Czech Republic / Slovakia – Let us here at The Best Cat Page first preface this story with a disclaimer! We do not necessarily agree nor disagree with the “results” of any research studies. We are simply here to report about the ‘findings’.
According to this new research, your cat could be having a much more serious effect on you without you realizing it.
Owning a cat could be having an impact on your sexual behavioral patterns, and specifically, it is believed, make you more likely to be aroused by sadomachism, a new study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology has revealed.
The supposed reason is that a common brain parasite from cats, Toxoplasma gondii, which causes toxoplasmosis, is they claim, linked to sexual arousal by fear, violence, and danger in humans.
According to ‘research’, approximately a third of the world’s population are infected with the parasite, and transmission from pet cats (through their feces) is one of the most common causes.
The new study of 36,564 people in Slovakia and the Czech Republic – both those infected with Toxoplasma and parasite-free – claims to have found that “infected subjects are more often aroused by their own fear, danger, and sexual submission.”
The researchers are also claiming that people with Toxoplasma have a “higher attraction to bondage, violence and, in men, to masochism and raping.”
They explained that the parasite succeeds in using the fact that sex-related stimuli and fear-related stimuli affect very similar circuits in the brain.
“Even without Toxoplasma, there will be some relationship between fear and sex,” lead author Jaroslav Flegr noted.
Although toxoplasmosis is quite common, they claim, it’s rarely reported as there are no real symptoms – around 350 cases are reported in England and Wales annually, but the NHS believes the actual number of infections could be as high as 350,000.
Toxoplasmosis may be diagnosed by undertaking a blood test.
If nothing more, we here at The Best Cat thought our cat loving followers might get a big ‘kink’ out of this!
LOL!
