OkCupid

The Editor's Top Pick - Free Award goes to OkCupid. While not the largest free dating site it does have a large membership base thanks to almost 4.5 million people logging in every month. What makes OkCupid in the world of free dating sites unique though is their attention to detail. As soon as you visit the site and create a dating profile you can tell that it is well crafted. All the features and dating tools just flow together and the site itself just plain looks good. OkCupid also has an interesting matching feature where members can design tests for other members to take. These tests can be about almost anything and can give you a different perspective on your matches who are interested in you.

In 2010 OkCupid added a number of things to their service. Members can now login using their Facebook account by either signing up directly through their Facebook account or by linking their current OkCupid account and Facebook account together. OkCupid also now offers their site through smart phones with dating applications available both on the iPhone and Android based phones. Their homepage also got an overhaul. Gone now are the feature profiles which first greeted users and back is a simple sign up form for new users.

If you are interested in trying out a free dating site (that has some paid options) then OkCupid.com should definitely be on your radar. Their friendly community and feature rich dating service makes finding a relationship online fun.

Read our review of OkCupid for more information about this online dating service or visit OkCupid directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Plentyoffish.com

If asked to describe your personality, what would you say? Do you consider yourself adventurous, dorky, and a little bit kinky? Are you introverted, artsy, and into politics?

Perhaps you're compassionate but also aggressive, or ambitious but also polite.

These characteristics are several of the 20+ personality traits examined by Christian Rudder in the OkTrends blog's latest study: "Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex." Using the match questions answered by OkCupid members, the site collected more than 669 million responses and created a straight/gay comparison chart for personality categories like "Confident," "Literary," Religious," and "Romantic."

Straight men, as it turns out, live up to the clichéd image of the "bullying jock." Based on their answers, they were rated more aggressive, more confident, more violent, more horny, more competitive, and more into sports than gay men. Their hyper-masculinity was tempered, however, by being rated more dorky, more religious, and more romantic than their gay counterparts.

Stereotypes appeared on the opposite side of the t-chart as well: gay men were ranked higher on personality traits that are often considered feminine, like "Compassionate," "Trusting," "Literary," "Artsy," and "Generous," though they are apparently also more ambitious, spontaneous, and political.

Gay women scored higher then straight women on almost every characteristic, with particularly strong leads in the categories of "Adventurous," "Artsy," "Into Drugs," and "Kinky." The only personality traits that were stronger in straight women were "Ambitious," "Into Sports" (at least the women managed to defy a stereotype!), "Optimistic," "Polite," and "Religious."

Rudder's next move is a return to OkCupid's "The REAL 'Stuff White People Like'" study (my reviews of the study can be found here, here, and here), this time using members' descriptions of themselves to measure traits based on gender and sexuality. The words and phrases that appeared most frequently in gay men's profiles were: "The Devil Wears Prada," "Britney Spears," "Mean Girls," "Kelly Clarkson," and "The Color Purple." With only a few exceptions, the terms were all related to films, books, theatre, and music. Gay women overwhelmingly placed "The L Word" in the top spot (so much so that Rudder had to shrink the size of the text to fit the site's template), followed by "Tegan and Sara," "Ani DiFranco," "Piercings," and, again in the 5^th spot, "The Color Purple."

Straight men define themselves by traditionally masculine interests, like cars, war movies, sports, beer, and fixing things. Straight women consider their girlfriends very important and are searching for Mr. Right, but are also determined to prove that they are "Independent" and "Self-Sufficient." They also enjoy make up, romantic movies and books, and careers in the medical field.

Rudder's final analysis of the data measures "the frequencies of all one-, two-, and three-word phrases against the site-wide rates." According to his chart, gay users are significantly less "mainstream" than straight users, with bi users predictably falling in between. "In fact," Rudder notes, "what these numbers are saying is that the average gay person has only about 30% in common with the average American." Before anyone writes an angry letter to OkCupid about discrimination, however, consider Rudder's closing comments: "Adding an ethnic group to the plot helps put it in perspective." When Indian users are added to the graph, they are ranked even less "mainstream" than gay members.

So what can we take away from this?

Defining "normality" is an impossible task, and "no one's saying that Indians shouldn't get married or shouldn't be allowed to adopt children....We hope gay people can expect the same treatment very soon."

Have you ever had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex?

The 252,900 straight people OkCupid polled in their newest study, "Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex," provided surprising results: nearly a quarter responded that they had participated in a same-sex experience, and an additional 11% reported that they had not but would like to.

Writer Christian Rudder then broke down the replies to the inquiry geographically, creating a color-coded map of the "straight people who either have had or would like to have a same-sex experience in the continental U.S. and lower Canada." Most of the results are predictable - the West Coast and the North East are more gay curious, while the Southern states are significantly less so - but some are unexpected. Even in the states that reported being less interested in exploring same-sex experiences, pockets of gay curiosity, in cities like Austin and Madison, can be found. And perhaps most interestingly of all, Canada is entirely orange and red, the colors that indicate the highest level of gay curiosity, from coast to coast.

