A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What Internet Searches Say About You

For their new book A Billion Wicked Thoughts, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam analyzed a billion web searches, a million individual search histories, a million Web sites, a million erotic videos, a million erotic stories, millions of personal ads, and tens of thousands of digitized romance novels. While not a study of people’s actual sexual experiences, the book offers something perhaps more interesting: a glimpse of the deeper sexual motivations of the human mind.

The fastest growing genre of erotic stories for women are stories about two heterosexual men having sex.

What they discovered is that what people say they like is often quite different from what they look for when nobody is watching.

Among their findings:

-The single-most popular search term users entered into PornHub isn’t “teens” or “cheerleaders,” but—get ready—“mom.”

– Men and women have hardwired sexual cues analogous to our hardwired tastes; there are sexual versions of sweet, sour, salty, savory, and bitter. But men and women are wired with different sets of cues.

– Though the male sexual brain is much more different from the female sexual brain than is commonly believed, the sexual brain of gay men is virtually identical to that of straight men.

-Women enjoy writing and sharing erotic stories with other women. The fastest growing genre of erotic stories for women are stories about two heterosexual men having sex.

-Men form their sexual interests during adolescence and rarely change. Women’s sexual interests are plastic and change frequently.

-When it comes to sexual arousal, men prefer overweight women to underweight women, and a significant number of men seek out erotic images of women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

These authors aren’t really studying sexual behavior. They’re just studying mouse clicks. Or are they? Read a review here and don’t be shy about leaving your comments below.