Sexual Myths and Misconceptions

Some of the most widely repeated "facts" about sex have no evidence behind them at all, and a few have been actively studied and disproven by name. This lesson takes five of the most persistent sexual myths apart, one at a time, using the actual research that tested them. Table of Contents M yths about sex survive for a very specific reason: they get repeated far more often than they get checked. Psychologists have studied this pattern in general, under the name the illusory truth effect, first documented experimentally in the late 1970s: the more often a person hears a claim, regardless of whether it's true, the more true it starts to feel. Sexual myths are an almost perfect breeding ground for this effect, because the topic is one most people feel awkward fact checking out loud, even when something sounds obviously off. This lesson picks five myths that are common enough you've almost certainly heard at least one of them stated as plain fact, and traces each one back t…