As we have noted before in Hard Copy News, monogamy does not produce greater relationship satisfaction or intimacy than consensual non-monogamy. It also does not produce better sexual health. A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships establishes that polyamorous individuals are more likely to have themselves tested for sexually transmitted […]
Battered Sex Doll Stuffed in Suitcase Raises Questions
The recent discovery of a visibly abused sex doll stuffed into a suitcase and abandoned beside a country road, initially mistaken by police for a real woman, raises troubling questions about what men are doing with these expensive toys. These highly realistic, life-size dolls, often customized to the purchaser’s specifications and sometimes based on photos […]
New Study on Cannabis Use During Sex
Researchers conducted interviews with 27 young people aged 18-24 in Quebec about the effects of cannabis on their sexual experiences. Many, especially cis women, reported using it in advance of sex to reduce anxiety, inhibition, or recollection of past trauma. Many also reported that it enhanced pleasurable sensations during sex, creating feelings of greater intensity […]
Sexual Satisfaction Among Older Trans People
A Dutch research team has explored the level of sexual satisfaction among 100 adults aged 56 and older, all of whom had transitioned at least 10 years earlier (most of them 20-30 years earlier). This group allows us insight into the long-term effects of gender transition on people’s sexuality. 52% of the trans men said […]
A Good Top is Hard to Find
Understanding how men who have sex with men (MSM) identify with sexual role labels such as Top, Bottom, or Versatile offers descriptive insights into how sexuality, identity, and self-presentation of masculinity intersect on dating platforms. Drawing on cross-sectional data from 141,156 active users of the global gay dating app Surge, a new study describes age-based […]
Sexual Synesthesia
Synesthesia is a neurological condition that causes the senses to link and merge. People with this condition may hear colors or taste words and more than 4% of people have some form of synesthesia. People who experience sexual synesthesia, or sexual synesthetes, may have involuntary visions of color, shapes, patterns, or even full-blown scenes when […]
Broadening Our View of Autoeroticism
Sexual self-stimulation takes more forms than just stroking one’s genitals, as a recent weighted sample of 3,423 American adults shows. Some people arouse themselves by reading erotica or touching different parts of their body, or merely through personal fantasies; orgasm can also be induced by “syntribation,” which involves flexing pelvic or thigh muscles. Although little […]
New Data on Sexual Pleasure
The HUD App, a dating service, has published statistics from their “pleasure census,” a survey of 2,183 users in 63 countries, mostly young females, about a third of them identifying as something other than heterosexual. 88% of men and 76% of women report getting less sex than they desire; most cite inhibitions about communicating their […]
Hunting Unicorns
A new study published in Psychology and Sexualitysurveyed 80 members of a couple, at least one of whom is bi-sexual, who had sought or were seeking a “unicorn,” i.e. a third partner to share sex and/or romance with both of them. Females are more often sought than males, which is unsurprising inasmuch as women are […]
When Penélope Cruz is the Swinger Upstairs
Olivia Wilde directs and stars in The Invite, a sex comedy and relationship drama centered on a struggling married couple, Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde), whose relationship is transformed after they invite their sexually adventurous upstairs neighbors, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz), to dinner. The evening begins as a tense social gathering […]