unquote, go back on your identity. Well, and I think that goes to the second theme that they should have said here is that nothing fits me yet. And I haven't figured it out yet. And the other piece of this study was individuals discussing the positive effects of not disclosing their identity.

Sure. And one, one, one, participants said, you know, I felt less stressed and free to explore my sexuality without boundaries. And this goes to right to what you just said. One of the quotes was, If I'm not attracted to men for a year, I don't have to explain. If I'm only attracted to men for months, I don't have to explain. If I switch it around, I don't have to explain. Of course, negative effects as any type of non-disclosure, feeling sometimes that you're not valid in your sexuality yet.

And I suspect that most of these participants were participants who didn't disclose because of fear of reactions from friends and family and community. And so it kind of goes full circle back to the idea of support Part of the reason we report on these findings, what's happening in sex research, is to really point out that these trends are real. They're happening. This is not people who are quote-unquote non-normal. This is not radical people.

This is all gender identity, sexual identity, kink, consensual non-monogamy, relationship diversity. All that's happening. It's happening. And the truth is that labels don't exist for you. They exist for other people. Because you can experience your sexuality and you can experience your gender without putting a label on it for yourself because it's your experience. The only reason that labels exist are to try to help other people articulate, but you don't need to do that.

And it seems like that's kind of what this study is getting at is there's a lot of feelings, especially in younger generations, that like, well... If the label is for you and not for me, then why do I need it? Exactly. And I think the same argument is made for a lot of young people who identify as gender fluid or gender queer or non-binary. Like, why do I want to pick?

Why do I have to, you know, I have friends who are asked, you know, Are you he, her, or you, I'm sorry, he, him, or she, her on a given occasion? And you just choose. Sometimes you wear a dress and sometimes you wear jeans. And, you know, we're not there yet in our society, but you can see from this research that the trend is towards much more, in today's youth especially, being open to possibilities and being open to exploring all aspects of identity.

Yeah, and I think that openness that you're talking about is really important. Like, open to be whoever you are in whatever way you want to be and open to being who you are with others too. And removing the labels just allows a lot more freedom. Yeah. And I felt like, you know, overall with, at this conference, there was, there were a lot of, obviously it was a three day conference. We could, I could talk about the conference for three days, literally.

But a lot of the conversations were about quite frankly, a lot of what was on, on the ballot. Yeah, yeah. individuals who are in consensually non-monogamous relationships. And yay to Massachusetts, Somerville, Arlington, Cambridge. They actually have statutes on the books now that you can have multiple partner relationships that are recognized by the town, which is fabulous.

You also have a lot of discussions around the fact that Gender affirming care and reproductive care don't have to be separately siloed. Yep. So that's some really positive trends. I mean, granted, it's a sexuality conference. But remember, this conference is based on science and research. From around the world. Because these are issues and topics that affect everyone globally.

And I did a survey using undergraduate and graduate students as they say at a large northeastern university a large undisclosed and unbranded university but the title of my talk was are social norms shifting around sexuality and what I looked at was the motivations to engage in sexuality and the barriers against sexuality specifically because there's so much research linking positive sexuality to more positive outcomes and you know I talked a bit as a social psychologist about social norms.

And we've talked social norms around sexuality. Like it or not, in most Western cultures and indeed most parts of the world, it's a very patriarchal society. Yeah. Yeah. Which in terms of sexual scripts means, Shannon... The orgasm gap. ...means that traditionally... men sought pleasure and sought physical pleasure and were entitled to it. And women were seen as looking for sexual activity for emotional connection.

Well, what I found in my research was one, first of all, with respect to all genders, regardless of race, regardless of sexual orientation, there was less interest in casual sex and hookup sex than men. Previously presumed. Interesting. Okay. Was pretty interesting. Secondly, the women in my sample reported having sex more often because they were horny. It felt good. And the other person was attractive. Sure. Sex positivity, baby. That's right. We love it.

And on the flip side of that, There was no gender difference in reporting reasons for having sex as being for love and connection and emotionality. That's because they're all fantasizing about monogamy. You know what? Honestly, Shan, I sat around with my research assistants when I got the results to this because I was trying to pull it apart because it seemed a little bit... Yeah, that's the fun thing

Whether that's a committed relationship or just, you know, a one-night whatever, I think as women value themselves more and there is more equality and feelings of equity between partners... you both get to benefit, or however many there are, get to benefit from all feeling like you deserve to get all of the good things out of sex.

Well, and one of the things I still have to pull out of this research, which I think, you know, maybe you'll hear in other podcasts, is looking at the difference between casual relationships and people in committed relationships. My sample included 62% were in committed or exclusive relationships. So I'd like to look at the difference between the two. Oh, yeah. That's interesting.

I also did look a little bit at sexual minority and And I had to collapse, as we talked about, collapse the categories between heterosexual and sexual minority. But interestingly, despite all the talk about lesbian bed death, sexual minority people identified more as a motive to have sex. Yes. I wanted the experience. I felt horny and I feel good. That's my community. I'm so proud of you. Of course, it does include the G and the B. Well, sure.

But I did think that was a pretty interesting finding. On the other side, looking at reasons not to engage in sexual activity. There was almost no gender differences across those reasons. Oh, that's interesting, yeah. To the extent that there was differences, more men had more reasons not to engage in sexual activity. And here's the thing that's really kind of fascinating to me. Body image is now being reported as much as or more by men as being a reason to not engage in sexual activity.

Interesting.

Because CourtVox did a really nice job talking about some of the, I guess... unspoken challenges for men in the bedroom. Yeah. And being able to be more sensual and being able to get rid of the masculine norms. Yeah. Confidence and vulnerability. That's right. That's right. So that's kind of the wrap up from Quad S. It was a super interesting conference, as you can probably get. That would make it five S's. You had to go there. I had to. It was right

Researchers always get PDFs of their own research articles and all you have to do is email the researcher and they will gladly give it to you. Okay. So yeah, if you want any of this information. We'll get it for you. Let us know. So that is another myth. Put to bed. Thanks so much for tuning in. And remember to keep listening to new episodes

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