This is Improbable

by Marc Abrahams

  They say this beetle behaviour is consistent with other biological reports – that in most species it is the male that makes ‘mating mistakes’. Their second report, published a year after the first, mentions that a nurse in Perth told them ‘a parallel tale involving a male Homo sapiens who had entered hospital “attached” to a milk bottle’.

  Gwynne, D. T., and D. C. F. Rentz (1983). ‘Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera).’ Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 22: 79–80.

  –– (1984). ‘Beetles on the Bottle.’ Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London 8 (3): 116–17.

  What Comes After a Frog in the Throat

  As a young man, Richard ‌Wassersug talked eleven other scientists into taste-testing tadpoles. His 1971 paper called ‘On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica’ explained why he did it: to answer an old scientific mystery, namely, why don’t flashy-looking animals all get eaten by predators and thus go extinct? The answer, it turns out, is that many gaudy tadpoles taste revoltingly bad.

  Wassersug later became a professor of biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a recognized authority on amphibian physiology and medicine. But, as happens to a few great scientists, a most unexpected, most unhappy event gave his life – and his research – a spectacular turn.

  In 1998, at age fifty-two, Wassersug was diagnosed with prostate cancer. As a scientist he understood that the medical therapies available for treatment technically made him a eunuch. He discovered that being a eunuch has, in addition to the famous drawbacks, some unexpected benefits: less tendency to be aggressive and pugnacious; more and maybe deeper empathy with other people; and, without the hormone-driven sexual distraction, a relaxed comfort in savouring the beauty in women’s faces.

  Science mostly overlooks eunuchs as a subject of interest and as a likely source of valuable insights. Wassersug set out to correct that, turning his apparent tragedy into an ecstatic new obsession. His eunuch studies, many done in collaboration with other scientists, include appraisals of medico-social dilemmas. There are also some wonder-filled looks at unfamiliar parts of the human condition.

  Wassersug’s research took him down a side path where academics seldom tread. There are men who, for reasons unrelated to illness or injury, want to be castrated. Wassersug sought to understand this scientific mystery. In ‘A Passion for Castration: Characterizing Men Who Are Fascinated with Castration, but Have Not Been Castrated’, which was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, he and his colleagues ‘identify factors that distinguish those who merely fantasize about being castrated from those who are at greatest risk’. A separate study, ‘Eunuchs in Contemporary Society: Expectations, Consequences and Adjustments to Castration’, reports what may be the most disturbing fact about the voluntary castrati: ‘The majority of castrations (53%) were not performed by medical professionals.’

  For his tadpole tasting, Wassersug was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in the field of biology in the year 2000.

  Wassersug, Richard (1971). ‘On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica.’ American Midland Naturalist 86 (1): 101–9.

  Roberts, Lesley F., Michelle A. Brett, Thomas W. Johnson, and Richard J. Wassersug (2007). ‘A Passion for Castration: Characterizing Men Who Are Fascinated with Castration, but Have Not Been Castrated.’ Journal of Sexual Medicine 5 (7): 1669–80.

  Brett, Michelle A., Lesley F. Roberts, Thomas W. Johnson, and Richrard J. Wassersug (2007). ‘Eunuchs in Contemporary Society: Expectations, Consequences and Adjustments to Castration. Part II.’ Journal of Sexual Medicine 4 (4): 946–55.

  Salacious Over Stick Figures

  Which body parts do students pay attention to when they size up their rivals in romance? Pieternel Dijkstra and Bram Buunk went to a university library to find the answer. They handed out survey forms to students who were there studying books or studying each others’ body parts. The monograph ‘Sex Differences in the Jealousy-Evoking Nature of a Rival’s Body Build’, published in 2001 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, explains what Dijkstra and Bruunk learned from this endeavour.

  The two psychologists, based at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, begin by reviewing the state of knowledge in their field. Everyone’s ultimate goal: clear up the mysteries of romantic rivalry and jealousy.

  Previous researchers, Dijkstra and Bruunk say, established that jealousy is ‘elicited when people perceive threats to relationships with their partners due to actual or imagined rivals’. Studies suggested that ‘people tend to compare rivals’ qualities with their own’.

  Intending to build on those discoveries, Dijkstra and Buunk made inquiries of some ninety-one women and ninety-four men. They presented their subjects with a survey form that included some stick figure drawings and some written questions. Women were instructed to look at stick figures representing women, men at stick figures of men. The drawings, all with ‘identical facial and bodily features’, showed a variety of big and small shoulders, waists, and hips. The students were asked to look at each drawing and say ‘how jealous they would feel if that individual were romantically interested in their partner’. Students then had to ‘rate how attractive’ they found each stick figure to be, and how attractive it would be to their actual or imagined romantic partner.

  Finally came another question. The study says, dryly: ‘When participants had answered all of the above items, they were asked to list the characteristics of the figures’ body they had focused upon when answering the questions.’ Women mentioned looking at rival women’s waist, hips, and legs. Men mentioned looking at rival men’s shoulders, chest, and bellies. Women indicated that small-waisted, big-hipped rival female stick figures are ‘more socially dominant and attractive’. Men, though, said they were struck by the attractiveness and social dominance of big-shouldered male line drawing rivals, especially those with small waists.

