Popular Culture and Human Mating

Abstract

Abstract The products of popular culture, including pornography and romance, can be viewed as artifacts of human sexual psychology. In other words, popular culture can be examined as data in testing theories about human psychological adaptations in the same way as archaeological artifacts can be used by anthropologists to test hypotheses about human evolution. From a methodological standpoint, there are clear benefits to this approach (as opposed to surveys, for example) in that such unobtrusive measures do not require the cooperation of participants, or their honesty or self-awareness, and it does not influence the participant response. Additionally, media outlets can provide much larger samples reporting actual use. In this chapter, we will examine how the products of popular culture illuminate our understanding of male and female sexual desires with a particular emphasis on the appeal of mythology, pornography, and various forms of romance (from romance novels to Bollywood, erotica, and slash). Not only are there differences and overlap in mass media marketed to men and women but also in the media they create themselves. These differences not only inform researchers regarding what men and women desire, but also where more research needs to be conducted.