‘The beautiful thing about an Anthropology degree, anything to do will humans is a viable writing topic’. Nerys Bushnell blogs about writing her Stage 3 dissertation on female sex toy preference.

If I were to describe myself in two words, they would be master procrastinator.  My classic, leave-everything-to-the last-minute approach was not going to fly when writing a 12,000-word dissertation. One of the fun aspects of writing a dissertation is how quickly all your initial plans for it go immediately out of the window. You will always fall into the trap of ambitiously trying to solve all of the world’s problems in a single paper and come face to face with the harsh reality that it is not possible to achieve in a matter of months.

I chose to tackle female sex toy preference, after all Rome was not built in a day and the world saving has to start somewhere. Speaking of Rome, sex toys have a long and rich ancient history yet are notoriously under-researched and so I wanted to add more data to the discourse surrounding them. That is the beautiful thing about an Anthropology degree, anything to do will humans is a viable writing topic. I had initially wanted to recreate a Gallup et al. study which used sex toys to simulate sex and assess whether the male phallus is designed to displace semen from a female’s reproductive tract. Due to COVID and difficulty accessing the lab and resources myself and my dissertation supervisor, Dr Sarah Johns, I chose to stick with the theme of sex toys but conduct research online. My final title was “Phallus for Sale! Selling sex toys online, a study of female morphological preference and the future of human sexuality”.  I set out to assess which male anatomical features were the most appealing in sex toy form and which contributed to female sex toy preference and a toys overall popularity.

The data collection was a long arduous process that was constantly having to be redone thanks to the fickleness that is the Internet. If an image is worth a thousand words, then I read over 300,000 looking at dildo images alone. It was a truly eye-opening experience and not one I or any of my friends and family are soon to forget. Its very fun trying to justify why Lovehoney has now become one of my most visited websites without sounding slightly insane or sex obsessed, but it has become part of the package deal that is my university degree. I think saying that I lost my mind entirely is a slight exaggeration but I certain lost a fair few nights and a LOT of hair to stress and anxiety.

Choosing dildos as my primary subject, I noted product length, size, colour, material and whether there was a presence of realistic morphological features. I then designed my own categorisation system and divided the products into four realism categories ranging from no realistic features to highly realistic. This was analysed against product popularity and it was found that products which fell into the category of moderate realism were the most popular. These showed a few morphologically realistic features but were not flesh toned or exact replicas of the male phallus. This challenged my initial hypotheses as I had predicted that highly realistic models would be the most popular and therefore introduced further questions about why this was the case providing a foundation for future research. Jokes and dildos aside, writing a dissertation is and was a stressful, all-consuming but highly rewarding experience.

I was very fortunate that my project was what it was. It was funny and enjoyable to investigate, read and write about, and I was forced not to take it all too seriously. I think that there is enormous pressure to produce a world-renowned piece that is perfect and publishable but realistically its still an undergraduate degree (you can save the serious stuff for the Masters). So, my advice would be to have fun and enjoy learning about something you are truly passionate about.  Anyone who is fortunate enough to write their own dissertation should be extremely proud of themselves for it is no easy feat and is a fabulous excuse for a celebration once submitted (2 meters apart of course!).

Nerys is studying Anthropology with a Year Abroad – BSc (Hons)