5 ms·

I just took the survey, answering with complete and total honesty, and > Your kink equivalent is Mother Theresa (2nd percentile) LOL! I mean, I know I'm vanil

by eszed 3y ago

I just took the survey, answering with complete and total honesty, and > Your kink equivalent is Mother Theresa (2nd percentile) LOL! I mean, I know I'm vanilla (a rich, complex, and expensive spice, I'll have you to know), but if Mother Theresa represents the 2nd percentile, who's the standard-bearer for 1st? My serious point is that I strongly suspect that people towards (ahem) my end of the spectrum are likely to be under-represented among the takers of the survey. The people most likely to take a survey about kink are the people most into, well, kink. I don't know how any survey design, no matter how good it is in a vacuum, can square that circle. (I say that with all possible respect for Aella and her work. I've followed her blog for ages - her essay about growing up within, and trying to shed, a fundamentalist upbringing is one of the best things I've ever read - and sexology research is fascinating. I just don't know how you can draw robust conclusions from survey data, given the social pro- and in-hibibitions most people have inherited.)

Jedd 3y ago
If you read Christopher Hitchens' book The Missionary Position, you'll discover that Theresa was quite the sadist. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58664511-the-missionary-position https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58664511-the-missionary-...
- 93po 3y ago
  Claims of her sadism are wildly overstated and misrepresented
  - hn_go_brrrrr 3y ago
    I can't tell if this is a Mark Twain joke or if you've just declined to provide any support for your argument.
    - 93po 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism
      - richbell 3y ago
        What specifically about that section did you want to share? Based on what I've read, the only defense is basically "she never said she was going to help people so you can't be mad".
      - Jedd 3y ago
        That short section of a wikipedia article could not be described as a comprehensive defence against the detailed criticisms levelled at her, especially those from Hitch. I have seen an attempted rebuttal around her behaviour, specifically responding to that book, but I suspect that piece was more an apologetic than an objective defence.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
When your survey on kinks is primarily shared by kinky people and on places like fetlife (the kinky social media), I would assume that the sample is somewhat biased.
- d0mine 3y ago
  The article addresses your point in some detail.
  - derbOac 3y ago
    I do survey research, and there's ways of addressing the concerns the author raises with survey techniques. It's still interesting and they're right that these types of things (rare, taboo) are sometimes actually best studied with biased samples sometimes in some ways, with lots of anonymity. However, there are ways of addressing these concerns in "normal" samples (list randomization is an example; https://www.svri.org/blog/measuring-taboo-topics-list-randomization-gender-based-violence https://www.svri.org/blog/measuring-taboo-topics-list-random...), especially if they're large enough, and with trying to weight things. There are anonymous surveys that are carefully sampled; I'm not sure people would trust those less than something like the linked survey. If you used the right questions, you could also probably try to reweight the sample for other behaviors. This comes across as a criticism and maybe it is but I tend to think the more information like this the better, so I still think of it as a net good thing. It's just difficult to make much of things like percentiles in the absence of a very strong rationale for what you're comparing against, either in terms of a comparison population or in terms of what is being compared. Is an overall kink score meaningful? What about an overall sadomasochism score? Relative to who? You never really know your population, but sometimes you can get enough information to get a good enough sense of where your sample is in context.
    - d0mine 3y ago
      Is list randomization applicable to a survey with ~100 sensitive questions? From your link "In basic terms, list randomization aggregates a response to a sensitive question alongside responses to non-sensitive questions, thereby masking the respondent’s specific answer to the sensitive question. By randomizing lists with and without the sensitive question, researchers can identify prevalence or incidence of the sensitive item within the population or differences between groups (for example treatment and control), but not attribute the sensitive response on an individual basis. If respondents believe that their sensitive answer is not disclosed to the interviewer, they may be more likely to report private behaviors, such as experience of violence."
postmodest 3y ago
I would love to see their distribution.
SergeAx 3y ago
There are negative values of kinkiness in that survey results. Before Mother Theresa are Bambi, Samwise Gamgee and Captain America. The most kinky character is Willi Wonka. https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1557815129584148482 https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1557815129584148482
slaw 3y ago
I got kinkness score -0.28 - Captain America, 0.5 percentile. HN readers must be very underrepresented.
Aella 3y ago
You can make arguments about base rates here, but if nothing I think this gives decent data for comparative frequency. As in, it seems unlikely that any one particular fetish is overrepresented compared to others.

