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Do vegetarians really have better sex than meat-eaters?
There are many reasons why this could be true.

Vegetarians may be having better sex. Here's why...
- A new study explains the differences in libido and sexual satisfaction between vegetarians and meat-eaters, with vegetarians coming out on top.
- According to this survey, 57 percent of vegetarians claim to have sex 3-4 times per week compared to 49 percent of meat-eaters. Also, 58 percent of vegetarians (compared to 35 percent of meat-eaters) claim to be "givers" rather than "takers" in the bedroom.
- There are many reasons why vegetarians may be having better sex, from a healthier, easier-to-digest diet, to actually appearing physically more attractive due to the benefits of the vitamins in their food.
A 2020 study that surveyed 500 vegetarians (38 percent of which identified as vegans) and 500 meat-eaters has suggested that vegetarians are having better, more fulfilling sexual encounters than meat-eaters.
This survey was conducted by Illicit Encounters, the UK's largest extramarital dating site. According to survey poll results, vegetarians are more likely to enjoy foreplay and dirty talk than their meat-eating counterparts.
The majority of vegetarians polled (57 percent) claimed to have sex 3-4 times per week, whereas most meat-eaters (49 percent) claimed to have sex 1-2 times per week. Additionally, 84 percent of vegetarians reported being satisfied with their sex lives compared to 59 percent of meat-eaters. Surprisingly, the polls showed that 95 percent of strictly vegan participants claimed to be completely satisfied with their sex life.
The survey went even further, diving into what specifically the participants were enjoying about their sex lives the most:
- 58 percent of vegetarians and 35 percent of meat-eaters claim they are "givers" rather than "takers" in the bedroom
- Most vegetarians and meat-eaters enjoy making out (92 percent versus 79 percent) and foreplay (88 percent versus 68 percent)
- Dirty talk was enjoyed by 48 percent of vegetarians compared to 35 percent of meat-eaters
- Bondage was enjoyed by 26 percent of vegetarians and 15 percent of meat-eaters
Vegetarians really could be having better sex...and here's why
There are many reasons why vegetarians may be having more satisfying sex...
Image by svtdesign on Shutterstock
Vegetarian or vegan diets can promote optimal body function
"Never underestimate the power of a plant-based diet," writes Delfina Ure in Muscle and Fitness. "Every plant, seed, herb, nut, and fruit has a powerful chemical makeup and nutrient profile that promotes optimal body function for a healthy libido…"
Along with packing a punch with nutrients, eating less meat may also mean you have more energy to burn doing other things (like having sex). "Vegetarians have the one up on digestion with plants being easier on the body than a flank of meat," that same article explains. Plants tend to be easier to break down into nutrients which can give your body a quick energy boost without a heavy feeling.
Erectile dysfunction may be more common in meat-eaters
Studies show around 75 percent of men who suffer from heart disease also suffer from erectile dysfunction. And medical evidence indicates meat-eating can cause impotence because the meat clogs up the arteries going to all the organs, not just the heart.
Diet and digestion can interrupt sleep, which can impact your sex life
A good night's sleep naturally regulates athletic performance, according to Muscle and Fitness. Not only that, but sleep can impact hormone production, mood regulation, memory, and mental functions, and all of those can impact your sex drive. According to research, 1 in 3 Americans struggle with a sleep disorder and among those, the biggest culprit is diet and digestion.
"If you're a heavy meat-eater overloading your body with protein you can't break down, toxins you're not removing and nutrients your body can't get to, over time your body's natural biorhythms will pay the toll…"
Vegetarians may be "more attractive"
According to a 2006 study from Charles University (in the Czech Republic), women may prefer the scent of a man who is vegetarian over the scent of a man who is a meat-eater. This makes sense, considering unprocessed toxins from meat can be released into the bloodstream and large intestines, and then get pushed out of the pores of the skin, causing meat-eaters to have a harsher body odor than vegetarians or those on a plant-based diet.
Someone on a vegetarian or vegan diet may also have better skin. Typical vegetarian diets consist of a lot of vitamins A and C, chlorophyll, and other vitamins/antioxidants that naturally work to clean, detox and revitalize the body (including our skin).
- Vegan burgers make men feel fuller than beef, study finds - Big Think ›
- A Vegetarian Diet and Its Effect On Your Mood - Big Think ›
- Why some philosophers think you should be a vegetarian - Big Think ›
- How to transition to a plant-based diet - Big Think ›
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>Designer uses AI to bring 54 Roman emperors to life
It's hard to stop looking back and forth between these faces and the busts they came from.
Meet Emperors Augustus, left, and Maximinus Thrax, right
- A quarantine project gone wild produces the possibly realistic faces of ancient Roman rulers.
- A designer worked with a machine learning app to produce the images.
- It's impossible to know if they're accurate, but they sure look plausible.
