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I used to think this (Americans don't have sex because they're shy about it) but the data says the opposite.

by swiley 6y ago

schnevets 6y ago
I'm curious about what data suggests this, since getting honest answers about sexual activity from the public is a famously difficult challenge. As an entertaining example, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's big data book Everybody Lies mentioned a study that asked people in the United States how frequently they had sex, and how frequently they practiced safe sex with a condom. If the resulting data was accurate and projected across the entire country, the United States consume 2.7 billion condoms a year... even though only 600 million condoms are sold in a year. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/our-searches-our-selves/529740/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/our-searc...
- inreverse 6y ago
  That seems like it could be an interpretation problem where the definition of sex changes to only include penetrative sex in the context of the safe sex question.
proxyon 6y ago
My hypothesis is that Americans are both hypersexual (due to media, porn abuse, etc) and thus deprived of good sex as a result of the over stimulation toward faked, idealized, porn-ified sex. I have no evidence for this, it is merely a hunch and seems to align with what I have heard from people who have moved here from other countries. My parents themselves were immigrants and were shocked at the hypersexuality when they moved here. Simultaneously to that, they were shocked you couldn't even see a boob on TV. The natural human body itself was censored but gigantic fake boobs and butts were plastered all over MTV and VH1, albeit clothed. They'd also never heard of the over emphasis and anxiety over penis size until they came here.
- muntzy 6y ago
  Cultural views on plastic surgery are critical here. I see a clear contrast between underlying beauty standard assumptions, like “you should look natural” vs “you should look like a sex machine”. both allow for a certain amount of body modification but one of them pushes for a transformation to bodily extremes. With the elevation of hip-hop culture and Kardashian-style ‘upgrades’ i think the US and canada are heading towards a culture where perfectly attractive people get tons of surgery, i think driven by anxious status seeking.

I used to think this (Americans don't have sex because they're shy about it) but the data says the opposite.

by swiley 6y ago

I used to think this (Americans don't have sex because they're shy about it) but the data says the opposite.

I'm curious about what data suggests this, since getting honest answers about sexual activity from the public is a famously difficult challenge. As an entertaining example, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's big data book Everybody Lies mentioned a study that asked people in the United States how frequently they had sex, and how frequently they practiced safe sex with a condom. If the resulting data was accurate and projected across the entire country, the United States consume 2.7 billion condoms a year... even though only 600 million condoms are sold in a year. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/our-searches-our-selves/529740/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/our-searc...

inreverse 6y ago
That seems like it could be an interpretation problem where the definition of sex changes to only include penetrative sex in the context of the safe sex question.

proxyon 6y ago

My hypothesis is that Americans are both hypersexual (due to media, porn abuse, etc) and thus deprived of good sex as a result of the over stimulation toward faked, idealized, porn-ified sex. I have no evidence for this, it is merely a hunch and seems to align with what I have heard from people who have moved here from other countries. My parents themselves were immigrants and were shocked at the hypersexuality when they moved here. Simultaneously to that, they were shocked you couldn't even see a boob on TV. The natural human body itself was censored but gigantic fake boobs and butts were plastered all over MTV and VH1, albeit clothed. They'd also never heard of the over emphasis and anxiety over penis size until they came here.

muntzy 6y ago
Cultural views on plastic surgery are critical here. I see a clear contrast between underlying beauty standard assumptions, like “you should look natural” vs “you should look like a sex machine”. both allow for a certain amount of body modification but one of them pushes for a transformation to bodily extremes. With the elevation of hip-hop culture and Kardashian-style ‘upgrades’ i think the US and canada are heading towards a culture where perfectly attractive people get tons of surgery, i think driven by anxious status seeking.