The Most Useful Campaign Promise: Post-Election Erections?

For some reason, voter turnout in American elections is still dismal, with many having trouble finding the motivation to choose the leader of the free world. Details, details… Well, perhaps men would be a little more apt to show up for the party if they knew that a win for their chosen member of Congress or the Senate could possibly mean a win for their own member?

Two psychologists claim they have found a pattern between the states that backed the winning candidate for the presidency in the past two elections and the number of search requests for porn on the Internet. After the 2004 election of George W. Bush, rates of Internet porn usage in states that backed Bush (chuckle) surged, while states that backed John Kerry saw decreases. The same pattern of results was found in the 2008 election with Barack Obama and John McCain, as well as in the 2006 congressional election.

Patrick Markey, who conducted the study with his wife, also a psychologist, told LiveScience, “If we saw this just for one election, you might chalk it up to chance, but we saw a pattern with it happening three times. It’s also cool that we saw these results with both Republicans and Democrats — that these were general results not just driven by one political party.”

So if the results aren’t indicative of one political party just being a little hornier than another, how does it make sense for the champions of an election to get hungrier for boobs than the losers? Since when do guys whack off when they’re victorious and celebratory instead of when they’re sad and cursing the gods?

Here’s something you should know: The psychologists apparently stumbled on these findings after working on past studies of testosterone levels. Such studies have shown that testosterone levels rise (ha!) or drop (oops) after experiencing a win or loss, respectively. Though males typically show a slight drop in testosterone levels at night [Editor's Note: Not in our experience, especially if we've eaten after midnight or had water thrown on us], the levels of males who voted for McCain in the 2008 election dropped more significantly, while the levels of Obama’s voters also surged significantly more than usual. “We don’t know for sure if testosterone is the reason why we are seeing these changes in porn-seeking behavior, but it seems like the best explanation at the moment,” said Markey.

Moral of the story: Vote for the right candidate, and you may be a little more up for the party, if you know what we’re saying. You know what we’re saying.