c******n
发帖数: 5697 | 1 It's no secret that hundreds of millions of people around the world now
routinely use the Internet to indulge their sexual curiosity. Today you
can ogle more naked bodies in a single minute online than the most
promiscuous Victorian could have seen in a lifetime. Because this online
activity leaves behind a trail of digital crumbs, for the first time we
can gather reliable data on the erotic interests of a broad swath of
humanity.
My colleague Sai Gaddam and I have analyzed a billion of these web
searches, using data sets that firms like AOL and Excite make publicly
available, obtaining other data from adult web sites, and using web-
analysis techniques to gather additional data.
One of our most interesting findings was that women are very different
from men in how they use these online services. All across the planet,
what most women seek out, in growing numbers, are not explicit scenes of
sexual activity but character-driven stories of romantic relationships.
The female cortex contains a highly developed system for finding and
scrutinizing a prospective partner—a system that might be dubbed the
Miss Marple Detective Agency. Agatha Christie's fictional sleuth is
often dismissed as scatterbrained, but she is actually a shrewd judge of
character and harbors deep knowledge of the dark side of human nature.
She uses her surprising analytical acumen to solve mysteries that have
stumped the police.
Using similar investigative skills, the female brain evaluates all
available evidence regarding a potential mate's social, emotional and
physical qualities to make an all-important decision: Is he Mr. Right or
Mr. Wrong? Only if Miss Marple gives her stamp of approval do physical
arousal and psychological arousal harmoniously unite in the female
brain.
This unconscious evaluation is the source of "feminine intuition."
Though the female brain carefully processes many stimuli simultaneously,
it is experienced only as a general feeling of favorability or suspicion
toward a potential partner. This feminine intuition is designed to solve
a woman's unique challenge of determining whether a man is committed,
kind and capable of protecting a family.
Female erotica demonstrates how the detective agency operates—and how it
differs from the much simpler male brain. Whereas two-minute video clips
are the most popular form of contemporary erotica for men, the most
popular form for women remains the romance novel, an artifact that takes
many hours to digest. Like pornography, the romance novel has
established a strong presence in the digital domain. It is the primary
engine behind the electronic book boom. Currently, three of the top 10
books on Kindle are e-romances.
Women account for only one out of 50 purchases of porn-site
subscriptions, but they make nine out of 10 purchases of romance novels.
(In fact, the main billing company for porn sites flags female names as
potential fraud, since so many of these charges result in an angry wife
or mother demanding a refund for the misuse of her card.) In 2008, 74.8
million people read an English-language romance novel—close to the
number of men who visited online pornography sites that year in the U.S.
and Canada.
All romance novels, whether written by the likes of Jane Austen, Nora
Roberts or Stephenie Meyer, employ a narrative formula that follows the
gradual elucidation of the hero's inner character, leading to an
emotional epiphany between hero and heroine. On this journey, the
heroine—and the reader—investigates the character of the hero. The goal
of a romance novel's heroine is never sex for its own sake, much less
impersonal sex with strangers. All romance novels end with a "happily
ever after": a marriage or committed long-term partnership.
In addition to providing a new platform for traditional romance tales,
the Web has fueled an explosion of stories written by a highly
interactive community of female amateurs: a genre called "fan fiction."
These pop culture "fandoms" consist of enthusiasts for such familiar
franchises as "Harry Potter," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Twilight,"
as well as for other books, television shows and movies. The most
popular fan fiction website—and the world's most popular "erotic" site
for women—is FanFiction.net, which boasts more than two million
different stories and more than 1.5 million visitors a month. Nor is fan
fiction limited to English-speaking countries; there are vibrant fan
fiction communities in Russia, Japan, Brazil and China.
Men who are attracted to a particular actress may go online looking for
racy photos of her. Women who are attracted to an actor are more likely
to seek out personal details about his life or erotic stories featuring
one of the characters he portrays. Consider these terms from one woman's
AOL search history concerning the actor Orlando Bloom: "orlando bloom as
vampire fanfiction," "gossip on orlando bloom," "legolas erotica"
(Legolas being Bloom's elfin character in "Lord of the Rings").
Fan fiction also reveals another fundamental difference between male and
female sexuality. Men almost always consume pornography alone. But in
the fan-fiction community, the online discussion of a story is as
important as the story itself. This reflects one of the primary
investigative techniques of Miss Marple: soliciting information from
other detectives.
Whereas the typical comments beneath videos on websites for men are
mostly brief ("Hot!"), women want to discuss in probing detail the
emotional qualities of a story, the authenticity of its characters and
the nuances of the relationships. Remarking on a story set in the Harry
Potter fandom, one fan observes, "Oh, and, on a side note, would Ron
really use the expression, 'hooking up'? It sounded very Muggle, very
American and very post-early '90s to me." Another fan comments: "I liked
his surges of anger every now and again, made for a more compelling and
realistic Harry. I also thought his spat with Ginny was done very
appropriately."
Some female readers might be thinking, "This doesn't describe me at
all!" And, in fact, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the
visitors to the major pornography sites are women. Our data suggest that
these women probably have a higher sex drive than other women and that
they are more socially aggressive and more comfortable taking risks.
For most women, however, Miss Marple is the master sleuth. Her fact-
finding mission must be completed before mind and body are united in
sexual harmony. | c*********g
发帖数: 660 | 2 Maybe I am the minority of women | c******n
发帖数: 5697 | 3 那太好了
【在 c*********g 的大作中提到】
: Maybe I am the minority of women
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