How to find love: Search for a soulmate involves four ‘key factors’

Love and sex news: in pictures

• 1/17
  
  Gym ‘used as a hook-up spot’

  People who hope to find love and get fit in the New Year may find it surprisingly easy to tick off both goals, as a new survey has revealed that half of adults use the gym as a hook-up venue, while a quarter admit to having sex there. Apparently not put off by the surroundings, a new survey of how Britons behave in the gym has found that 25 per cent claimed to have had sex there at least once in the past 12 months

• 2/17
  
  Erectile dysfunction ‘linked to risk of early death’

  Men who suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED) are 70 per cent more likely to die early, a new study has found. US scientists believe that the disorder may be linked to poor cardiovascular health, and suggested that men with ED should be screened for health issues that could cut their lives short

• 3/17
  
  39 per cent of workers have sex at Christmas parties

  The festive season may be a time for good will and sharing – but it’s also apparently the perfect excuse to hook-up with the cute person from accounts, according to a survey which has revealed that 39 per cent of people have had sex at their work Christmas party. Even more people admitted that the annual knees-up offered the chance to kiss a co-worker, with over locking lips at the event. A survey of 2,000 UK adults by high-street lingerie retailer Ann Summers revealed that IT and HR are the professions most likely to snog or have sex with a colleague or get incredibly drunk at the Christmas party, at 63 per cent and 56 per cent respectively.This was compared with 27 per cent of those in education and 29 per cent in health

• 4/17
  
  Durex calls for a condom emoji

  Emojis have come a long way in recent years – since they were first integrated into Unicode in 2010, we’ve gained emojis of all different ethnicities, emojis for every flag in the world, and even the middle finger emoji. However, we’re still missing a condom emoji. Durex wants to change that. It’s easy to suggest sex with emojis (think aubergine, peach, the ‘OK’ sign), but there’s nothing that shows safe sex. So, to coincide with World AIDS Day on 1 December, Durex is encouraging its customers to call upon the Unicode Consortium, who oversee the introduction of new emoji, to give the world a condom emoji in their next update

• 5/17
  
  Spliting the housework equally is the secret to a better sex life

  Better communication, getting more exercise, oysters, more date nights, time away from the kids – these are just a few common theories for how couples can improve their sex life. But now, a new study has offered up a different one, suggesting that the key to being more satisfied between the sheets could in part be down to taking it in turns to wash them. According to the study from the University of Alberta, couples enjoyed more frequent and satisfying sex for both partners when the housework is split equally across men and women

• 6/17
  
  Arguing with a partner is beneficial

  Arguing in a relationship is not often seen as having a positive impact on both partners. But a new study from US psychologists suggests that if each party feels understood, falling out does not have a detrimental impact on their satisfaction in the relationship. Researchers at the University of California said feeling understood appeared to improve a relationship on its own, regardless of any practical consequence of that understanding. And when people felt their partners understood them, the conflict was not only not harmful but actually good for the relationship

• 7/17
  
  Ireland gay marriage

  Same-sex couples in the Republic of Ireland can officially get married after the country voted overwhelmingly for the change in a referendum in May. Legislation legalising gay civil marriage, passed following the vote, came into effect on 16 November 2015. The first couples to be affected will be gay couples who married legally abroad – whose unions will now automatically be recognised by the Irish state. But the race is now on to see who which couple will become the first gay newlyweds to legally marry in Eire itself

• 8/17
  
  ‘Female Viagra’ approved

  A drug dubbed the ‘female Viagra’ has finally been approved by the US Food and Drug administration but concerns have been raised over the drug’s possible side effects. Flibanserin, produced by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, was approved by the FDA on the third application in five years – after twice failing over concerns regarding possible side-effects.

  AP

• 9/17
  
  Grindr users surveyed on sexual preferences

  Grindr users are not that gay, at least according to a new survey. More than 300 users on the gay dating app, contacted by Pink News as part of an informal study, did not identifying as exclusively attracted to men.
  The study used the Kinsey scale, based on the work of sexologist Alfred Kinsey, which ranges from 0 (exclusively straight) to 6 (exclusively gay) and also allows identification as asexual (X).
  Pink News found that the average answer was around five, with the most frequent answer being five, followed by six and then four when they contacted users from their office in central London.

  Rex

• 10/17
  
  Watching porn does not cause negative attitudes to women

  The average porn user may have more egalitarian views towards women than non-users, a contentious new study has suggested. Researchers at Western University in Canada have even argued that many pornography fans might be “useful allies” in women’s struggles for equality in the workplace and in public office. They reported in the Journal of Sex Research that the 23 per cent of people who said they had watched an “X-rated” film during the previous year were no more or less likely to identify as feminists than those who did not watch porn.

  Getty

• 11/17
  
  The characteristics of men who pay for sex

  Men who pay for sex share similar traits to rapists and sex offenders, according to new research. A study from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), claims that men who have sex with female sex workers feel less empathy for them than men who do not buy sex. Part of this reason is due to the fact that they view them as “intrinsically different from other women,” according to the authors.

