Horniness (AKA being sexually aroused) is a special state of body and mind. It’s a state during which we are much more likely to make risky decisions, not just about our sexual health, but about other things too. What else can make us forgo condoms, or lead us to believe our partners are not as risky as they may be? Our guest this week, Dr. Shayna Sparling, has been getting people sexually aroused in the lab (for research only!) and then tracking how this affects their thinking and decision-making. It’s a fascinating episode with some good take-home messages about sexual health. (Also, a glimpse into Dr. Zhana’s personal life and how she navigates using or not using condoms with new partners.) About our Guest Dr. Shayna Sparling is a postdoctoral research fellow based at Ryerson University in Toronto and the National Team Manager for the Engage Study – a multi-site national study on the sexual health of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. She has a PhD in Applied...
Sex work is one of the most stigmatized and misunderstood aspects of human sexuality. There are many different types of sex work, including phone sex, camming, stripping, “happy ending” massages, professional domination, and porn, to name a few. But the greatest stigma is probably reserved for the “full service” type of sex work (i.e., penetration and all), like that done by the workers at the Nevada brothels. (There are many other ways of doing “full service” type of sex work, from street walkers to illegal brothels to independent or agency-run escorts, but the Nevada brothels are the only fully legal and transparent avenue for this work). So what does it look like to live and work in these brothels? Who are the people doing these jobs, why are they there, what kinds of services do they provide, how much do they like the job, how often do they have orgasms with their clients…? Our guest on episode #58, Christina Parreira, answers these questions (and more) from both personal...
I’m sure you’ve heard of straight women making out in public with other women in order to attract male attention? It’s a phenomenon called “performative making out” or making out for an audience, and in Episode #57, we invited one of the main researchers studying it, Dr. KateEsterline, to tell us all about it. Are straight(ish) women the only ones who do it? How about gay women and men? How about straight(ish) guys? Why do you people do it? How is it different when people make out with someone of the gender that is congruent versus incongruent with their sexual orientation? Do people actually get what they were after with their makeouts? Listen on… About our Guest Dr. Kate Esterline earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Kansas in 2018. She is now working as a post-doctoral therapist at Purdue University’sCounseling and Psychological Services. Her research has focused on gendered experiences of performing sexual behavior, such as making out, in fro...
Every time Dr. Zhana teaches about almost any topic, someone asks a question about squirting, often referred to as female ejaculation. It seems like squirting is having a moment right now, with everyone and their mother wanting to know if all vagina-owners can squirt, what the ejaculate is made of, and how to make it happen. There is very limited science on this, which Dr. Zhana recently sifted through extensively while working on the online squirting course that her business partner, Kenneth Play, launched recently to teach people how to squirt. So in this episode, Dr. Zhana and Joe do something a little different. Instead of an academic researcher, we invite someone with an impressive amount of hands-on “research” when it comes to making vagina-owners squirt – Kenneth Play. Just how many vaginas has Kenneth had an opportunity to try and make them squirt? What’s his success rate? What’s the most reliable technique for making this happen? This and so much more in Episode 56 of ...
Testosterone is having a moment these days. T-boosting has grown into a $2.5 billion industry, with guys of all ages trying to up their T levels in hopes of increasing everything from libido to mood to energy. But what does testosterone do how about our cognitive processes? Could testosterone increase how quickly and automatically we make decisions about sexual situations, and could that lack of deliberation have a dark side that contributes to sexual assault and harassment? These are some of the questions that our guest, Dr. Gideon Nave from the U Penn Business School, attempted to answer for us in episode #55, based on several of his studies on how testosterone affects men’s reasoning and decision making processes in areas relevant to the last of the 5 Fs of basic, instinctive behaviors: fight, flight, freeze, feed, and, um, fornicate At the end of the episode we alsobriefly touch on yet another neurotransmitter that has received a lot of media attention over the past decade: oxy...
