National Geographic News. February 16, 2009.   Sexy women in bikinis really do inspire some men to see them as objects, according to a new study of male behavior. Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up. (Tool use?) Areas of the brain that normally light up in anticipation of using tools, like wrenches and screwdrivers, were activated. Oh, I can use this to do that, or use it like this, or like this…

In a “shocking” finding, lead researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University, noted some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another’s intentions. They also found that a part of the brain that usually turned on during social interaction actually de-activated when they saw the pictures.

Fiske had 21 heterosexual male volunteers take a test that scores people based on different types of sexist attitudes. The subjects were then shown pictures of both skimpily dressed and fully clothed men and women.  The men who scored higher as hostile sexists showed no brain activity to indicate they saw the women as humans with thoughts and intentions.

Shocking? Not really. Since situation comedy began, a recurring theme is some male buffoon being dazzled and done wrong by a hot dame with a nice pair…  As women, we get the message as pre-teens that if we want male attention of that type, all we have to do is show them off and the crowd goes wild, and we get our way.  Advertisers everywhere use sex to sell. “I wouldn’t argue for censorship,” Fiske said, “but I would argue that it is important to know about the impact of the images you are showing.”

Also in the study she noted that men who had provocative images of women in the workplace, tended to treat the women in their workplace in ways indicative of that part of the brain being turned off during social interaction.  In ways that would indicate reduced activity in the part of the brain that responds when he ponders another’s intentions; reduced brain activity to indicate he sees his female coworkers as humans with thoughts and intentions.  “When you have sexualised pictures of women in the workplace,” Fiske said, “it’s hard not to think of female colleague in those terms. It has a spill-over effect in how you perceive plausible women in the workplace.”

We always knew it happened, we just didn’t know the mechanics of it.

And while we’re on the subject of brain studies:

Fake orgasms differ from real ones
Professor Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen asked women to place their head in a scanner while having an orgasm with their partner. They were then asked to fake an orgasm and the scans were compared. The result? Different parts of the brain experience real orgasms and create fake ones.

ADVICE:   Fakers should not agree to a brain scan during sex, no matter how good an actress you are. I always thought it was pretty dumb to fake it.  I mean, that’s like driving through the take out and getting handed an empty bag and pretending that’s ok.  That’s like going to the gas pump and learning there’s no gas, but pretending you filled the tank anyway. Come on.