Reader Submitted
June 16, 2008
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SUBMITTED BY JESSIE WHITFIELD: Men aren’t just about tits and ass, not every guy wants to jump in bed with a woman immediately and an erection doesn’t necessarily signal sexual arousal.

Hard to believe? Then listen up, say scientists at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University.

Dr. Erick Janssen, an associate scientist at the Kinsey Institute, split 50 heterosexual men, ages 18-70, into focus groups depending on their age and talked to them about sexual desire and arousal.

The study revealed that women and men’s magazines are right about one thing. Men do, in fact, find a nice body to be “really attractive,” including a pretty face.

The majority of the men in Janssen’s focus groups concurred: physical attractiveness is hot, but so is intelligence and self-confidence.

But it’s not just about how a woman makes a man feel; a man’s mood, self-confidence and emotional connection with a woman matters just as well.

What was the biggest turn-on for men? An “overwhelming majority” of the 50 men said being outdoors (on a picnic or camping trip) with a woman boosted their sexual desire and arousal.

As for turn-offs, or things that inhibited sexual arousal, depression, the risk of being caught having sex and a woman with a lot of sexual experience were popular responses, although some men found these things to be huge turn ons.

Janssen says, “We have a lot of assumptions about how men think and feel and behave. This study’s challenging the idea that men are simple. There’s a huge variability among men in how easily they’re turned on or turned off, how easily they experience sexual desire and arousal. One of the main conclusions of the focus group study is that, just like women, men are different.”

Local men we talked to agreed. Said Scott Oltmann, a Mesa resident, “Any quality that gives pleasure to the mind (turns a man on), so beauty can be (comprised of) both physical features and personality.”

[Photo by Pablo Noel]