  That 2001 paper established the basic facts about how a group of people in their early twenties say they react to stick figure representations of romantic rivals.

  But Dijkstra and Buunk kept at it, researching and publishing extensively on assorted aspects of the jealousy / narrow waists / broad shoulders / big hips relationship. Their 2005 monograph, ‘A Narrow Waist Versus Broad Shoulders: Sex and Age Differences in the Jealousy-Evoking Characteristics of a Rival’s Body Build’, tells how this played out with older folks. Like any carefully prepared scientific paper, it forthrightly declares that it has limitations. These are highlighted by the statement: ‘in real life individuals are usually not confronted with rivals so scarcely dressed as the figures in our manipulation’.

  Dijkstra, Pieternel, and Bram P. Buunk (2001). ‘Sex Differences in the Jealousy-Evoking Nature of a Rival’s Body Build.’ Evolution and Human Behavior 22 (5): 335–41.

  Buunk, Bram P., and Pieternel Dijkstra (2005). ‘A Narrow Waist Versus Broad Shoulders: Sex and Age Differences in the Jealousy-Evoking Characteristics of a Rival’s Body Build.’ Personality and Individual Differences 39 (2): 379–89.

  Professor Gueguen, Breast Effects Analyst

  Professor Nicolas Gueguen finds significance, or at least fascination, in what might be called voyeuristic microscopy, watching how people react to mundanely noticeable sights and sounds and touching. Many of his experiments involve young female confederates who are shaped or perfumed or who lay a hand upon strangers in particular ways. Generally, the test subjects who respond most vigorously are men.

  Based at the University of Bretagne-Sud, in Brittany, France, Gueguen has been pumping out publications since the year 2000. He honours the academic custom of referring to himself in print with the royal ‘we’.

  His experiments probe a range of human behaviour. A study called ‘Women’s Bust Size and Men’s Courtship Solicitation’, published in the journal Body Image, describes how Gueguen tested ‘the effect of a woman’s breast size on ap
proaches made by males. We hypothesized that an increase in breast size would be associated with an increase in approaches by men.’ The study ends with an 827-word ode on the topic sentence: ‘Our hypothesis was confirmed.’

  A related experiment produced a study called ‘Bust Size and Hitchhiking: A Field Study’, published in Perceptual and Motor Skills. There Gueguen reports that ‘1200 male and female French motorists were tested in a hitchhiking situation. A 20-year-old female confederate wore a bra which permitted variation in the size of cup to vary her breast size. She stood by the side of a road frequented by hitchhikers and held out her thumb to catch a ride. Increasing the bra-size of the female-hitchhiker was significantly associated with an increase in number of male drivers, but not female drivers, who stopped to offer a ride.’

  An earlier study called ‘The Effect of Touch on Tipping: An Evaluation in a French Bar’, published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management, aimed to fill a very specific gap in psychologists’ knowledge of human behaviour. The study explains: ‘Although positive effect of touch on restaurant’s tipping has been widely found in the literature, no evaluation was made outside the United States of America and in a bar. An experiment was carried out in a French bar. A waitress briefly touched (or not) the forearm of a patron when asking him/her what he/she wanted to drink. Results show that touch increases tipping behavior although giving a tip to a waitress in a bar is unusual in France.’ Gueguen has pursued related questions, some involving smiles, upon which he reports in additional studies.

  ‘The Effect of Perfume on Prosocial Behavior of Pedestrians’, published in the journal Psychological Reports, is representative of several Gueguen investigations of how people respond to the presence and actions of a heavily perfumed woman. In this one, the fragranced woman walks in front of strangers and ‘drops a packet of paper handkerchiefs or a glove apparently without noticing’.

  Into these and other forays does Professor Gueguen probe and ponder the human condition.

  Gueguen, Nicolas (2007). ‘Women’s Bust Size and Men’s Courtship Solicitation.’ Body Image 4 (4): 386–90.

  –– (2007). ‘Bust Size and Hitchhiking: A Field Study.’ Perceptual and Motor Skills 105 (3): 1294–98.

  –– (2001). ‘The Effect of Perfume on Prosocial Behavior of Pedestrians.’ Psychological Reports 88: 1046–48

  ––, and Celine Jacob (2005). ‘The Effect of Touch on Tipping: An Evaluation in a French Bar.’ International Journal of Hospitality Management 24 (2): 295–99.

  In Brief

  ‘Successful Insemination Experiments with Cryopreserved Sperm from Wild Boars’

  by D. Krause, D. Ick, and H. Treu (published in Zuchthygiene, 1981)

  A Stiff Test

  Giles Skey Brindley, MD, FRCP, FRS, knows how to stand proud. At a 1983 Urodynamics Society lecture in Las Vegas, Dr Brindley demonstrated – with panache – that he could inject drugs into his penis and thereby cause an erection, and a stir.

  Brindley had developed the first effective treatment for what was then loosely called ‘impotence’ and today goes by the stiffer euphemism ‘erectile dysfunction’. His appearance in Las Vegas ensured that the discovery would not go unnoticed.