  Getty Images

• 12/17
  
  How much sex we have (and how much we’d like)

  As a nation, we don’t have as much sex as we would like, a survey has (somewhat unsurprisingly) confirmed. In a poll of 1523 people by YouGov, 64 per cent of Britons said they would wish to have sex at least a few times a month. The same sample said that only 38 per cent had sex at least a few times a month.
  In addition, 10 per cent said they wished to have sex every day, a goal which only 1 per cent admitted reaching.

• 13/17
  
  One per cent of Britons ‘have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all’

  An estimated 1% of Britons have almost no interest in sexual activity, according to researchers.
  The identity, which describes rarely or never experiencing sexual attraction, has moved from a diagnosis of mental disorder in the past to a sexual orientation in its own right today.
  As public interest in “asexuality” grows, researchers at Glasgow University have found that romance and intimacy is still very much on the cards for those who take the label.

  Rex

• 14/17
  
  Women really are more attracted to men who make them laugh

  Researchers at an American university have claimed that humour is a key factor in human “sexual selection”, with women appearing to be more attracted to men who make them laugh. Jeffrey Hall, an associate professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas, found that when two strangers meet, the more times a man tries to be funny and a woman laughs, the more likely she is to be interested in dating.
  The reverse was not true for women who attempted humour, according to his study “Sexual Selection and Humour in Courtship: A Case for Warmth and Extroversion,” which has been published in the Evolutionary Psychology journal.

  Getty

• 15/17
  
  What makes a perfect penis?

  Scientists have now answered one of these great unknowns. According to a new study, “general cosmetic appearance” is the most important penile aspect when it comes to what women value down there. This is swiftly followed by the appearance of pubic hair, penile skin, and girth. Length comes in at number six, with the look of the scrotum trailing closely behind.
  The least important facet of the phallus, say the scientists, is the “position and shape of meatus”, the vertical slit at the opening of the urethra.

• 16/17
  
  Students who marry after studying the same subject

  Picking a university subject is already difficult enough for young people. But here’s an extra piece of data to weigh on your decision: you may be picking a life partner as well. Dan Kopf of the blog, Priceonomics, analysed US Census data and found that the percentage of Americans who marry someone within their own major is actually fairly high.
  About half of Americans are married, according to the 2012 American Community Survey (part of the Census). And about 28 per cent of married couples over the age of 22 both graduated from college. (The survey didn’t recognise same-sex marriages for the 2012 data, but it will for 2013 onwards, says Kopf)

• 17/17
  
  Half of divorcees had doubts on their wedding day

  Over half of divorcees considered abandoning their husband or wife-to-be at the altar on their wedding day, a new study has revealed. On top of likely worrying about wedding favours and making sure guests behave on their big day, 49 per cent of divorcees admitted they were unsure before the ceremony that their marriage would last.
  Some 15 per cent of divorcees polled said they were so wracked with doubt that they felt physically sick in the run up to their wedding.

  Getty Images

In his new book, Attraction Explained – which offers hard scientific evidence of how relationships work rather than what he sees as the “anecdotal, non-specific and sometimes downright misogynistic” tone taken by other such titles – Swami explains how distance, or lack thereof, is a key factor in matters of the heart.

“Most partners are found at very short distances,” he writes. “Up to 50 per cent of people fall in love with someone within a four-mile radius, and so the further away people live, the less likely they are to form a relationship.”

In his book, Swami focuses particularly on London, an area in which it is almost impossible to overstate the importance of location. “The further away a borough was from a participant’s place of residence, the less attractive they believed the residents of that borough were,” he writes of those taking part in the study.

His findings are uncomfortably revealing. For example, people who lived in the hallowed enclaves of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea were perceived to be more attractive than those who lived in Bromley, which sits in the humdrum suburbs south-east of London. “Wealth is clearly a factor here,” Swami says, and posits some reasons as to why. “Wealthy people might have fewer negative life experiences, and might be more happy as a result, which makes them seem more attractive.”

Also, he says, attractive ideals tend to be shaped by those people that have ready access to the media, and help form it, as many of the denizens of Kensington and Chelsea do. But then the way we are meeting now is changing. In online dating, the world is theoretically our oyster, geography be damned. Though UK figures are not yet available, they are believed to be comparable to the US’s: one-third of all heterosexual couples in America now meet online, and two-thirds of same-sex couples.

“But while we may have changed the way we meet,” Swami says, “the process of our relationships remain the same. We all arrive into them with baggage from previous relationships, and we still tend to enter into them with people who live in close proximity to us. It’s easier.”

The professor knows of what he speaks. Two years ago, he met online the woman who would become his fiancée. They are to be married in the summer. “She was easily commutable to,” he says. “And she was also a lovely person, so I think I would have made the effort to travel to see her even if she had been further away.”

But only to a point, for professors are rarely reckless. Her proximity to him (they both live in the south) was as much a factor in her appeal as anything else. “If she had lived in Scotland,” he admits, “then, no, I don’t think I would have pursued her.

• More about:
• Viren Swami
• London
• Chelsea
• Nick Duerden
• Anglia Ruskin University
• Professor of Social Psychology
• Kensington
• Bromley
• Scotland
• UK
• US
• America

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