Sex on the Brain?: An Examination of Frequency of Sexual Cognitions As a Function of Gender, Erotophilia, And Social Desirability (Report‪)‬

According to stereotype and the popular media, men think about sex much more than do women. This belief is illustrated by cartoons that depict the male brain as filled with little other than thoughts of sex, and is perpetuated by numerous jokes and wild claims in the popular literature media (Brizendine, 2006; "Men Think About Sex," 2010). The statistic that men think about sex every seven seconds is so prevalent that it is even addressed at the popular debunking site, Snopes.com (Mikkelson, 2007). In the scientific literature, studies that indicate that men think about sex much more often than do women have been used to support the conclusion that men have a more powerful sex drive than do women (Baumeister, Catanese, & Vohs, 2001). However, a careful look at the research literature indicates that research on sex differences in frequency of sexual cognitions has generally not been methodologically rigorous, leaving conclusions less than certain. Empirical Research on Sexual Cognitions