Welcome to the Micro Blog

Below is a nationwide "age progression" of Americans, 18 to 40. It's what's called a heat map or choropleth. Basically, we're using color intensities to show how people answered an OkCupid match question.

Do you enjoy giving oral sex?
age of the U.S. population

By moving the slider under the map to change the age the displayed data set, you can watch how sexuality evolves as people get older. As you can see, Americans are more into oral sex later in life, and you can also get a good idea of local attitudes. Places like Iowa City, IA and Birmingham, AL are definitely ahead of the curve on this topic. Here's a quick line chart showing the nationwide change over age, 18 to 40. I've broken the data out by gender, so you can see how men and women differ. The red dots are highs and lows.


All right, that's all for today. We'll be posting statistical outtakes like these more or less daily from now on. Tomorrow's match question is, Is masturbation your most frequent type of sexual release? We'll again look at nationwide attitudes/behaviors and also gender breakouts.

6 Responses to “Welcome to the Micro Blog”

  1. Fascinating! And a little surprising. It looks like Americans really “grow” into their sexuality over their 20s and 30s.

    Sorry young people – guess the statistics show what’s going on in your parents’ bedrooms! ;)

    -jack

  2. nootch

    Once again, science proves that Iowa rocks more than you know!

  3. Regina29

    Hey, Looks like oral sex is an “acquired taste!”

    I wonder if you could break this chart down my sex…now that would be interesting!

    Peace, Regina

  4. couldn't find microblog

    why doesn’t the microblog show up in the rss feed? :(

  5. Renegade Researcher

    “As you can see, Americans are more into oral sex later in life”

    This just isn’t what your data shows: it shows that for the set of single Americans who use a dating website. Equally plausible – if not more so – is the theory that the kind of people who dislike oral sex are more likely to settle into long-term relationships at a younger age. Additionally, perhaps young people are naturally open to the internet, and so you have a diversity of views represented, whereas the only older people who’d use a dating website are naturally at the more open-minded end of the curve.

  6. BBT

    also plausible:

    As people get older and still haven’t found a partner for life, they feel the need to represent themselves as enjoying giving oral as a means of being a more desirable catch, even if they don’t actually enjoy it.

    After all, it’s pretty clear that almost all people are going to want their partners to answer yes to this question. With biological clocks ticking, are 40 year olds really going to want to be honest and answer no?