I have always wanted to be part of a clinical study. Over the years, some of my friends have been part of a study, and I always thought it would be exciting to be part of something that could change the face of our society by giving us greater insights into what makes us tick.
I even applied for some over the years. I tried to get into one study on smoking, but was told that you have to be a smoker. Wish they would have told me that before I filled out the 20 page questionnaire. I also tried to get into an obesity study, hoping that I could shed a few pounds in the process, but I wasn’t quite “obese enough.” I’m not really sure what it takes to be “obese enough,” but I wasn’t it, even though I shake like a bowl full of jelly, even when it’s not Christmas time.
The latest study I applied for was one out of Canada. I figured that I could come close to passing as a Canadian, given my love of their bacon on pizza and the fact that I lived in Seattle for most of my life, which is kind of like British Columbia, but with culture.
This was to be one heck of a study. I filled out all the paperwork with zeal and couldn’t wait to see if I made the cut. I mean, who doesn’t want to drink alcohol all day and then try to get lucky, all on the researcher’s dime?
If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you obviously have not been keeping up with your current events. Either that or your subscription to Addiction must have lapsed. If it has, then you missed this month’s Miss Addiction… Lindsay Lohan.
Anyway, back to the study, which was officially titled Alcohol Consumption and the Intention to Engage in Unprotected Sex: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies.
I know. Who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of this study?
Here’s how the study worked, and no, I’m not making this up. The reality is just too good to screw with.
Participants were randomly assigned to a drinking or sober group. They were then asked to rate their intention to have unprotected sex. This is a scientific methodology? I know that I would never lie when it comes to having sex or that I ever had sex with any particular person I came across.
But this isn’t about me. It’s about science and these guys must know what they’re doing. After all, they are from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto (which doesn’t strike me as a particularly sex crazed city – they can’t even pick a single language to speak). Oh, sorry that’s the other unsexed city up there, Quebec City.
Back to the study. Dr. Jurgen Rehm, the lead studier, and his team then started to apply alcohol to the situation. Now, ready for the results of the study?
They found that “the more alcohol the subjects consumed, the greater their intention to have unprotected sex.”
I know, shocking. I don’t know how we could have ever known this without some government funded study.
Imagine that, the more you drink, the more likely you are to get it on at all costs. And the researcher even measured how much alcohol it takes. To engage in unprotected sex, it only takes women four drinks, men about five.
This is where I take issue with the study. I don’t think it takes men a single drink to think about having unprotected sex with a beautiful woman. But I do think that five drinks isn’t sufficient to want to have sex with a two bagger with the lights off, unless it’s almost closing time.
Now, before my female readers get mad at me here, let me counter by saying that any woman who hasn’t had a couple drinks won’t even consider sex (safe or unsafe) with even a good looking guy. That’s because women have standards where men don’t.
I assume the four drink limit is for you to even consider unprotected sex with a hunk. In the case of most of my female friends, there’s not enough booze in a bar to have sex with a chunk. Unless of course, you just had your heart run through a relationship shredder, you’ve had a shitty day at work, you’ve hit rock bottom in the self-esteem department and you just really want an adequate roll in the hay because your day can’t possibly get any worse.
Of course, anyone who has ever been in a bar to pick up the opposite sex already knew the results of this study. Hell, after all the years I’ve spent in bars (and oddly, I have rarely ever picked someone up from one – go figure), that I could have written this study based on observation alone, with no need to tie up a research lab.
I bet on any particular night, I could bring a box of condoms into any bar I frequent and by the end of the night, less than a dozen would be missing from the box. This is for a couple reasons. First, guys usually have their favorites. I know that I used to prefer the ones made out of goat entrails. But I’ve out of the loop for 20 years when it comes to having meaningless bar sex. Second, guys don’t want to look like they planned all along to have sex with you, so being armed with a sleeve’s length of condoms looks a little too pre-planned (and predatory). We want to seem like it’s a surprise that we got you drunk and that sex was the furthest thing from our minds that night.
I do hope they do a follow up study on one-armed women who had four drinks then sex. You know, the ones who had to gnaw their arm off when they awoke the next morning, laying next to a chunk instead of a hunk.
Out on the Treasure Coast, thinking that my rubber tree needs trimming,
– Robb