Happy belated New Year!Given that the holiday season is a time when a lot of people consume significant amounts of alcohol AND get frisky while under its influence, we thought we’d kick off 2019 with an episode that ties drinking and sexual consent. Specifically, how does being intoxicated impact people’s perceptions of their own and their friends’ ability to consent to sex? In her unusual “naturalistic bar study” (more on that in the podcast), Dr. Michelle Drouin from Purdue University enlisted drunken bar goers and their friends to take a half-hour break from drinking so they can blow into breathalyzers and answer questions about sexual consent! Her findings and our conversation on just how much alcohol impedes people’s ability to consent, and how our society should deal with this issue isabsolutely FASCINATING! Don’t miss it! About our Guest Dr. Michelle Drouin is aprofessor at Purdue University with a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Oxford. She is a...
Optimizing Sexual Satisfaction We all know having sex with our romantic partners is good for our relationship and sexual satisfaction. But why you’re doing it can make a difference; not all sexual motives were made equal. Some reasons to have sex lead to better and healthier outcomes than other reasons. Optimizing your intimate life is partly about making sure you’re doing “it” for the right reasons, and not doing “it” for the wrong reasons. In Episode 53, Dr. Zhana and Joe talk to Dr. Jessica Wood about her research on the different types of reasons people have sex, how these different motives affect their relationship and sexual satisfaction differently, and whether this differs between folks in monogamous versus consensually nonmonogamous relationships. Curious about what the “good” and the “bad” reasons are? Tune in to learn more! You can read the full study discussed in the episode, here. About our Guest Dr. Jessica Woodis a Research Associate in the Department of Psy...
What is it about teachers that make them so hot? According to the popular college professor reviewing website, Rate My Professors, it’s more than just looks. But how does their rating system work? How are female professors rated versus their male peers? In Episode 52, Dr. Zhana and Joe talk to New York University professor Pascal Wallisch about how students rate and tag their favorite (or not-so-favorite) professors on the divisive yet popular website, Rate My Professors. Does the site enable students to label their professors in a way that affirms gender stereotypes? And while Dr. Zhana and Pascal savor their hot pepper status, some professors would prefer that not to be a factor. Also— do you know the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath? Pascal provides us with some more info on the 1% of the population who is psychopathic and answers the first question on our minds— do they have sex? Tune in to learn more! About our Guest Pascal Wallisch serves as clinical assistan...
We have covered some kink, fetish and BDSM ground on the show, but this time we delve deep into the details of one specific kink: pup (or puppy) play. What is ‘pup play’? Who are ‘bio-pups’, and why are they so into this? Is this related to zoophilia / bestiality, or the world of furries? In Episode 51,Dr. Zhana and Joe talk to Dr. Liam Wignall about his research on pup play and the people who are into it.He became the first to research this topic after it just kept “pupping” up for him in his research on kink for his PhD.Pup play is exactly what it sounds like; people who are into behaving as puppies socially and sexually. This kink has gotten more attention recently because of the internet, which is the primary way many people discover and start exploring it. Tune in to find out more about pup play from its foremost expert. You can read the full study discussed in this episode, here. About our Guest Dr Liam Wignall is a Lecturer in Psychology at Bournemouth University and a ...
Do you know the difference between sex and gender? Or what it means to be “gender nonconforming”? Trans or transgender? Genderqueer and gender non-binary? Our understanding and language around sex and gender has been rapidly expanding, and we don’t blame you if you’re not super familiar with it all. In Episode 50,Dr. Zhana and Joe talk to Dr. Seth Pardo about his research on the gender identity and gender presentation of 170 folks who were assigned female at birth but identify as gender nonconforming to some extent. From defining important gender terms to giving direction for the best way to ask about people’s pronouns, Dr. Pardo manages to inform and advise people like Joe, who are less familiar with the trans community. We had so much to talk about with Dr. Pardo, that we decided to skip the foreplay this week and get right into it. For more first-person narratives of trans lives, check out the memoirs Dr. Seth Pardo references in the episode: Becoming a Visible Man –Jamison...