{"id":31754,"date":"2020-10-23T12:23:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T10:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/?p=31754"},"modified":"2024-04-14T20:42:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T18:42:30","slug":"things-you-dont-want-to-know-about-sexual-attraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/things-you-dont-want-to-know-about-sexual-attraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Things You Don\u2019t Want To Know About Sexual Attraction"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s strange and confusing about sex. When you boil human sexuality down and examine its constituent parts, none of it makes any sense and it\u2019s a miracle any of us manage to do it at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s because we\u2019re complex psychological animals who have to, for the first time in known history, apply conscious, intellectual thought to sometimes irrational and contradictory instincts. That\u2019s what makes it fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

But understanding it isn\u2019t always fun. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve pulled together these three uncomfortable facts about our sexual psychology. Stop reading now or your sex life might be ruined. Go and read Cosmo or something, and wrap yourself up in the fiction that everything is warm and simple. Go on. Off you pop.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Things<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You\u2019re Attracted to Your Parents.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I know, I know, sorry. No one said this would be easy. But we\u2019ve suspected for a while that our opposite-sex parents have a strong influence on our own burgeoning sexualities (for straight people, at least. As ALWAYS, the research into non-straight and nonbinary<\/a> folk doesn\u2019t exist.).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s not quite as weird as it sounds. We\u2019re not sexually attracted to our parents. Not usually, at least. What we\u2019re attracted to are elements associated with our parents\u2019 characteristics. One study subliminally exposed a group of undergrads to photos of their opposite-sex parents (and to others\u2019 parents as a control). Then, they measured the students\u2019 sexual attraction to photos from their parents\u2019 yearbooks.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As you might guess, the majority inadvertently rated their attraction to their own parents\u2019 in their yearbook photos as markedly higher than the control group. Other studies show that we are more likely to take sexual partners that resemble our opposite-sex parents. It seems we\u2019re programmed to do it. We\u2019re more likely to be romantically involved with a partner who shares the same eye colour, hair colour, and vocal profile as our opposite-sex parent.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Red is Sexy Because of Our Genitals<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      We find people more attractive when they\u2019re dressed in red. Study after study proves it. The colour red enhances our perception of physical attractiveness and, more simply, sexual availability. Red runs deep into our culture: Ferraris, lipstick, red dresses, red heels, you name it, our society has adopted it to signify sexuality and status.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Why red, then, and not, say green? Researchers believe that we find red particularly sexually appealing because of our evolutionary history. To put too fine a point on it: red signals our sexual receptiveness by association with our genitals engorging with blood. Sexy, huh?<\/span><\/p>\n

      Female primates indicate sexual receptiveness with engorged, red tissue on their chests, lips, and genitals. We\u2019ve been conditioned over millions of years to associate it with sex.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Being Horny Makes Gross Stuff Sexy<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        You\u2019ve probably noticed that some things that would normally gross you out actually turn you on when you\u2019re horny. There\u2019s science behind that. A recent study found that men who had just viewed erotic imagery rated normally disgusting stimuli as less disgusting. Whether its smell, auditory, tactile or visual, we can tolerate it more if we\u2019re sexually aroused, even if we would normally consider it disgusting. It is apparently even more true if the stimuli were sexual.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Further research indicated that we were far happier to enjoy \u2018disgusting\u2019 sensations \u2013 such as the smell of condoms, or the sensation of thick liquids \u2013 much more appealing if it\u2019s done during arousal. It suggests that we\u2019re conditioned to be turned off normally, except when it\u2019s necessary for sex to occur. We\u2019ll put up with much more than we normally would.<\/span><\/p>\n

        That seems accurate.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s strange and confusing about sex. When you boil human sexuality down and examine its constituent parts, none of it makes any sense and it\u2019s a miracle any of us manage to do it at all. That\u2019s because we\u2019re complex psychological animals who have to, for the first time in known history, apply conscious, intellectual thought to sometimes irrational and contradictory instincts. That\u2019s what makes it fun. But understanding it isn\u2019t always fun. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve pulled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":31755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[925,924,21,929,923],"tags":[],"coauthors":[946],"class_list":["post-31754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-committed","category-dating","category-sex-tips-advice","category-sexual-wellness","category-single"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThree Things You Don\u2019t Want To Know About Sexual Attraction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lelo.com\/blog\/things-you-dont-want-to-know-about-sexual-attraction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Things You Don\u2019t Want To Know About Sexual Attraction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s strange and confusing about sex. 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