Popularity
Among humans, the missionary position is the most commonly used sex position. In his seminal study Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), which focused on American women, researcher Alfred Kinsey stated that 91% of married women surveyed reported using this position most often, whereas 9% reported using it exclusively. A Journal of Sexual Medicine study entitled What Kind of Erotic Film Clips Should We Use in Female Sex Research? An Exploratory Study selected 18 film clips out of a sample of 90 that were found by the women studied to be particularly mentally appealing and visually arousing. 21% of the original 90 involved the missionary position, but 33% of the final 18 involved missionary. Fewer than 10% of sexually active persons rarely or never use the missionary position. According to Francoeur, the Brazilian Bororo Indians eschew missionary, finding it insulting for either partner to be above the other during sex. Balinese shun the man-on-top position in favor of the Oceanic position due to their perception of the former as being impractical and clumsy. The Cashinahua people use the missionary position to stay stable when they have sex in a forest stream to avoid insect bites. The inhabitants of Inis Beag practice the missionary position exclusively, with very limited foreplay. In addition to humans, the missionary position is also used by certain other species including bonobos, gorillas, and armadillos.
Read more about this topic: Missionary Position
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.”
—Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords, that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)