Although I have had a few dates with The Consultant, I don’t want to get too serious too quickly. In the meantime, there are still a number of guys showing interest in me on the internet dating site I have been using. One guy in particular has been flirting with me quite voraciously. But he lives about an hour away, so it has not been easy to arrange a date. We recently were finally able to set something up.
A few days before the big event, he started sexting me. At first, it wasn’t totally obvious because flirtatious texting typically has sexual undertones like “I’m really looking forward to seeing you this weekend”; we had been doing a lot of that up to this point. His new approach, however, was different. His sexual references were now very explicit and his intentions became quite clear. Then, he texted a photo of himself wearing boxer briefs with a fully pitched trouser tent. Well, at least he had his underwear on. The text accompanying the picture read, “Here is a taste of the trouble you’re getting into on Friday!”
The Premature Sexter must have believed his photograph would turn me on, but it actually had the opposite effect. Decades of research has shown that men are more sexually aroused than women by erotic images,1,2 which explains why a large meta-analysis (a study that summarizes the statistical findings from many different studies) found very strong evidence that men are more likely to use erotic materials such as magazines, videos and the Internet. Other researchers have found that how I interpreted the sext picture also matters. The amygdala, which is an area of the brain that interprets emotional events, is heavily involved with processing erotic material for both men and women. If I were to interpret his picture positively…
Read full post by Dr. Jennifer Harman: Science of Relationships
