The Face: A Cultural History by Fay Bound-Albert is a fascinating and recently published cultural anthropological project that explores how human societies have interpreted and valued the face over time. Bound-Alberti analyzes how those interpretations influence identity, power, and social hierarchy in the here and now. The face is also something that contemporary gendered and […]
Do You Regret Your Last One Night Stand?
Why do people sometimes regret one-night stands? An international team of researchers studied this question by conducting a survey with 1,044 participants (649 females, 395 males; more than 40 nationalities) who retrospectively evaluated their most recent one-night stand. Only a minority evaluated their last such encounter negatively: women were more likely to do so, but […]
Same-Sex Relations in the Animal Kingdom
We noticed a plethora of sex stories about non-human animals in circulation while we were organizing our March 1digest. This extensive study from Nature Ecology and Evolution found that same-sex relations are common in nonhuman primate species, and the research illuminated some potential fascinating reasons as to why this may be the case. The study’s […]
How Big a Threat is AI-Generated Child Porn?
An article in the New York Times in July 2025 reported that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) claimed to have received over 485,000 tips about AI-generated child pornography in the first six months of the year, a dramatic increase relative to 2024. Most of these came from Amazon AI Services. But […]
Biological Roots of Nonmonogamy
Recently published, The Intimate Animal: The Science of Love, Fidelity and Connection, explores monogamy, fidelity, and other relational modes of loving and fucking subjects via both biological determinist and social constructionist perspectives. The book’s author, Justin Garcia, is Executive Director and Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. As an evolutionary biologist, Garcia considers evolution’s role […]
Size Really Does Matter
Why the human penis is unusually large compared to that of other primates is a long-standing evolutionary question. A group of Australian evolutionary biologists and psychologists have studied this question by using computer-generated images to assess female evaluation of male sexual attractiveness and males’ evaluation of a potential rival’s fighting ability and attractiveness to females. […]
Cataract Surgery for Better Sex
A study of 66 Turkish women in their 40s and 50s published in BMC Public Health showed that cataract surgery led to a significant improvement in their sexual desire, lubrication, and self-reported satisfaction (up around 17%); arousal and ability to reach orgasm improved by about a third, and feelings of pain or discomfort during sex […]
Bi-Negativity and Mental Health
As Hard Copy has noted before, bisexuals face unique mental health challenges that often exceed those of other sexual minority populations. It has long been known that bi-sexual men face negative judgments from both straight peers who question their masculinity and from gay peers who question their authenticity. A study of 200 self-identified cisgender bisexual […]
Countering the Myth of Monogamy-Superiority
A meta-analysis of 35 studies just published in the Journal of Sex Research shows that monogamous relationships do not yield greater sexual or relationship satisfaction than is experienced by non-monogamous individuals. Trust, commitment, and intimacy were equal among both monogamous and non-monogamous couples. This result was equally valid for LGBTQ and straight individuals. READ THE […]
Higher Mortality Rates for LGB+
Newly released census data from England and Wales reveals that people who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or another sexual minority group experience higher all-cause mortality than those who identify as heterosexual, and that the disparity is especially pronounced for those in the 25-34 age bracket. Alcohol-related deaths were 1.8 times higher among the LGB+ […]