An artist is a gift. A good artist is a miracle. Artists use their imagination to move others. When art touches you, you want to touch it back.

And that’s how artists get laid.

At least that’s the myth around artists. Musicians. Painters. Even the antisocial writer, the myth that hangs over artists is that they have a lot of sex because fans link arms in queues that go around entire blocks and wait for their turn to show their appreciation for art with the ultimate medium, their body.

This myth is so predominant that three British scientists conducted a statistical study to find out if artists actually have more sex. The study was called Status and Mating Success Amongst Visual Artists, if you’re curious. The scientists gathered the number of partners out of a sample of 236 artists. While some numbers did lean towards the mythological sexual prowess, some artists had over 200 lovers in their lifetime, the median number was somewhere around 10 lovers. That’s the average for most adults. I’d venture to say it’s way below the average, but that might be the bias of a very enthusiastic sex columnist.

It’s more disappointing that the study’s conclusion is that successful male artists do have more partners than lesser known artists, but this doesn’t apply to female artists, successful or not.

Of course, this makes me think of Frida Kahlo, the bisexual Mexican artist with a magnetic presence. She married the painter that inspired her continue her own art, but the marriage was as tumultuous as it was passionate. They both had a long list of lovers. One of her most notable lovers being Josephine Baker, an American entertainer who made a name for herself in France. Frida dripped sexuality.

Another trio of scientists studied the evolutionary advantages of creativity on their quest to find out why people find artists so sexy. The study was called Peacocks, Picasso, and Parental Investment: The Effects of Romantic Motives on Creativity. They had students write short stories. The students were previously separated into two groups. One of was put in a “romantic mindset” while the others were put under more fearful and stressful mindset. The scientists found that the stories were more creative in the ones that were in the romantic mindset. This leads down the road to another set of mythology: muses.

The study claimed that gender did matter, because the relationship between being in the romantic mindset and being more creative was more prominent in men. Tie that back to Picasso and how each new stage in his art marked a new mistress.

This evolutionary study leaves us with the notion of sexual selection. The more creative a person is, the more likely they will think of new ways to survive if they’re in danger. (Now think of your local coffeehouse exhibition painter and imagine him in the woods.) This, of course, wouldn’t explain how female artists like Frida Kahlo would attract amazing women like Josephine Baker, so we’ll take that with a grain of salt.

So why do we want to sleep with artists? I don’t think there’s anything sexier than finding someone who can look at you once and see something no one else has. When a painter finds a shadow across your face that you’ve carried for years, but didn’t know was there. Or when a muralist finds your face on a Wynwood wall and assigns it colors you never thought worked on you. Or when a lyricist mentions the annoyed girl has at the merch table. Something it has nothing to do with you. The artist’s job is explain the human condition in a way you’ve never seen or heard it before. And that moves you. And whoops, where did your pants go?