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Welcome to Sex Science Skeptic
A Message From Moderator Jeff Booth This site focuses on sexually related research and popular writing that makes scientific or social science claims that do not hold up to critical examination. It is a place to discuss both contemporary and historical issues. As a sex writer and educator with a long interest in skepticism, I noted that this was a topic that was not as well covered on Skeptic sites. With what appears to be an assault on science and sexual science in particular of late by those with political agendas, it seemed to me that a site covering just this topic and open for discussion would be very useful for me personally as a sex educator. Not being a trained scientist myself, I really want to hear what the experts have to say about a lot of science being reported lately that gets my skeptic senses tingling.
The U.S. has an extremely conflicted and often negative view of human sexuality. It is generally easier to get a grant to study something negative about sexuality than something positive or controversial (the two often go hand in hand). College studies often use appallingly small samples of students whose age skews too young to extrapolate anything meaningful about the population at large. Because shame is associated with so many sexual issues, people often lie about sex. Many people have strongly felt religious or cultural biases regarding certain sexual practices or lifestyles, and this creates a strong bias in their research. Put this all together and you get a lot of bad sex science, more commonly tilted toward supporting a negative view of sexual issues.
Some of the issues that we’ll have up for discussion here include the work of non-scientist cranks like “Dr.” Judith Reisman, pseudoscientific theories like the relationship between promiscuity and oxytocin, and the wide wide world of abstinence only education’s unique look at science. We’ll also cover some historical sexual pseudoscience, such as Kellogg's anti-masturbation writings and Reich's orgone energy theories .
I will continue to put up a lot of what I have been coming across, but my real goal is to have this a lively place for discussion with contributions by experts, where we can learn from each other. If you have new topics or forums you want me to add, or just want to write to me directly, you can contact me at jeff@sexscienceskeptic.com
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