Men Think About Sex Every Three Seconds: Seven Thoughts

Now first of all, this article does not want to spawn guesses about how much seconds really are between every erotic thought in the masculine mind. To avoid these guesses, I'll try to use X to indicate the number of seconds. Note that X might as well be 1 or 1000, so I do believe I'm quite safe in making such assumptions. I'm not intending to heat up the war between the genders either, I'm just taking some time to put down some of my opinions on the popular believe of men being obsessed by sex. I hope you will take the time to read my contemplations, and perhaps add some vital information yourself.

Oh yes, I am a man. And I don't think that statement can be applied to me. Oh wait, that crossed my mind without actually thinking about sex itself! Oh wait, sex is in the sentence... hmm... This article may confuse you too, so you are warned! You may read a couple of things twice, but that's because I feel that the thoughts I have are all connected. This is not rocket science (don't think too far on that one), this is just a mere... thought. My style is chaos, my English not flawless. Do you think you're up for the challenge? Or are you thinking about sex?

All right, here we go.

1) Active or passive?

Does this concern active or passive thinking about sex? Sex can come to mind without active visualization. For instance, you can think about the word sex without the image of two people making hot, steaming love on the kitchen table coming to mind. Active would mean you dig up the scene in your mind, willingly. Passive would mean it just pops up, uninvited. Both happen, I am sure, but every X seconds?

2) Add one I for sex.

How can you measure the frequency of sexual thoughts in the mind of a man? Brain scans probably did the trick, but the active or passive question still comes to mind. If the title of the research contains the word sex, you bet it will be frequent. If it just monitors your thought, then how can you be sure that the subject of the research is actually thinking about sex? The mind floats from one thing to another with the speed of an electric impulse. That's fast, believe me. A picture comes to mind of men in a secluded room, with only a piece of paper and a pencil, making a mark for every time they think about sex. Wouldn't work either.

3) Sex? What sex?

What would be this "sex" we are supposed to be thinking about. The statement is, without exaggerating, a bit foggy on what these sexual thoughts really are, and how they manifest. In referral with the previous part, this question comes forward : if sex passes the mind so quick, can it be an active mental visualization of sex? Can you form an image so fast, be conscious of it, return to you whatever other things you are thinking about, and go back to sex? In passive thinking you are not really aware of it, but is that called thinking? Confusing, I know. Maybe we should take this one to the ancient Greek philosophers. I for one(not Greek, nor ancient, and not that much of a philosopher, I must admit) believe that a few seconds do not suffice to call it " active thinking about sex". This takes me to my next contemplation.

4) What about duration?

Nothing is said about the amount of time a man is thinking about sex. If the statement is true, than the mind of the man flashes more than the lights of a pinball machine- just rapid on and off flashes of "nookie bonus - 69 points". Now, you could form a lot of sentences involving the words "short duration, sex, and man" but I don't think that's really an issue here. How are men able to function with such a zapping TV for a mind, that goes to 18+ channels every X seconds? It boggles the mind.

5) The statement is a false quote... must be, right?

This is one of the first theories that come to my mind when hearing such statements. I think there are two possibilities here. The first is "in a group of a hundred men, there is one person that thinks about sex, and this changes every "X" seconds." This mean that person one is thinking about sex for a certain amount of time, and then X seconds later another person is thinking about sex. The problem with this theory is that it doesn't indicate the amount of time a person is thinking about sex either. The second possibility I'm thinking of here is that a man is confronted with an image, scent, or other sensual pivots that trigger an instinctive image of sex every X seconds. Certain perfumes, commercials, even sounds are designed to trigger the reproductive instincts. Instinctive reactions are in general not rationalized. So do these responses to signals count as thoughts? Yes, again, foggy statement. Either way; I believe the statement is a false quote. The correct quote probably got lost due to the popular use of the false one.

6) Women think about sex too... probably... yeah!

Why are men put forward in this statement? A circle reasoning is often brought up here. Why men? Because men think about sex every x seconds. Why? Because they do. Sounds solid, but it's not. So I started thinking about a different statement. Do men think more about sex than women, and if so, why? Now for the why I took a look in a book on "how biological evolution has an effect on the communication of today" (that's not the title of the book, but it is the title of the chapter in a course I got during my higher education) which links the behavior of "cavemen" to the behavior of the "modern man". In this book, it is stated that for survival and procreation sake , men and women think different about sex. Male species look for quality, but are biologically designed for quantity, meaning they have the biological urge to have a lot of partners. Women on the other hand give an all round advantage on quality over quality. Sounds logic, as pregnant women get drawn out of the sex for offspring game, as where men could continue their sexual conquest for progeny. This resulted in the man having to be ready for sex every time a female entered his territory. Mankind (and womankind) have changed a lot over the years, but some of the early programs still run in the hardware. Polygamy is no longer needed for survival of the species, but somewhere deep inside the brain this will lives still. Ratio and love (weird combo, but it does the trick) makes monogamy a rule that roars louder than the will to procreate with as many woman as possible, but sometimes the instincts kick in, resulting in sudden flashes of the naked athletics. Makes sense. But every X seconds?

7) Generalizations rule the nations...

This brings us to the item that will probably make the most sense to you. It's easy to generalize. When it comes to thinking, we can't really know what's happening inside another person's mind. So we generalize a fact from a select group of people to the world.

Teenagers think more about sex than the elder? Probably, but we can't make it a law. If you type "men think about sex" into google (ignore the sites that have certain combinations with several x's or the letters P_O_R_N in that order, unless you want to think about sex in a very active way) and you'll find surveys that indicate men think about sex 7 TIMES A DAY (Source: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003668.html ). Makes a difference, does it not? I guess what I'm trying to say is : drop the statement. It doesn't seem to sound right, taking into account to what I've just said. You still believe it is true? By all means, do. But don't try to convince me about it. It might seem like an all known fact, but there isn't any "hard" evidence.

Did this article solve any mysteries? Probably not. But I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Gives you something to think about... besides sex.