Channel 4 to broadcast three-part history of sex research

15 June 2011

One of Professor Cindy Meston's subjects

Sex Researchers - are they perverts or pioneers? Channel 4 is to broadcast an eye-popping history of the men and women behind modern sex research: the scientists who, for more than 100 years, have been peeking beneath the sheets, trying to uncover our deepest secrets. The boffins themselves range from the courageous to the deeply eccentric, while their methods are visionary, kinky and sometimes bizarre. But their findings have transformed the way we think of sex, and have changed our lives.

What soon becomes clear from the series is just how easy putting a man on the moon was by comparison with trying to figure out the mysteries of sex. It seems human sexuality is quite simply stranger than anyone could ever have imagined. And yet sex researchers still try.

Looking back, it's easy to see just how naïve many early sex researchers were, but even now, the cutting edge of sex research is fraught with difficulty and no little controversy as the series reveals.

Here are some of examples of recent research that feature in the series:

 

Women are turned on by... monkey sex?

In 2004, Professor Meredith Chivers conducted a landmark study, which undermined many previously held assumptions about the nature of female sexuality. Chivers wanted to know if there is a fundamental difference in the nature of male and female sexual arousal. Part of the study is repeated specially for the series.

A heterosexual man is given a keypad to register his responses and sensors attached are to his penis. He is shown clips of landscapes, of Bonobo monkeys mating and gay male porn. In each case, he gives no positive response at all. However, when he's shown pornographic images involving two women, it's a different story. The arousal he reports on the keypad corresponds directly to the swelling in his penis.

When it comes to women, it's a different matter. Chivers' female volunteer first inserts a device known as a plethysmograph into her vagina, which records her genital arousal by monitoring blood flow. The clips are run again. The female volunteer has no response to the landscapes, but when the erotic images appear, things begin to happen. Using the keypad the volunteer reports that she is only turned on by straight porn. But the probe says otherwise.  The jagged red line shows an increase in blood pumping into the walls of her vagina. This woman appears to be physically aroused by all the erotic images: straight porn, gay male porn, lesbian porn... and monkey sex.

Dr Marta Meana decided to investigate the proposition that heterosexual women often admit to finding other women sexy. To run the study, Dr Meana brings subjects into the lab and hooks them up to a sophisticated eye-tracking device. They're then shown a series of erotic images while software tracks their eye movements. Her studies consistently show that women look at images of other women as much as men and that they don't just focus on the genitals. Perhaps it's just more culturally acceptable for women to check out other women.  Perhaps it's a deeply engrained non-sexual response to do with sizing up the competition.

Professor Chivers' and Dr Meana's studies indicate that perhaps women's basic sexuality is far broader than previously thought.

 

The Cheating Gene

Justin Garcia believes his latest sex research has uncovered a cheating gene. One aspect of our sexual behaviour that we assume to be the norm is the forming of a monogamous relationship. It could be that social monogamy is normal, but sexual monogamy is not. Some of us, it seems, male or female, are more likely to cheat on our partners than others.

Justin Garcia: ‘It's not the cheating gene per se. This gene is really about risk-taking behaviour and new sensation seeking. Folks that don't have the gene, we saw that 20 percent of them had engaged in infidelity. Folks with the gene, it was closer to 50 percent had engaged in infidelity.'

 

Women are turned on by exercise

While other researchers are looking for some kind of female Viagra, Professor Cindy Meston is looking for non-chemical solutions. She has been conducting a number of studies looking at the effects of intense exercise on sexual arousal in women, and her studies indicate that sexual arousal is facilitated by exercise in women.

 

Taking the Pill could land you with the wrong boyfriend

Smell plays a powerful role in choosing who to have sex with, but there are some complicated mind games at work. Elisabeth Öbersaucher specialises in non-verbal communication and is investigating how smell influences our decisions about sex. According to Elisabeth's research, both men and women have evolved a series of smell tricks, designed to lure the best mate and ensure reproductive success. The tricks are subtle and complex, and happen without our knowledge.

First up, the odour trick of the attractive man - a subtle ploy designed to confuse the opposite sex. To study this idea, she gets four young men to work up a sweat. The four volunteers are of different ages, appearance and build. Once they have worked up a decent sweat, their T-shirts are immediately placed into separate jars. Next, four women are asked to rate the smells for attractiveness. The women are split 50/50 about who they find attractive. But when it comes to who smells worst, three of them agree. And the winner of the worst smelling man award is... the man who is youngest and arguably the best-looking.

The reason for this counter-intuitive finding is to do with a group of hormones that include testosterone and androstenone.  Men who are perceived to be more visually attractive produce more of these stinky hormones. It's not an evolutionary error, it's a deliberate ruse.

Elisabeth Öbersaucher: ‘This negative odour of attractive men is actually linked to reproductive success in a way. So men save time. They don't have sexual intercourse with women who are not in the fertile phase of their cycle, because they are repelled by this negative odour, and only those who are in the fertile phase will actually be able to bear this male odour and so the success rate in terms of reproduction increases for the men.'

One nil to the attractive men, saved by a bad stink from having to waste time on unfruitful sex. Elisabeth's research has revealed that women have a trick too to make men want to have sex with them when they are fertile. It's all down to vaginal secretions called copulins - a subtle blend of organic acids whose smell varies with the different stages of the menstrual cycle.

In the study, men are exposed to copulins; the particular blend is the smell of a woman who is at the fertile stage of her cycle. The concentrations are so low that the men are unaware of the smell of the vaginal secretions, but they still have a powerful effect. Men, when they are exposed to copulins, will have increased testosterone levels, and they will find all women very attractive. Powerful enough to allow the less attractive woman to grab a man when she is fertile.

Professor Öbersaucher's work is beginning to decode the complex interplay of hormones, bio-chemicals and the subconscious that seem to control our sex drive. However, we mess with this delicate balance at our peril. The way we already control our hormones with the pill could already be affecting the ability of some women to select a mate. In trying to avoid an unwanted pregnancy you might end up with an unwanted boyfriend.

 

Could overuse of Viagra cause impotence?

Professor Cindy Meston is conducting a study to find out if the overuse of Viagra is causing the very problem it was meant to solve. Many sex researchers see Viagra as a blunt instrument - a physical solution to what is not always a physical problem.

She testing young men who don't have erectile problems, and they're told they're either getting a placebo or Viagra. In this experiment, Professor Meston is exploring how the mind may in fact be more powerful than even this most potent pill. By playing games with the expectations of the participants in the experiment, Cindy is investigating whether taking Viagra unprescribed could have potentially damaging effects.

Cindy Meston: ‘There's recently been a lot of statistics showing that many of the men who are using Viagra-like drugs are doing so for recreational purposes, meaning they don't have clinically diagnosable erectile difficulties. They're using the drug to be able to enhance their performance. And one of the concerns is that over time, after extensive use of Viagra that the man may become dependent on Viagra and actually develop as a consequence, an erectile problem or disorder.'

Her study is ongoing, but many sex researchers today feel that the success of Viagra masks a lack of underlying research that is so desperately needed into our sexual behaviour.