by eszed 3y ago

Jedd 3y ago

If you read Christopher Hitchens' book The Missionary Position, you'll discover that Theresa was quite the sadist. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58664511-the-missionary-position https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58664511-the-missionary-...

93po 3y ago
Claims of her sadism are wildly overstated and misrepresented
- hn_go_brrrrr 3y ago
  I can't tell if this is a Mark Twain joke or if you've just declined to provide any support for your argument.
  - 93po 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism
    - richbell 3y ago
      What specifically about that section did you want to share? Based on what I've read, the only defense is basically "she never said she was going to help people so you can't be mad".
    - Jedd 3y ago
      That short section of a wikipedia article could not be described as a comprehensive defence against the detailed criticisms levelled at her, especially those from Hitch. I have seen an attempted rebuttal around her behaviour, specifically responding to that book, but I suspect that piece was more an apologetic than an objective defence.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

When your survey on kinks is primarily shared by kinky people and on places like fetlife (the kinky social media), I would assume that the sample is somewhat biased.

d0mine 3y ago
The article addresses your point in some detail.
- derbOac 3y ago
  I do survey research, and there's ways of addressing the concerns the author raises with survey techniques. It's still interesting and they're right that these types of things (rare, taboo) are sometimes actually best studied with biased samples sometimes in some ways, with lots of anonymity. However, there are ways of addressing these concerns in "normal" samples (list randomization is an example; https://www.svri.org/blog/measuring-taboo-topics-list-randomization-gender-based-violence https://www.svri.org/blog/measuring-taboo-topics-list-random...), especially if they're large enough, and with trying to weight things. There are anonymous surveys that are carefully sampled; I'm not sure people would trust those less than something like the linked survey. If you used the right questions, you could also probably try to reweight the sample for other behaviors. This comes across as a criticism and maybe it is but I tend to think the more information like this the better, so I still think of it as a net good thing. It's just difficult to make much of things like percentiles in the absence of a very strong rationale for what you're comparing against, either in terms of a comparison population or in terms of what is being compared. Is an overall kink score meaningful? What about an overall sadomasochism score? Relative to who? You never really know your population, but sometimes you can get enough information to get a good enough sense of where your sample is in context.
  - d0mine 3y ago
    Is list randomization applicable to a survey with ~100 sensitive questions? From your link "In basic terms, list randomization aggregates a response to a sensitive question alongside responses to non-sensitive questions, thereby masking the respondent’s specific answer to the sensitive question. By randomizing lists with and without the sensitive question, researchers can identify prevalence or incidence of the sensitive item within the population or differences between groups (for example treatment and control), but not attribute the sensitive response on an individual basis. If respondents believe that their sensitive answer is not disclosed to the interviewer, they may be more likely to report private behaviors, such as experience of violence."

postmodest 3y ago

I would love to see their distribution.

SergeAx 3y ago

There are negative values of kinkiness in that survey results. Before Mother Theresa are Bambi, Samwise Gamgee and Captain America. The most kinky character is Willi Wonka. https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1557815129584148482 https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1557815129584148482

slaw 3y ago

I got kinkness score -0.28 - Captain America, 0.5 percentile. HN readers must be very underrepresented.

Aella 3y ago

You can make arguments about base rates here, but if nothing I think this gives decent data for comparative frequency. As in, it seems unlikely that any one particular fetish is overrepresented compared to others.