popplers

Slashfic and science

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article earlier this week entitled Reading the hand for sex distinctions. There is apparently a theory (ahem) that the length of your ring fingers correlates to the amount of testosterone that you're exposed to in utero. Catherine Salmon of the University of Redlands researched the connection between womens' finger lengths and their taste in erotica, and discussed the results of The Impact of Prenatal Testosterone on Female Interest in Male-Male Romance at the recent Human Biology and Evolution Society meeting. From the Inquirer article:

[…] Slash started in the 1970s with that sexy Star Trek duo Kirk/Spock. A quick Web search reveals dozens of stories with passages like this shower scene: "Jim ran his free hand through Spock's wet, matted chest hair, rubbing the bronze-green nipples with his fingertips…. Spock moaned…." The action gets much more pornographic at that point, and the pair eventually end up in a mind meld.

Many women find this unappealing to the point of disgust, Salmon says, but others report that it fulfills a long-held desire. She wondered whether the difference could be related to testosterone, and perhaps connected to these finger-length ratios. […]"

Reading this (especially with the accompanying illustration) brings to mind Ellen Fremedon's comments on slash shock: Grammar has displaced sex as a locus of shame. Discuss.

Posted by rv at June 23, 2006 10:51 PM to science!