Scientists tracked a two-word phrase across millions of books to uncover a major difference in sexual psychology

A recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior suggests that the phrase “feeling sexy” is overwhelmingly used to describe women rather than men in published books. This provides evidence that women’s sexual experiences are frequently tied to the perception of being desired by others. The findings indicate that our everyday language rapidly evolves to reflect our underlying sexual interests and social roles.

The authors behind the new research sought to better understand a psychological concept known as “object of desire self-consciousness.” This term describes the experience of perceiving oneself as romantically or sexually desirable in another person’s eyes. According to existing psychological models, this specific perception often acts as a powerful trigger for sexual arousal.

The researchers wanted to know if language reflecting this concept tends to be heavily gendered. They focused on how these feelings fit into people’s sexual scripts. A sexual script is essentially a mental outline or set of internal expectations about how romantic or sexual events are supposed to unfold in a given culture.

The research team suspected that women’s scripts might feature the feeling of being desired more prominently than men’s scripts do. In modern English, the specific phrase “feel sexy” perfectly captures this unique experience. To “feel sexy” implies an awareness of one’s own attractiveness and a capacity to arouse others.

At the same time, this phrase often carries an element of personal sexual excitement. When a person feels sexy, their own sense of desirability actually fuels their internal lust or arousal. The scientists reasoned that tracking this specific phrase could reveal hidden differences in how men and women process sexual desire.

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“I co-wrote a theoretical paper on object of desire perceptions about 10 years ago. I felt that our language—how we communicate—was an important component how these perceptions are expressed, but we had never published research on it,” said corresponding author Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University.

To test their hypothesis, the scientists turned to the Google Books Ngram Viewer. This massive digital database contains the text of more than 5 million English-language books published between the years 1800 and 2022. The researchers searched the system for grammatical variations of the phrase “feel sexy” combined with male and female pronouns.

These search terms included phrases such as “she felt sexy,” “him feel sexy,” and “woman feels sexy.” The database search tool tracks how often these specific phrases appear in the published text over time. The scientists recorded any phrase that appeared in a minimum of 40 different books to ensure they were analyzing established language patterns.

To guarantee accuracy, the researchers also looked at two sets of control phrases. First, they searched for basic variations of the verb “to feel” paired with gendered pronouns. Second, they searched for the word “sexy” used as a simple descriptor, such as “she is sexy” or “he is sexy.”

These control searches helped the scientists verify that any discovered gender differences were specific to the feeling of being desired. They needed to rule out the possibility of a general tendency to write about women’s feelings more than men’s. They also needed to rule out the possibility that women are just generally described as sexy more often.

The data revealed a massive gender divide in how this language is utilized. Out of 28 total “feel sexy” phrases that met the 40-book minimum, 25 of them directly referred to women. This indicates that 89 percent of the qualifying phrases were strictly female-oriented.

The three most common variations in the entire database were all focused on women. In order of frequency, they were “her feel sexy,” “She felt sexy,” and “she felt sexy.” When looking at phrases that had direct male and female equivalents, the gap remained exceptionally wide.

Over the analyzed time period, the female versions of these phrases appeared about 10 times more often than the male versions. This specific type of language began to emerge in the late 1970s. It then grew rapidly in popularity after the 1990s.

The researchers found that this was a highly unique linguistic trend. General phrases about feelings showed no distinct gender bias in the database. Additionally, phrases simply describing someone as sexy showed only a weak, non-significant tilt toward female pronouns.

The scientists also dug deeper by examining a sample of 100 books containing the most frequent phrase, “her feel sexy.” They did this to learn more about the writers creating the text and the genres featuring it. They discovered that 89 percent of the writers utilizing this phrase were women.

A large majority of these books featuring the female phrase were heterosexual romance novels. Specifically, 64 percent of the sampled books fell into this genre. Smaller percentages included self-help books and general fiction.

For comparison, the researchers looked at a sample of books containing the phrase “him feel sexy.” The writers of these books were more evenly split by gender, with women making up 54 percent of the group. The genres for this male-oriented phrase were also much more diverse, spreading somewhat evenly across general fiction, self-help books, and gay romance novels.

While the data points to a strong gender difference, the scientists caution against viewing this language as exclusively female. The study clearly shows that male-oriented phrases do exist in published books and remain relevant to men’s sexual experiences. It is simply less common for writers to focus on men feeling sexually desirable.

It is also possible that romance novels use highly stylized language to appeal to specific reader fantasies. This written dialogue might not perfectly mirror the everyday thoughts or conversations of the general public. Readers of romance novels may also have higher interest in sexual stimulation than non-readers, meaning this language likely targets a specific audience.

The findings indicate “that men and women often communicate about sexuality similarly, but there are also some interesting gender differences in this form of communication,” Bogaert told PsyPost. “Also, that our language can evolve relatively quickly to reflect our interests, desires, and cognitive structures, including our sexual scripts.”

A primary limitation of the study is its exclusive reliance on published books. Books represent just one form of deliberate communication and do not account for more spontaneous exchanges.

“Although books are an important form of communication, there are other forms of language/communication—for example, everyday conversations, social and other media—that we did not analyze,” Bogaert noted.

The database also gives equal weight to every book regardless of its actual popularity. This means an obscure novel with few readers counts just as much as a major international bestseller. Because romance novels are incredibly popular, the actual cultural impact of female-oriented “feel sexy” language might be even larger than the numbers suggest.

Future studies could explore how this language operates in different, untested media formats. Scientists might also investigate whether similar gender differences exist in languages other than contemporary English. Finally, researchers hope to see if reading “feel sexy” language directly affects a reader’s mood, arousal, or self-perception in real-time settings.

The study, “Who “Feels Sexy” in the Google Books Corpus? Text‑Mining Evidence for Gender Differences in Object of Desire Self‑Consciousness,” was authored by Anthony F. Bogaert, Jessie E. Hernder, and Jessica R. Johnson.