Bona-fide science: Which forms of unusual sex are mainstream?

Re: Yay, more survey based "science"

Not at all. People on the whole are very much alike so the ones who didn't wish to describe their fantasies would most likely have the same ones but simply didn't want to take part in the survey, couldn't be bothered, didn't have time, whatever.

Re: Define romantic location

Dad?

Re: Define romantic location

That all depends on what you did with candle, or the hot wax, afterwards in the back of your "Trani" van.

Re: Define romantic location

@Candle Coward

Was that so that you could see the body more clearly as you rolled it up in an old carpet?

Re: Define romantic location

I thought it was more typical to flash your headlights?

Re: Psychology

Only if you derive pleasure from it

Re: Phah....

Nope I would recommend against that……

Most reality rarely meets the level of the fantasy, and once the fantasy is realized, well that is the end of that.

Re: Theoretical physics at the moment is ...

... investigating a much broader range of things than you seem to think, most of them being testable to some degree. Note that "String theory", exotic comological models, and the like make up a tiny fraction of what theoretical physicists (taken as a group) do with their time. It's also worth noting that media reporting of science, theoretical or not, is very skewed and only representative of what the media think you want to hear about.

Re: Depressing...

@Arnaud

Fair point. But the methodology on this study really sucks (and that's no fantasy).

Re: Depressing...

Perhaps LP would like to justify his belief that understanding the psychology of human beings is not pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge.

If we take the Reg as our corpus, there's no evidence that Lewis likes to justify any of his beliefs - at least not to his readers.

But if we take his articles as entertainment...

Re: Depressing...

"Depressing" is about right.

Not the article and not the research, but the field that this may have solid value in - depression.

We have just had a nice rant about homosexuality in the comments section of an article about Putin-vs-Cook and one thing I mentioned there is that LGBT adolescents are some 4-6 times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.

Sex and sexuality has long been a cause for anguish in many. It seems that there are still far too many taboos that have no place in rational society and as a result far too many people are left feeling that they are 'weird' or 'wrong' and many more are simply too scared to share their fantasies or desires with their partners.

In some ways, the Internet is actually a great boon for some of these people due to the much-referenced 'rule 34', which, loosely translated, can be interpreted to mean: no matter what your sexual fantasies or desires, you are not alone.

Not wanting to actually pay for the report, I wonder what constitutes 'common', 'unusual' and 'rare', however.

If 'unusual' is one in one hundred then even though that is, clearly, not a large percent, it would still mean what when you go to work in the morning, one person on your bus* will enjoy being urinated on or urinating on someone else and, should you enjoy that, you could walk onto a peak hour train in Sydney and find someone who might enjoy sharing your fantasy without having to change carriage.

Perhaps that specific fantasy is not quite that common (I have no idea - it could be) but you get my point - given the number of people we interact with and see each day, even relatively 'unusual' sexual behaviours and fantasies are never that far from us.

Which is kind of a good thing, reminded as I am of an amusing song from my younger days.

I just hope the term remains "sexual deviation" rather than "sexual deviancy".

* - Obviously it's nowhere near that neat in practice, but that's just to get an idea of this in human terms.

Re: What is it about the name "Christian"?

Giving your child a 'christian' name of Christian either demonstrates a disturbing lack of imagination (this is my dog, 'Dog', and my cat 'Cat') or a very subtle hope for a return to vaudeville (What's your christian name? Christian. Yes, christian. Yes that's right. No, what's your name? I just told you! ... etc..)

RE: Canadian fantasies

Let me know when you get to the part where the warm maple syrup gets drizzled over the....

Re: "view the psychology departments of the world primarily as a source of entertainment"

No, psychology isn't science. And neither is statistics, which this is. But statistics is not subjective, which is good as it's what most policy is based on.

Re: "view the psychology departments of the world primarily as a source of entertainment"

Psychology is not a science. So understanding things like witness bias, the mechanisms of visual and auditory perception, how the sensation of pain is affected by other perceptions and biases, why politicians become dysfunctional, the best methods of treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, how the brain assesses risk, why free markets are not (hint: people are not algorithms), the best way to lay out vehicle controls, the best way to train military officers, submariners and combat pilots, and how to treat children excluded from school - are not science? What are they then?

(My own director of studies in experimental psychology - yes, I admit my bias here - was funded by that collection of fuzzy hippies the Royal Navy to work on projects to improve the safety of nuclear submarines. One of his conclusions was that we (the general public) are rather fortunate that British submariners are a lot more intelligent and stable than average members of the population. Of course you "knew that already", but I bet you couldn't quantify it, test it, or develop strategies for ensuring that submarines continue to run in a safe and efficient manner.)

My own suspicion is that people who think psychology is not a science either (a) don't know what it is about or (b) have a mental deficiency such as psychopathy or some kinds of autism which prevent them experiencing empathy or having any insight into their own mental processes.