Pardon me.
Because we run a huge dating site—OkCupid, which is free—and we studied math together, Chris and I like to sit in a circle (a line, really) and look at your data. Normally the data is pertinent and leads to revealing studies of human interaction, like our last post about how race plays a big role in online dating. But this week, just for fun, and to take a break from heavy subjects, we’re going to look at some of the more offbeat numbers we’ve come across—the statistical outtakes, if you will.
All of the following are user-submitted questions from our database. We’ll start with this one:
First of all, it’s nice to see that there are still some users hanging on to “blackguard” as a term of friendly disparagement. Also, we thought it was interesting that gay men lag behind their bi and straight brothers here. I’m sure many of you are already thinking “fafo” to yourselves, so I won’t even make the joke.
We were surprised on a couple fronts here. One, we had no idea that this many straight women were interested in sex with a strap-on. Duly noted, duly feared, ladies. Two, nearly one in seven straight men answered “yes” to this, and even for OkCupid’s sexually adventurous user base, that’s a pretty wild number. My best guess is that since the question doesn’t specify either way, some bros assumed it was asking about strap-on pizzas.
Next we have this incredible table:
Yes, 2 in 5 people (and nearly half of all men!) think they are one in a thousand. You do the math: that’s 100% melted.
Here’s how the U.S. breaks out by state, in one of our color-coded maps. Green means more people than average in a state think they’re geniuses; red means fewer. That bastion of American scholarship, Mississippi, came in green, of course. And apparently almost half of Nevadans are geniuses, which is at once laughable and slightly credible, seeing as how it must take a certain amount of brains to create a hell-on-earth. On the other hand, huzzah to West Virginians for their relative humility.
Finally, we ran a query on suicide for an upcoming article comparing people from Canada to other marginalized Americans. The topic’s certainly less frivolous than the rest of this week’s post—and the Canada/U.S. comparison didn’t turn out to be very interesting—but we felt like we had to publish what we found:
It’s pretty dramatic data. Here’s one way to look at it:
and another:
. . .
Thanks again for reading, everyone. If you’re curious about the dating site we run, or would like to prostrate yourself before a vast pool of online geniuses, check out OkCupid. It’s free and awesome.
Also, we’ve been submitted to the Mashable Open Web Awards, in the Best Corporate Blog category. If you’ve stopped laughing and have the inclination to vote for us, you can do so here.
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I think more people need to carefully read the suicide question. Having “considered” suicide does not mean “is currently suicidal”. You can’t equate this result with a general joy of living and/or stability within any of the polled demographics.
The genius question made me laugh. I’d be willing to say 95% of those who answered “yes” are full of shit. “Genius” is one of those things that means significantly smarter than the rest. Since IQ is based on a mean score of 100, to have nearly a majority be “genius” is self-defeating.
The genius poll, I think, mostly shows how completely self-absorbed the general population is.
What alarmed me was that gay people across the board were so much less interested in strap-on play than the bisexual people. Strap-ons are so aggressively marketed to lesbians… but who knew it was the bi girls who REALLY want to date the ones who are packin’.
And yes, I do believe that fully 14% (or more) of men want strap-on play. I took the unofficial poll in another setting and many men were unafraid to admit their interest in such things.
Definitely surprised at the high percent of gay guys needing/wanting the strap-ons. It could just be wanting a threesome “but not really”.
I’m not surprised at the low number of straight guys wanting them because a lot of straight guys still think it’s gay if it’s a strap-on. Probably a lot of guys also won’t indulge their girl in anal, just because it’s “that place”, and those same guys wouldn’t want anything in their own ass even if they could get past the fear that they’ll turn gay.
Incidentally the girlfriends of this latter group of guys would probably contribute to the pool of straight girls wanting it. but as mentioned above, they do have more orifices, so.
As for the suicide question, even OKC has wrongfully associated having EVER thought of suicide, with actually wanting or trying to do it. It’s the same with the question “can you see yourself killing someone?”. I can visualize myself walking the Earth for the next 60-70 years and carving happy meals out of every other living person, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever actually kill anyone, it just means I can, literally, visualize whatever I damn please. Incidentally, put a person under extreme circumstances and they WILL kill someone even if they never thought they would, so those kinds of questions are pretty much moot either way.
