Still More Reasons Why I love the Internet

So I discovered David Thomson's excellent blog a few weeks ago and, in the course of surfing my favorite links, I happened upon this link in his Friday Ephemera. Now, I should state up front that I'm a big fan of comics, have been for years, and am currently enjoying the 8th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer via comic form from Dark Horse.

Having said that, I should also admit that superhero genitalia - male or female - has never been something I've thought a lot about. But you have to agree that the particular way this character has been drawn ("I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.") makes you kinda wonder what the artist was drinking that day. And then, to become imbroiled in a, um, discussion about whether the superhero is sporting an erection or just packing some serious meat, well, all I can say is thank God for the Internet.

But that's not the best part.

In the course of reading the post (and the comments), I saw references to two things I'd never heard of: yaoi and XXXenophile. Now, yaoi, as it turns out, is a Japanese form of slash fiction (with illustrations) and XXXenophile is an X-rated comic book, published mainly between 1988 and 2000 by Phil Foglio. Now, slash fiction doesn't interest me a whole lot, although the thought of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in a menage a trois is kind of funny. XXXenophile, on the other hand, I found both amusing and erotic. If you'd like to actually see some scans from them, you can go here, but be aware that these are definitely NSFW.

But even that's not the best part.

Also referenced in the post is a post here, talking about a method of "eyetracking", which measures what the eye focuses on while reading.

When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.
Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.

Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

Now this is cool. And, whodathunk it, very informative. I mean, who knew that men were so interested in the "private anatomy" of other men? Not to mention animals?

That's why I love the Internet.

Oh, and for my part, I have no problem with the "cock", especially superhero cock, but I draw the line at animal private anatomy.