Social scientists seek to probe and to describe the most intimate and secret practices by peoples across the world. The attraction of this "guarded realm" for many researchers is not rooted in their desire for knowledge and benefits alone, but some are also drawn by the allure of the forbidden, of secrecy itself. There is also a pleasure in dispelling what some understand to be mystery as in fact purely physical or superficial phenomena. There is the pleasure of trespassing on what is taboo.
The extraordinary amount of research into every minute aspect of sexuality and religious belief is simply not explicable on scientific grounds alone.