I’m straight and have had a strap-on experience, but hey.. can you do a percentage on the number of men who actually get stimulated by that?
seriously, my prostate just sort of sighed and surrendered.
Apparently for quite a large amount of men that is supposed to be an erogenous zone.
okay, I’m writing the question for stat purposes specifically now.
ps. it’s a giggle how many people get fascinated by the ol’ strap-on topic. me included.
A couple of basic statistical points here, instead of getting caught up in any particular question (and I really was going to respond to the Genius question in particular):
(1) Statistical sampling. OKC is a fairly self-selective site. That’s not to say that there aren’t outliers, but I suggest that the outliers on OKC are probably the typical users of a more mainstream dating site, in the societal sense. While OKC users may also subscribe to Match.com or another site (eg, eHarmony), it’s less likely that subscribers from those sites would cross-navigate over to this site (it happens, but as I said: outliers). OKC, at least initially, tended to cater to a certain type of individual. I’d say they’re generally much smarter, much geekier, and far more ‘open-minded’ than the standard pool. And since we have no access to data on the standard pool it’s really difficult to make any assertions.
(2) Quite a few of the questions on OKC are just plain posed wrong for this particular kind of analysis. ‘Would you consider yourself to be a genius’ is tricky, considering the fact that, for all we know, OKC *does* get that 1 in 1000 regularly… And sometimes I suspect they do (and I also think that a great deal of people that don’t fit that label are probably less likely to answer the questions at all, or to answer that question in particular). That said, I’m not stating that there’s no gross overestimation going on — there very likely is — but rather that without better actual data supporting or negating the presence of genius-hood *in this particular pool of people*, it’s quite difficult to say if people are or are not overestimating their own intelligence.
Too many people considered suicide. Damn.
Please. Please do this again. Hilarious. This made my day. Thank you.
Best,
andrew
I remained friends with this particular ex of mine, “John.” John and I would occasionally have these intimate late night chat sessions. (This was pretty close to the breakup. We don’t do this anymore.) One night he told me some of his fantasies… fantasies he was embarrassed to tell me when we were together. One of them involved a lady with a strap-on. (He said ME at the time, but this is a general thing. I’m sure I’m easily replaced by any attractive woman.) He always projected a very masculine, in-control, persona, and the idea of submitting was very alluring to him. He was embarrassed by it, though, and asked me to delete the chat when we were done. (I did.) He had other fantasies that he shared with me that night, most of them involving being dominated in some way. I think it’s more common than OKC found. He would *never* have admitted that in a survey tied to his identity.
Interesting data. Any chance of seeing MOEs or confidence intervals (or simply denominators) here?
Also – where is the suicide article going to be?
The ‘genius’ thing may be a bit silly, but it’s a bad question in the first place. What is ‘genius?’ I might be a genius at video games because I’m better at them than the next 1000 people, and someone else might be a genius at Apple. And someone else might be a genius at filing.
Regardless, rating people no a scale of any kind, which is what statistics is designed to do, is a cruel and aimless task unless you have a purpose that requires particular generalizable traits.
Perhaps it’s an evolutionary mechanism for population control. Or maybe our industrialized lifestyles are so toxic and depressing that even if we survive them, they leave us feeling as though life is worthless anyhow.
It’s sad that even now, straight people are less likely to think about suicide, which to me seems that gay and bi groups are treated wrong
There are too many fucking emo chaches out there!
You have to watch out for statistics; self-selection of your sample group sneaks up behind you.
For instance, another way of looking at that last statistic is:
“HAVE YOU EVER COMMITTED SUICIDE?”
Straight Guys Yes: 0 (0%) No: 34,282 (100%)
Everybody Else Yes: 0 (0%) No: 6,723 (100%)
Someone else pointed out that you could read the statistic as “just as many, or more straight guys want to kill themselves, but the difference is they achieve their goals!”
Be verrry careful what conclusions you make from these numbers.
More Bi men and women (comparing to straights and gays) are geniuses.
That’s why more Bi men and women know what “mofo” means. dah!!!
PS. I’d like my partner to put a pizza inside my mouth without it being strapped.