Ladies, let’s be honest. Sex is awesome, but it also is kind of gross – we’re talking sweat, bodily fluids and embarrassing sounds. Fantastic and all as it is, it isn’t the most attractive thing in the world when you think about it.
This is why researchers at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands decided to try and identify the psychology that leads us womenfolk to willingly engage in sex, despite the fact that certain aspects of it are, well, a bit icky.
We won’t lie – the results, which were published in the journal PLoS ONE, were actually pretty fascinating believe it or not.
Apparently, when we get turned on by our partners, those feelings of arousal actually override any feelings of disgust we may have towards sex.
“Women [who] were sexually aroused were more willing to touch and do initially disgusting tasks,” said Charmain Borg, the co-author of the study.
Women who are aroused are better able to deal with ‘disgusting’ things apparently
Ms Borg and her colleagues separated 90 female students into three equal groups. One group watched some “female friendly erotica,” another group watched a video of extreme sports that was meant to get them excited in a non-sexual way and the final group watched a video of a train that was meant to leave them feeling relatively normal.
The women were then given 16 unappealing tasks – they were asked to drink juice that had a large (fake) insect in it, to wipe their hands with a used tissue and to do other more revolting things.
Women who had watched the dirty video said they found both the unpleasant tasks and the more revolting tasks less disgusting than the women in the other groups – they also completed more of the tasks.
The researchers concluded that arousal helps us to stomach things that we would normally find disgusting or unpleasant, like body fluids.
Hmm…it also explains why the vast majority of us tend to turn a blind eye if himself lets a fart rip while we’re getting down and dirty. What do you think ladies?
