Journal of Boredom Studies

State Boredom and Sexual Arousal in Men: No Evidence for Effects on Genital and Subjective Measures

Megan Brown — 2025-06-11

Past research alleges boredom to trigger markers of sexual arousal, including sexual sensation seeking, promiscuity, and pornography consumption among men. Yet, this past work relied on self-report and did not directly investigate sexual arousal. We experimentally tested if state boredom increases male genital arousal (via penile string gauges) alongside self-reported arousal. Participants identified as exclusively heterosexual or mostly heterosexual men. They watched boredom-inducing or comparatively neutral control videos, followed by footage displaying either men or women masturbating. Bayesian tests show that despite a successful experimental induction of state boredom, participants did not display different levels of genital or subjective arousal towards preferred or less preferred targets in the boredom condition than neutral condition. Rather, results provided moderately strong evidence for the null-hypothesis. These findings suggest that previously-reported links between trait boredom and sexual sensation seeking, promiscuity, and pornography do not translate to an impact on sexual arousal at state level.

Slow, Complex, Dull? Climate Boredom and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future

Ciarán Kavanagh — 2025-04-29

The article discusses the phenomenon of climate boredom via Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Based an embodied understanding of boredom—particularly as a literary effect—I considers the novel’s potential to bore through its slow narration of the politics, economics and administration of global carbon sequestration. I posit that the novel’s willingness to bore arises from and resonates with the ways in which it imagines that climate change might be at least somewhat successfully managed. Furthermore, I argue that this may represent a purposeful shift from cli-fi’s perhaps too familiar spectacularizing of climate change’s effects, and that the often delayed, backgrounded or distanced action of the novel serves to redirect interest to the slow, complex and often dull work of climate change’s solving which, while hardly positive, may be more workable than a paralyzing boredom that can emerge as means of distancing climate change. In analyzing Ministry through boredom, I also seek to establish a connection between the phenomenon of climate boredom and critical discussions of literary slowness and complexity, particularly as they are positioned in relation to imaginings of the Anthropocene. Moreover, I want to interrogate this championing of difficult texts in relation to their ostensible aim, which is to shift, inflame and nuance public consciousness on the issue. This article, then, pays particular attention to the ‘caveat’ reader, the bored reader who puts down the text, and thus attends to boredom also as a risk of slow and complex literature.

When Existence Grows Heavy: Existential Boredom and the Flight from Ourselves

Stanley Kreiter Bezerra Medeiros — 2025-05-20

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of existential boredom as a fundamental attunement through which key aspects of the human condition are disclosed—namely, the absence of ultimate meaning, ontological freedom, and finitude. Far from being a fleeting emotion or trivial discomfort, boredom is treated here as a mood with ontological significance, capable of revealing our evasive relationship with our own condition as existing beings. By drawing on philosophical reflections ranging from Seneca’s notion of taedium vitae to modern and existential thinkers such as Pascal, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, the study outlines how boredom emerges not merely as a symptom of malaise, but as a privileged site for encountering the burden of existence. Our conclusion is that existential boredom exposes the tension between our structural openness to being and our recurring tendency to flee from this openness, revealing the weight—and the truth—of human finitude.

Finding Something for Yourself: Exploring Boredom Through the Lens of Identity Development

Gadi On — 2025-04-09

Boredom is a complex human experience understood through psychodynamic, arousal, cognitive, and existential perspectives. Despite significant contributions from these perspectives, this paper highlights two key challenges to understanding boredom: the depth of boredom – whether it is a minor or significant aspect of human experience – and the role of personal meaning in theories of boredom. I propose an initial framework for understanding boredom by integrating insights from different theoretical traditions, particularly in relation to identity development. Drawing on the work of Erik Erikson and Ruthellen Josselson, I explore how boredom connects to the experience of Holding and how identity concern and exploration contribute to this phenomenon. I illustrate this framework with examples from in-depth interviews with adolescents and young adults, analyzing their experiences of boredom through life narratives. The paper also offers new insights into the long-term tendency of individuals to experience boredom – i.e., trait boredom.

Review of the Book The Routledge International Handbook of Boredom by Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Corinna S. Martarelli

Danielle Greenberg — 2025-07-03

Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Corinna S. Martarelli (eds.): The Routledge International Handbook of Boredom. Routledge, 2024, pp. 418. ISBN: 978-1-032-22186-1