“Listening to Noam Chomsky,” said a psychologist in her 50s, “always turns me on.”

This psychologist is by no means alone. A few months ago, in the Harvard Coop, a 20-something customer explained to her friends as they all walked past the cash registers, "I have such a crush on Noam Chomsky!"

A plethora of new findings, however, suggest that the experience of desire may be less a forerunner to sex than an afterthought, the cognitive overlay that the brain gives to the sensation of already having been aroused by some sort of physical or subliminal stimulus ...

Seeking the Keys ...