How the Roman emperors got faced
<a href="https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/6/201108/14127595/2K-ENGLISH-24x36-Educational_v8_WATERMARKED_2000.jpg" ><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ2NDk2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTUzMzIxMX0.OwHMrgKu4pzu0eCsmOUjybdkTcSlJpL_uWDCF2djRfc/img.jpg?width=980" id="775ca" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="436000b6976931b8320313478c624c82" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="lineup of emperor faces" data-width="1440" data-height="963" /></a>Credit: Daniel Voshart
<p>Voshart's imaginings began with an AI/neural-net program called <a href="https://www.artbreeder.com" target="_blank">Artbreeder</a>. The freemium online app intelligently generates new images from existing ones and can combine multiple images into…well, who knows. It's addictive — people have so far used it to generate nearly 72.7 million images, says the site — and it's easy to see how Voshart fell down the rabbit hole.</p><p>The Roman emperor project began with Voshart feeding Artbreeder images of 800 busts. Obviously, not all busts have weathered the centuries equally. Voshart told <a href="https://www.livescience.com/ai-roman-emperor-portraits.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Live Science</a>, "There is a rule of thumb in computer programming called 'garbage in garbage out,' and it applies to Artbreeder. A well-lit, well-sculpted bust with little damage and standard face features is going to be quite easy to get a result." Fortunately, there were multiple busts for some of the emperors, and different angles of busts captured in different photographs.</p><p>For the renderings Artbreeder produced, each face required some 15-16 hours of additional input from Voshart, who was left to deduce/guess such details as hair and skin coloring, though in many cases, an individual's features suggested likely pigmentations. Voshart was also aided by written descriptions of some of the rulers.</p><p>There's no way to know for sure how frequently Voshart's guesses hit their marks. It is obviously the case, though, that his interpretations look incredibly plausible when you compare one of his emperors to the sculpture(s) from which it was derived.</p><p>For an in-depth description of Voshart's process, check out his posts on <a href="https://medium.com/@voshart/photoreal-roman-emperor-project-236be7f06c8f" target="_blank">Medium</a> or on his <a href="https://voshart.com/ROMAN-EMPEROR-PROJECT" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a>.</p><p>It's fascinating to feel like you're face-to-face with these ancient and sometimes notorious figures. Here are two examples, along with some of what we think we know about the men behind the faces.</p>Caligula
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ2NDk4Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MzQ1NTE5NX0.LiTmhPQlygl9Fa9lxay8PFPCSqShv4ELxbBRFkOW_qM/img.jpg?width=980" id="7bae0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ce795c554490fe0a36a8714b86f55b16" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="992" data-height="558" />One of numerous sculptures of Caligula, left
Credit: Rogers Fund, 1914/Wikimedia Commons/Daniel Voshart
<p><span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula" target="_blank">Caligula</a></span> was the third Roman Emperor, ruling the city-state from AD 37 to 41. His name was actually Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus — Caligula is a nickname meaning "Little Boot."</p><p>One of the reputed great madmen of history, he was said to have made a horse his consul, had conversations with the moon, and to have ravaged his way through his kingdom, including his three sisters. Caligula is known for extreme cruelty, terrorizing his subjects, and accounts suggest he would deliberately distort his face to surprise and frighten people he wished to intimidate.</p><p>It's <a href="https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-caligula" target="_blank">not totally clear</a> if Caligula was as over-the-top as history paints him, but that hasn't stopped Hollywood from churning out some <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080491/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">howlers</a> in his name.</p><p>A 1928 journal, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4172009" target="_blank">Studies in Philology</a>, noted that contemporary descriptions of Caligula depicted him as having a "head misshapen, eyes and temples sunken," and "eyes staring and with a glare savage enough to torture." In some sculptures not shown above, his head <em>is</em> a bit acorn-shaped. </p>Nero
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ2NTAwMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTQ2ODU0NX0.AgYuQZzRQCanqehSI5UeakpxU8fwLagMc_POH7xB3-M/img.jpg?width=980" id="a8825" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e0593d79c591c97af4bd70f3423885e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="992" data-height="558" />One of numerous sculptures of Nero, left
Credit: Bibi_Saint-Pol/Wikimedia Commons/Daniel Voshart
<p>There's a good German word for the face of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nero</a>, that guy famous for fiddling as Rome burned. It's "<a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Backpfeifengesicht" target="_blank">backpfeifengesicht</a>." Properly named Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, he was Rome's fifth emperor. He ruled from AD 54 until his suicide in AD 68.</p><p>Another Germanicus-family gem, Nero's said to have murdered his own mother, Agrippa, as well as (maybe) his second wife. As for the fiddling, he <em>was</em> a lover of music and the arts, and there are stories of his charitability. And, oh yeah, he may have set the fire as an excuse to rebuild the city center, making it his own.</p><p>While it may not be the most historically sound means of assessing an historical personage, Voshart's imagining of Nero does suggest an over-indulged, entitled young man. Backpfeifengesicht.</p>A psychiatric diagnosis can be more than an unkind ‘label’
A popular and longstanding wave of thought in psychology and psychotherapy is that diagnosis is not relevant for practitioners in those fields.
Spinal cord injury breakthrough makes paralyzed mice walk again
Scientists regenerate damaged spinal cord nerve fibers with designer protein, helping paralyzed mice walk again.
The paralyzed mice started to walk two to three weeks following treatment.
- Researchers from Germany use a designer protein to treat spinal cord damage in mice.
- The procedure employs gene therapy to regenerate damaged nerve fibers that carry signals to and from the brain.
- The scientists aim to eventually apply the technique to humans.
What is a spinal cord injury?
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="88b8d4e44e46b7d5fe49d1f3bca56078"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dKtBC2Sg_Bg?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>Ten things you may not know about anxiety
Cold hands and feet? Maybe it's your anxiety.
