Tory supporters on a porn spree in May?

Now here is something that never occurred to me, but then I am not involved in scientific research.

According to an item AOL News there is a hypothesis (the Challenge Hypothesis) that indicates testosterone levels rise when someone wins something and also when someone has a vicarious sense of victory (he says , rather me says, mangling a hypothesis that deals with far more than just this!)

Patrick and Charlotte Markey wanted to test the hypothesis in a new way and certainly found one.

According to the abstract of their paper in Evolution and Human Behavior “Changes in pornography-seeking behaviors following political elections: an examination of the challenge hypothesis” it would seem that supporters of the winning party in an election access more porn that the loser. The study examined:


“whether or not individuals who vicariously win a competition seek out pornography relatively more often than individuals who vicariously lose a competition. By examining a portion of Google keyword searches during the 2004, 2006 and 2008 US election cycles, the relative popularity of online pornography keywords searches was computed for each state and the District of Columbia the week before and the week after each election. Consistent with the Challenge Hypothesis, following all three election cycles, individuals located in states voting for the winning political party tended to search for pornography keywords relatively more often than individuals residing in states voting for the losing political party.”

However, Markey concedes that he can't say for sure that the Challenge Hypothesis is causing the uptick in porn clicks. It could be that people are just happier following an election and need a, um, release. But the Markeys' study cites another which shows that people don't have more sex when they're happy. If anything, they have more sex when they're sad, as a means to become happy.

Patrick Markey plans to test his idea again after November, after the US mid-terms elections

Hmm I wonder if hordes of Tory supporters went online to search hard for the full frontal photos taken of Margaret Thatcher just after the 1987 erection (Sorry I shouldn’t be rude about the late Denis T). Lib Dem voters almost certainly searched high and low for the near mythical David Penhalagon/ Jo Grimmond fisting photos…

…Perhaps I need a life….

One thing is for sure, it would be a travesty if the Markeys do not get an IgNobel for this fine work