In case you missed it, John Legend has assumed the heady mantle of Sexiest Man Alive. He took the title from Idris Elba. Who voted for that? Clearly Idris is better, no? Idris quipped that he wanted to keep the news quiet as Idris stole the title from Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson a few years ago and The Rock had yet to notice.
The article made me laugh, then second check myself - is it still ok to have such contests… beauty pageants? And off I went down that whole rabbit hole train of thought. But I’m not going to go there today – that topic has been well covered. Instead, I investigated why we find people sexy. The sort of questions I was asking about sexiness were: Why is a neck-nuzzle sexier than a nose-nuzzle? Do women have a myriad of erogenous zones and men only one? Yes, I mean the obvious one. And the answer, by the way, is that both genders have about the same number of erogenous zones, with women having a tiny advantage. In a 2013 survey conducted by one South African and two British universities, polling a sampling of 800 people, feet were not deemed sexy at all by respondents. What? Oh, sorry, I’m confusing my shoe shopping fetish; forgive my Sex in the City moment. But by contrast, if you watch the video link at the end of this blog, you will discover that two celebrated (they call themselves mavericks) neuroscientists have proven that feet are in fact one of menfolk's top four unconscious sexual attractors. All very confusing, but try to guess what the other three unconscious attractors for men are - one might surprise you. There are clearly many dynamics involved in sexiness, from pheromones and personality to timing. I decided to focus on neuroscience, and dutifully read the first five articles that popped up on sexiness and neuroscience. All were grappling with the flurry of recent studies which contested whether women and men’s brains are different. It seems that debate rages hotly right now, eclipsing other interesting issues, but the following three statements seem commonly agreed to: our brain is highly influenced by sex and vice versa; we are some mixture of nature and nurture; we are on the trail of the answers, but not close. In truth, until very recently, most of the research in this field was conducted on men almost exclusively. Scientists assumed we could learn everything about the brain we needed to from men and then we could adjust for those pesky hormones that only women have. Only recently have we started to study women specifically and our emergent community of "non-gender-normative" brothers/sisters. One exception to the fixation on sex-brain-gender-difference articles was a clinical study (a.k.a. hard to read) concluded in Belgium in 2018 on mice. The study pulled the covers back on a largely ignored molecule appropriately named kisspeptin/Kiss1R. It seems Kiss1R is key to regulating both which gender we are attracted to and it also regulates what we find sexy about them. But the study ended there, and we must await the next chapter. My personal belief is that the mice found Legend sexier because Legend was frequently on TV in 2018, whereas we haven’t seen a new Luther episode since 2017 and the Recency Effect kicked in. Ogi Ogas and Sia Gaddarm’s book A Billion Wicked Thoughts (2011) was by contrast very insightful. Ogi and Sia are Computational Neuroscientists who essentially devoured our (anonymized) sex related internet searches to draw conclusions and then cross-checked them through focus group and other research. It argues that when you truly believe you are anonymous your real subconscious nature comes through. If these topics interest you, I highly recommend their book. CLICK HERE for a fascinating taster on YouTube which, interestingly, compares Edward Cullen (Twilight hunk) to Shemale Porn (yup) to the Mona Lisa – it is cleaner than it sounds but it does discuss sexual themes with a class of university students in a light-hearted, educational setting. I’ve just started Cacilda Jethá and Christopher Ryan’s book Sex At Dawn (as in the dawn of time), which, in the same way that Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens looked back 60,000 years and challenged what we think of humanity, aims to take the same statistical-anthropological look at sexuality. It’s great so far, but again approaching a decade old. If anyone has recommendations for something from the last two years, I would love it if you could comment below. Anyway, no answer yet to my Idris vs John puzzler, but I promise I will sacrifice myself researching them both. In a bid to regain Idris his title, I have sent all episodes of Luther to universities to play to their mice
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Having a second career as a writer is a privilege I can enjoy because brave women and men fought for democracy. Their bravery and sacrifice deserve our recognition and remembrance and November 11th is the day we put aside to do so. Aside from my annual Remembrance Day reflection, I also love those moments where you see someone buy a beer or a coffee for a warrior to thank them for stepping forward.
As an admittedly somewhat awkward segue from my Halloween blog post, I want to recognise a little-known group of warriors called The Night Witches. They were one of the most celebrated air-warriors of World War Two. The Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment was one of three all-female squadrons. Despite having the oldest planes and uniforms handed down to them from their male counterparts, they became one of the most successful squadrons in the war. The Germans nicknamed them The Night Witches as their decrepit by-planes made a swishing noise which sounded like someone sweeping the sky with a broom. These brave aviators’ small planes could load just a couple of bombs under the wings and so to make a difference they did many sorties each night. It wasn’t uncommon for the old-fashioned bombs to get hung up on the bomb-release mechanism and pilots sometimes climbed out onto the wing at 3000ft to give the bombs a shove. Another group of women who were under appreciated during WW2 were the US and Canadian female pilots who ferried bombers, fighters and ammo from factories to the frontline airbases. The Allies wouldn’t let women fly in combat until decades later than the Soviets, and in the 1940s these brave women’s contribution was scorned by some male pilots. Belatedly, the USA granted the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) veteran status in 1977 and in 2009 the group were presented with the Congressional Medal of Honour. Better late than never I guess, and now women fight alongside men with equal status. In researching this piece, I came across many pictures of female pilots wearing khimar, burka and niqab’s. Pakistan, Afghanistan and many areas of the world I see as being less progressive also have women pilots in their modern fighter jets. Thank you, all you women, and men of course, for your service be it military, police, medical or fire-fighting. |
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November 2021
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