Blogocentric Formulations

This Just In - July 19

Americans Have Some Pretty Vanilla Sexual Fantasies  
Written as part of "This Just In..."   for "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 

I'll admit that the title (and the header image of a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream) are what initially drew my interest in this article. Whoever came up with that as a lead-in is a genius.

After reading through the article, I was frankly really surprised to find that the majority of respondents most often fantasized about their current partners in new or favorite sex acts, rather than ones that would be considered taboo or forbidden. And only 7% of respondents reported fantasizing regularly about celebrities. Honestly, if I were doing this study and needed to form a hypothesis before beginning, I would have guessed that most people's fantasies would be more along the lines of, say, a threesome with two celebrity crushes, rather than, for example, taking a page out of the kama sutra with one's spouse or significant other.

I have to say, I'm actually kind of relieved to have been wrong about it (at least to the extent that this limited study speaks for the entire population about a topic that's rife with inaccurate data due to its sensitive nature). With all of the awful stuff going on in the world, it's nice to know that most people, when given the opportunity to fantasize, get turned on by the idea of spicing things up with their current partner rather than someone else.

On the other hand, though, I'm not entirely sure these results jive with other statistics, like how many couples get divorced, and how prevalent adultery is in our society. Maybe there's a study to be done in there somewhere... if most of us fantasize about our current partner, why do so many of us seek (or are at least willing to entertain) other partners?

Also, one of my favorite parts of studies like this is when their related findings are commonly understood but still reported like they were just uncovered through the hard work of this study. "It is widely believed that the mainstreaming of the internet has contributed to an increase in porn-watching." Yeah, no shit. And that "One study, published in 2015 by the Journal of Sex Research, found a 'big jump' in pornography consumption when comparing adults born in the 1980s to adults born in the 1970s, and it chalked that difference up to the fact that 'Children born in the 1980s onward are the first to grow up in a world where they have access to the Internet beginning in their teenage years." Again, no shit. You mean there was an increase in porn consumption once it became something you can get for free in the privacy of your own home rather than having to go out and get in magazine form from a newsstand (or your dad's/buddy's stash)? What a game-changing study three years ago!

And one last parting gift from this article. Sixteen percent of the study respondents reported that their favorite fantasies of all time are informed by something they saw in pornography. So if your significant other is into watching that kind of stuff, a quick perusal of his or her browsing history might just give you an idea of what would really spice up your love life. You know, so you can stop getting baited by those Cosmo articles. And according to this study, those fantasies might just surprise you in how vanilla they really are.