  Two decades later, Laurence Klotz, a University of Toronto urologist, wrote a firsthand account of his experience at that meeting. Entitled ‘How (Not) to Communicate New Scientific Information: A Memoir of the Famous Brindley Lecture’, it enlivens and to some extent graces the pages of the urological journal BJU International. Klotz reports that Brindley ‘indicated that, in his view, no normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be erotically stimulating or erection-inducing. He had, he said, therefore injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes to make it possible to exhibit the results ... He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing. But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, “I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence”. With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row.’ And so on.

  Brindley’s activities range wide in science and medicine, and also in music. He invented a new variety of bassoon, and in 1973 brought to bear many of his diverse interests in a treatise in the journal Nature called ‘Speed of Sound in Bent Tubes and the Design of Wind Instruments’.

  The self-injection erection experiment entered the medical literature in 1986, in the March issue of the British Journal of Pharmacology, in the form of Brindley’s treatise ‘Pilot Experiments on the Action of Drugs Injected into the Human Corpus Cavernosum Penis’. Brindley writes: ‘Drugs were injected through a 0.5 millimeter x 16 millimeter needle into the right corpus cavernosum in the proximal third of the free penis. The penis was then massaged systematically to distribute the drug throughout both corpora cavernosa as follows…’. There follows a 307-word description of the drugs and of the massage technique.

  The final word can be left to Klotz, who says: ‘Professor Brindley belongs in the pantheon of famous British eccentrics who have made spectacular contributions to science. The story of his lecture deserves a place in the urological history books.’

  Klotz, Laurence (2005). ‘How (Not) to Communicate New Scientific Information: A Memoir of the Famous Brindley Lecture.’ BJU International 96 (7): 956–57.

  Brindley, Giles S (1973). ‘Speed of Sound in Bent Tubes and the Design of Wind Instruments.’ Nature 246: 479–80.

  –– (1968). ‘The Logical Bassoon.’ Galpin Society Journal 21: 152–61.

  –– (1986). ‘Pilot Experiments on the Action of Drugs Injected into the Human Corpus Cavernosum Penis.’ British Journal of Pharmacology 87 (3): 495–500.

  Distractedly, Decidedly Aroused

  When a young man masturbates, exactly how distracted does he get? An experiment performed on students at the University of California, Berkeley aimed to find out.

  Full details were published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and George Loewenstein, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, describe their arousing achievement in dry, formal terms: ‘We examine the effect of sexual arousal, induced by self-stimulation, on judgments and hypothetical decisions made by male college students.’

  The scientists begin their report by pointing out that ‘sexual motivation plays a direct or indirect role in wide-ranging social interactions and in considerable economic activity.’ Pornography alone, they say, takes in more revenues in the United States than the three largest professional sports (football, basketball, and baseball) combined.

  Having established that the topic is of value, Ariely and Loewenstein get right to the action. They explain how they recruited thirty-five students, offering to pay each a small fee for the effort of masturbating while answering a survey. Each student was given a laptop computer with a keypad ‘designed to be operated easily using only the non-dominant hand’.

  Some of the volunteers had instructions to answer the questions ‘while in their natural, presumably not highly aroused, state’. Others ‘were first asked to self-stimulate themselves, and were presented with the same questions only after they had achieved a high but sub-orgasmic level of arousal’.

  The computer screen displayed ‘an “arousal thermometer” with regions coloured from blue to red representing increasing levels of arousal. Two keys on the keypad allowed the user to move the probe on the arousal meter to indicate their momentary level of arousal. The panel on the top-left occupied the largest part of the screen, displaying diverse erotic photographs.’

  The screen also showed the long series of survey que
stions. Some questions asked about the attractiveness of different sexual activities, items, and opportunities. Among them: women’s shoes; a twelve-year-old girl; an animal; a fifty-year-old woman; a man; and an extremely fat person. Other questions probed the risks the volunteer would take in order to obtain sexual gratification.

  The volunteers were instructed to press the computer’s tab key if they ejaculated. None reported doing so.

  Ariely and Loewenstein say their results are ‘striking’ and more than confirm what most people believe about young men as a group – that when aroused, they (1) become sexually attracted to things otherwise offputting; (2) grow more willing to engage in morally questionable behaviour that might lead to sex; and (3) are more likely to have unprotected sex. ‘[Our] study shows that sexual arousal influences people in profound ways’, they write. ‘Efforts at self-control that involve raw willpower are likely to be ineffective.’

  This is a dig at theorists – the ones who advise people to ‘just say no’ – from experimentalists who are unafraid to get their hands dirty.

  (In 2008, Dan Ariely and three of his colleagues received the Ig Nobel Prize in medicine for their study on the effects of expensive fake medicines versus cheap fake medicines.)

  Ariely, Dan, and George Loewenstein (2006). ‘The Heat of the Moment: The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making.’ Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 19: 87–98.

  Horn of Plenty

  ‘Monitoring Electroejaculation in the Rhinoceros with Ultrasonography’ is the title of a research study published in 1996. The study is notable – deserves and, perhaps, demands attention – for at least two reasons. First, because of its subject.