The Wulfric the Wanderer Series

The Wulfric the Wanderer Series
A Sword & Sorcery Series written by Charles Moffat

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Males can't remember things when sex is involved

According to a new study, men have difficulty remembering things when distracted by sex.

Really?

Tell us something else we already know.

According to the study men are less likely to retain the information relayed to them by sexually attractive news anchors than those deemed less sexually attractive, the new research says.

Basically what is happening is that men are more likely to watch a sexually attractive news anchor - but are less likely to remember what she actually said because he will start daydreaming about sex.

Writing in the journal Communication Research, Indiana University telecommunications professor Maria Elizabeth Grabe and doctoral candidate Lelia Samson explored how the appearance of a female news anchor affects the audience of a news program.

Grabe, a former journalist herself, recalls how in the 1980s female anchors weren’t sexualized the way they are today. Instead it was all about being "as androgynous as possible."

"It was the golden rule: Don’t let the physical - the femininity - don’t let it get in the way of the news," says Grabe. "That was the old way of thinking. And now Lelia and I are watching the news and we’re going, 'Whoa, babes!' "

During their study, the researchers recruited 386 participants: 193 men and women. They used one news anchor (a 24-year-old brunette of “average” weight) and dressed her up in two different ways: as a sexualized anchor, giving her a fitted jacket and skirt to wear, and putting bright red lipstick on her and a necklace; and as an unsexualized anchor, wearing a shapeless, loose-fitting jacket, and no lipstick or necklace.

The rest of the female anchor’s appearance (hair, makeup, etc.) remained the same for both. She read the same five stories as the sexualized anchor and as the unsexualized anchor.

Men were so affected by the physical characteristics of the sexualized anchor, they were unable to retain much of the information she relayed. Grabe and Samson were not surprised.

And frankly who would be?

We all know men's brains turn to mush when they see things that are deemed sexually attractive to them. We don't need any new research to confirm what we already know.

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