The recent revival of the name issue between Athens and Skopje has also led to a revival in Greek bedrooms, according to the findings of an Andrological Institute study released on Friday that reported an increase in sexual desire among Greeks in the past month.
"As the morale of the Greeks goes up, it catapults 'immorality' in the bedroom," said the Institute's president Constantinos Constantinidis, who noted that Greeks 'caught' between the negotiations and patriotism had found a release for their excess anxiety and passion by having more sex.
The figures presented by the Andrological Institute reflect this clearly and, according to the report's authors, show that political passions have a direct impact on those of the bedroom, doubling the number of sexual contacts and, in many cases, their intensity.
The findings were based on self-reported figures given through phone interviews, internet questionnaires and live interviews in the field, using a sample of 1,000 individuals. The time period was set as the last month and the "degree of sexual passion" was defined based on the frequency of sexual contacts per month.
According to Dr. Christos Fliatouras of the Institute, this was compared to previous studies showing an average rate of coitus of six times per month - a number that doubled to 12 during the survey, indicating a clear difference without even a hint of statistical error.
The researchers said they were surprised by the findings and the signs that there was a mechanism that "intertwined" patriotic feelings and those predominating in sexual intercourse.
According to Constantinidis, one possible explanation was the fact that the "pathways" of love and hatred in the human brain were the same, while their opposite was indifference.
"We suspect that in this peculiar time, Greeks strongly loved both their humble present and their glorious past. Therefore the Greek communities, with strong passions, both positive and negative, came close to their animal nature, whose core is sexuality," he said.
Sexologists also pointed out that sex is more closely linked to our primitive "animal" brain and that everyone comes closer to their animal nature during sex. Constantinidis pointed to Freud's classic analysis that civilisation and its institutions repress the primitive animal urges and sex.
"Therefore, the catapulting of patriotic passions to great heights was possibly the vehicle that triggered our primitive nature in the bedroom," he added.