Why women don't mind having 'messy sex'

The authors of the study, led by Charmaine Borg of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, asked female participants to complete various disgusting-seeming actions, like drinking from a cup with an insect in it or wiping their hands with a used tissue.

However, the participants were not aware of it, but the insect was made of plastic and the tissue was coloured with ink to make it appear used.

The researchers found that sexually aroused subjects responded to the tasks with less disgust than subjects who were not sexually aroused, suggesting that the state of arousal has some effect on women's disgust response.