Dollars and Sex

If you asked me how being a single parent has affected my economic prospects I would have to say for the worse…and for the best.  You see, while parenting young children alone may have made everything more difficult (literally, everything) it also gave me an incentive to work hard to give those ... Read More

When I was five my family got its first microwave oven. The department store sent a nice lady over to teach my mother how she could use it to roast a chicken while we four children looked on in amazement. Little did I know then that this device was about to revolutionize marriage in an entirely ... Read More

Men have stronger sexual desires than do women…Women are the more monogamous gender…Homosexuality is an unnatural sexual behavior. Sexual beliefs, like these, are so widespread that we have collectively come to view them as being embedded in our biology. Cross-cultural data collected from pre ... Read More

A recent article suggests that allowing polygyny would increase violent crime to such a degree that it would stifle economic growth. This is a logical conclusion if you assume that polygyny leaves many men without wives. The modern economy, however, has already disenfranchised the majority of low ... Read More

Next time your partner asks you “Do I make you happy?” you might think carefully before responding. New research published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization this month finds that what matters in heterosexual relationships is not just how satisfied people are with their life, but ... Read More

A couple of weeks ago a Dollars and Sex commenter wrote that the “origin of marriage was to create a legal contract by which a man could acquire a female slave.” Interesting point. Is there an economic story that explains the origin of this most-debated-of-all-institutions? The first humans ... Read More

Heading to South America to protect your head of state? Avoid potentially embarrassing conflict with this handy region guide to the price of sexual services prepared by a team of trained economists. Researchers have created a nationally representative data set that includes the per-transaction ... Read More

Remember when people used to believe that it took a village to raise a child? It seems that the last vestige of that sentiment took its dying breath in recent weeks as online discussion boards launched into lactation consultants. In a time in which big corporations are a new mother’s best friend ... Read More

I am trying to sell my house at the moment in a particularly hot local housing market. The market isn’t the only thing that is hot. So is my agent. It turns out that her attractiveness could be very good news in terms of the price the house is sold for, but bad news in terms of how long it is on ... Read More

I know at least some of you are thinking: I already feel like I am having sex with a robot. But new research predicts that we will be having sex with actual robots within five years and considers an exciting application of robotic technology – replacing sex workers with androids. The ... Read More

"Lesbian break-ups can apparently be bitchier than gay men's.” wrote columnist Giles Hattersley in the Sunday Times this weekend as he speculated his way through a piece on why 62% of civil union dissolutions (i.e. divorces) in the UK are between women despite the fact that lesbian relationships ... Read More

This week on Animal Kingdom, observe while the finely plumed CEO spreads his majestic tail in an attempt to attract a mate. This decorative display may be effective, but doing so requires aggressive investment policies. Is the effort worth exposing himself, and his shareholders, to so much risk? If ... Read More

Newsweek magazine in 1986 stunned a generation of college-educated single women by reporting that they had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than ever walking down an aisle clutching a bouquet of flowers. Those women are now in their late 60s. Would you like to know how they did ... Read More

A few years ago I gave a sermon at my (very liberal) church asking the question: “What determines the limit to our tolerance?” After the service, one member of the congregation took me to task for suggesting that humans are biologically hardwired to avoid consanguineous sexual relationships (those ... Read More

Today we have a guest post written by philosopher Neil McArthur. Neil writes regularly on his blog Moral Lust about sexual ethics and the philosophy of sexuality. In America, you have a right to an abortion, but you don’t have a right to refuse a trans-vaginal ultrasound if your state lawmakers ... Read More