Jan Antfolk, from Abo Akademi University (Finland) and his team of researchers have recently published a work in which they analyzed the differences between men and women with respect to their sexual interests and their sexual activity, questions that often arouse curiosity and debate in the rest of the mortals.
The results, which can be found in Evolution & Human Behavior (2015), were obtained through a survey of 12,656 Finnish citizens between the ages of 18 and 49. Regarding sexual preferences, it seems that women are more interested in men of the same age or a little older and this is usually the case throughout the life cycle.
However, men showed a tendency to be more interested in women around the age of 25 regardless of their own age. Thus, it seems that they prefer women at that age both when they are over that age and when they are younger than they. According to the authors, a possible explanation for this phenomenon is that perhaps today women of that age frequently represent the physical characteristics of younger women.
As for sexual activity , another of those controversial issues where they exist, it seems that they tend to adjust more to female preferences than to what they would like . According to the authors, women seem to show greater plasticity regarding the ‘object’ of their sexual preference , which would vary depending on their own age, while in the case of men this interest is a function of the woman’s age . It would be interesting to know if these differences are reflected or associated with different brain functions between men and women.
Surely there are those who consider that this is not always the case and know of a case contrary to the results. It is clear that these data are statistics and that they simply describe a general trend. However, thanks to studies like this we can continue to advance in the knowledge of the human being and of the differences between the sexes, where they exist.
Marisa Fernández, Senior Neuropsychologist, Unobrain
