A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers 

As a culture, we spend a lot of time watching TV. We also spend a lot of time thinking about sex, so it’s no surprise that the two go hand-in-hand. This week’s Sex By Numbers takes a look at this cozy cultural marriage.

150: Number of college students in a recent study that watched a variety of TV shows—including 7th Heaven, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Tudors—and then answered questions about their attitude toward women. The study found shows that with a strong female lead can “eliminate the negative effects of sexually violent media.”

38: When asked who or what influences them most in regards to sex, 38% of respondents said their parents were the main influencers; just 9% named the media or TV as the most influential.

24: Number of hours that a Japanese satellite adult TV channel aired a “breast squeeze” benefit to raise money for AIDs awareness.

1st: This week, Fatma Nabil became the first female Egyptian news presenter to wear a hijab on air. Despite the fact that 70% of Egyptian women wear the veil, it’s generally not seen on state television.

$15 Billion: Despite what TV coverage of the RNC might lead you to believe, Americans in conservative states are still getting frisky; a study found that the rate of purchase of sex toys (which generates $15 billion annually in the U.S.) was highest in states that are “generally considered socially conservative.”

25%: In a bold move by the Scottish government to increase the rate of early breast cancer detection by 25%, TV adverts showing the graphic and visible effects of cancer on breasts are now being targeted to Scottish women.

10: Number of installments in a new TV series which will seek to debunk common sex myths—like whether or not there is a scientific explanation for beer goggles. The self-proclaimed authority on all things sexual? Playboy TV, of course.

8: Number of years since HBO’s Sex and the City went off the air. Despite this, Newsroom creator Aaron Sorkin still felt the need to not-so-subtly lambast the series on his show’s season finale.

The post Sex By Numbers: I Saw it on TV! appeared first on EcoSalon.

Beer goggles. They are mysterious. Like Loch Ness or Sasquatch, some deny their existence. These deniers are usually women with impeccably pressed cotton shifts who don’t know the hell that is smeared mascara. But the rest of us know better.

These some, who shall remain nameless, may kick back a beer or five and wake up with a broken high heel and dim recollections of dancing on a bar. And they might admit to wearing beer goggles from time to time. Even though we (I mean, THEY) know that beer goggles are really just a product of our inebriated imaginations. Right?

Wrong! New evidence shows that beer goggles are real. Men and women in real-life white coats have performed experiments proving their existence. Discovery News recently reported that beer goggles are in fact a fact of nature. And apparently, it is all about the symmetry of the face.

Symmetry plays an important part in defining beauty. Experts point out that symmetry in the face is all about the human eye recognizing “averageness” – that is, someone like Angelina Jolie is considered très magnifique because she really just has a more symmetrical, average face. We’re all hard-wired to like symmetry, as our brains think symmetrical faces connote reproductive fitness. People with less symmetrical faces are thought by our evolutionary subconscious to have a poorer health background.

In other words, most of us are bee-bopping along looking for symmetrical “fit” faces. But what happens when we drink? Apparently, we throw evolutionary behavior down the tubes. A recent study reveals that drinking prevents us from detecting asymmetrical faces. Therefore, our inebriated eyes see people we might not soberly find attractive “¦ attractive. So if someone looks like a Picasso’s Woman with a Flower, if you drink they might look like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Lewis Halsey of Roehampton University in London conducted this study on drunken attraction. With some colleagues, Halsey went over to some campus bars to take notes. They showed symmetrical and asymmetrical faces to drunk and sober students. The sober students were more able to detect symmetrical faces and showed greater preferences for them.

And the umbrella on our cocktail? Apparently women are more prone to beer goggles than men. Experts think this is because men tend to be more visually oriented than women and more stimulated by who they see.

And what will this mean to all of us who wake up next Fred Flintstone after going to bed with Brad Pitt? Yes, it really was our beer goggles. Now if we could only find a way to make them match our eye makeup.

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