Where are the boys?

SNM
I'd have to agree with your comment, but then I enjoy F/f and F/m.

One amusing scene (among many) in the movie (starring Liam Neeson as Kinsey) was of him interviewing a young married couple and asking them which sexual positions they employed with one another and the wife asking in a confused voice "You mean there's more than one?" Some of William Masters (of Masters and Johnson fame) earlier research involved paying prostitutes to let him observe their "sessions" surreptitiously through peepholes and even photographing them. Of course these observations and results skewed his statistics too and he realized he needed to broaden his base of subjects to broaden his results to include both "normal" people and more diverse types of relationships. Then later, his research involved actually hooking up participants to monitor their heart rates, blood pressure, etc. while they were filmed having sex. Often his research involved people or couples who came to him as a sex therapist for various problems or sexual inadequacies who also agreed to participate with his research. He and Virginia Johnson didn't limit their research to "straight" couples either; they had gay and lesbian couples, random participants who didn't even meet until they were paired up for research sessions and people with various kinks including bondage and discipline as well. Kinsey and Masters and Johnson certainly suffered for their research and became both famous and notorious in their time. I think there's been a lot more research done since but it hasn't been so controversial and its participants (the researchers) haven't been so controversial either. It would make sense that more information, including info on TTWD is out there, but probably a lot of it is published strictly academically as papers intended for scholarly consumption and not the general public, nor would such research be easily available to non-academics.

In real life, I'd say there's possibly more kinky men than kinky women, though I think the gap is narrowing (remember 50SOG!). Certainly that's the impression you'd get from Bottomlines and other spanking/BDSM websites, although bear in mind that quite a number of men on such sites may not be kinky at all but looking for what they would consider to be easy conquests, and some quite attractive and personable women still find it hard to find a life partner in the scene. In the early days of BL the fact that the site didn't have personal ads or tolerate pests meant that there were actually more genuine female members than male.

As far as orientation goes, I don't agree that the vast number of male spankos are tops; from my experience on other sites, plus people I've actually met at munches and parties, I'd estimate that men split around 50/50 top/bottom. However this doesn't apply to women, where I estimate that 75% plus of females are bottoms. Thus female dommes are always in demand, one of my online friends won Night Of The Cane during which she whacked 30 people (and she plays hard!); the vast majority of her victims are male.

As far as films go, my only observation is that men tend to enjoy the visual whereas women enjoy the verbal. This doesn't mean that no women will watch porn/spanko movies or that no men like sexy/kinky stories, but I've always worked to the premise that my writing is more likely to be read by women than men.

An observation: I'm both visual and verbal, so I enjoy both stories and films that are done well.
I agree , more women are coming out now than previously, and thank goodness for that.

I believe it takes time for a male to come to terms with his orientation. At first, we are little more than a mass of hormonal turmoil and overly eager to bed anything female. Later, the fantasies kick in and sneak up on one, becoming more predominant as time goes by. It also seems that the dominance comes forth later in females or at least that's when it becomes more obvious. All my personal observation and opinion signifying absolutely nothing, of course.

As an aside, I read in one of those old reports where a couple went to see one of these sexual researchers and their complaint was that they had been trying for years to reproduce but having no luck because the male was unable to penetrate the female bellybutton.

I am not sure this is related, but I used to collect spanking videos, mostly from NuWest/Leda.
Generally, I prefer videos with a plot, where the spankee misbehaves. Some of the F/f (actually F/F) videos were pretty good, in my opinion, especially since you could imagine the spankees as being young enough to be of spanking age. This was less so with the F/m (or F/M) videos where it was difficult to picture the spankee as being young enough.

I've heard that men are more likely to be in touch with their sexual needs than women. Something to do with more girls being told from an early age not to explore "there" while guys are born with a fun pull toy that they can't help noticing.

Not sure if it is true or not, but it is something that I've heard.

Yes, and this makes sense evolutionarily too. Even in places in the world where women's rights are very advanced, men are still more likely to be sexually adventurous. Women's sexuality is "hidden", even to ourselves, while men's sexuality is much more straight-forward to themselves. There is no visible sexual arousal barometer on women, like there is on men, that permits us to automatically confirm "yep, this particular thing turns me on."

Dan Savage wrote in a column once, "Women's arousal is mysterious, and as a consequence asking for what you need is complicated. For men, it is not only un-mysterious, but men never hesitate to ask for anything they need, and no amount of effort is too much: toys, sets, costumes, livestock, whatever it takes to get you off. Women should learn to insist more on what they want."
Or something. Can't remember verbatim. Livestock, hee hee...

As said in another thread my personal experience is sadly limited, but I've dedicated my life to plow my nose through as much literature on the subject as possible to satisfy my kink. To me the spanking sphere has mostly seemed like a male thing. It seems to have a history in boy's school and in the military but hardly among women. Among the ones sharing my kink I'd guess that it's a notable majority of men that wants to be both spankee and spanker. True that female dominas are in high demand, but it doesn't mean that there are a high percentage of submissive women. I'd say that it's rather because there are so many more men with this kink, that the women are not enough, neither on top or on bottom to fill the demand. Could also be that there is a hidden demand among women that partly explains the gap. As Burgundy so correctly points out it is so easy for men to ask their lady to jump into her school uniform while you need ten horses to drag out of a woman what she wants to get her started. There might also be a cultural barrier there it is so much more accepted that men are into spanking and submission than it is for women. Sometimes s/m appears in comedies but then it is always a man that is a sub. A woman in leather as a sub in a comedy and everyone goes haywire. Another thing could be that women are actually nicer than men and more keen to make people happy, rather than to satisfy their own need. While they'd rather not at all, or had preferred to be the spanker, they can go across the lap just to make their partner happy.

Hmm, no. According to men I've talked to about it, no woman who isn't into spanking as a kink is willing to get spanked - properly - just to make him happy. It's humiliating and it hurts, so unless she's into that, it's too much to ask. Or so I hear.
It really is a much tougher world for kinky guys than for kinky girls. Even guys who aren't particularly into spanking per se are like, "You want a spanking? Yeah what the hell, sure I can do that." Then after trying it once, they're like "Okay, this is my new kink now." Never met a single guy who said no. To anything at all, no matter what it was.
Thanks for being the way you are, guys