In a brief aside, Rudder discusses the "many awful things our elected officials have said about gay people" that he encountered while writing his post, mentioning in particular a quote from Jim Demint: "If a person is a practicing homosexual, they should not be teaching in our schools." Rudder facetiously notes that "a fun game to play with stuff like this is to replace the words 'homosexual' and 'gay' with 'politician,'" because "then you have something that's actually true," and then proceeds to attempt to discredit Demint's claim by searching through the answers to match questions. What he finds is "one question with a surprising disparity, not between orientations, but between genders."

The question is straightforward - "Which is bigger: the earth or the sun?" You'd think that anyone who passed the 4^th grade would be able to answer this simple astronomy query with ease, but it appears that was not the case - over 10% of straight women incorrectly answered that the earth is larger than the sun, and just under 10% of gay women answered similarly. The men fared much better: only 5% of gay men, and fewer than 5% of straight men, got the question wrong.

Rudder's results can be summed up in one word: Yikes. Perhaps we'd all be better off abandoning our academic pursuits in favor of moving to Canada and exploring our same-sex inclinations.

Stick around for a review of the final findings of OkCupid's "Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex" study, in which Rudder evaluates the personality traits that are most associated with each orientation, revisits the fun of the "The REAL 'Stuff White People Like'" study, and attempts to define "the norm."

The results of OkCupid's latest study are in, and the findings are bound to amuse some, offend others, and leave everyone else wondering why Canada is so intrigued by same-sex sex.

Blogger Christian Rudder explains the reasoning for collecting the latest research, in a study called "Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex," with this intro: "Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based context on sexuality so that people might make better choices about what they say, think, and do."

It's certainly a noble goal, but did they achieve it?

The initial conclusion the researchers draw is this: "First of all, gay sexuality is not a threat." Wording - which is bound to ruffle a few feathers - aside, the study makes a valid point: "The subtext to a lot of homophobic thinking is the idea that gays will try to get straight people into bed at the first opportunity, or that gays are looking to 'convert' straights." After reviewing more than 4 million match searches, the OkCupid research team found almost no evidence to back up the stereotype. Only 0.6% of gay men had ever searched for straight matches, only 0.1% of lesbians had ever searched for straight matches, and only 0.13% of straight people's profile visitors were gay. There were no gay users, male or female, who predominantly searched for straight members.

The researchers' next task was to debunk another virulent, but persistent, stereotype: that gay people are more promiscuous than straight people. "The statistical reality," Rudder writes, "is that gay people as a group aren't any more slutty than straights." The median reported sex partners for straight men, gay men, straight women, and gay women was exactly the same: just 6 people. A little under half of gay people (45%) and straight people (44%) had had 5 or fewer partners, while 98% of gay people and 99% of straight people had had 20 or fewer partners. The myth of gay promiscuity turned out to be just that - a particularly stubborn myth that was not supported by the research. In fact, the OkCupid team found that "just 2% of gay people have had 23% of the total reported gay sex," a finding that Rudder eloquently describes as "pretty crazy."

The study's next conclusion is certain to come as a surprise to many: "Straight people have gay sex, too." Almost a quarter of the 252,900 straight people asked "Have you ever had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex?" answered "Yes." Rudder breaks the responses down into a pie chart: 66% responded "No, and I would never," 11% responded "No, but I would like to," 6% responded "Yes, and I didn't enjoy myself," and 17% responded "Yes, and I enjoyed myself."

Rudder further breaks the results down into charts for men and for women. Predictably, women expressed more interest in exploring their same-sex desires than men did. 1 in 3 straight women reported intimacy with another woman, and of those who hadn't hooked up with women, more than 1 in 4 stated that they would like to. As for the men, 13% responded that they had had a same-sex experience, and an additional 5% said that they hadn't yet, but would like to.

Stay tuned for Part II, in which Rudder takes on politicians, teaches an important astronomy lesson, and examines Canada's homosexual curiosity.

Dancing, music, humor, and organized fighting.

These 5 things are the interests that appear most frequently on OkCupid's list of the stuff Latino men like, a part of their newest study of online dating trends. The importance of music and dancing to the culture is clearly exhibited by both the men's list and the women's list: the terms "merengue," "bachata," "reggaeton," "musica," and "salsa" appear in both lists, always in the first half. Latino men also appear to have, in Christian Rudder's words, "an interest in telling you about their sense of humor" and "an interest in industrial strength ass-kicking." "I'm a funny guy," "comedy," "very funny," and "outgoing and funny," make the men's list of most-used words and phrases, as do "boxing," "Marines," "MMA," "UFC," and "law enforcement."

The interests of Latina women are, for the most part, exactly what you would expect from an online dating profile. Family is mentioned ("familia," "family-oriented," "mom's"), as are friends ("amigos," "my girlfriends"). Career and schooling make appearances as "education," "medical field," "my B.A." and "social worker." Movies, music, and physical appearance are also important ("Sixteen Candles," "Juanes," and "mascara"). Latina women break the mold, however, with "I'm terrified of," a phrase which appears at #42 on their list. OkCupid's team delved further into that unusual phrase, and discovered that the words that typically come next are "insects" and "the dark," "though one expert tautologist is 'terrified of being scared' and another woman is 'terrified of Martians.'"

Simplicity dominates the lists for Asian men and women. "I'm a simple guy" occupies the second spot on the men's list, while "I'm a simple girl" takes the third spot on the women's list. Asian men are also careful to mention their specific heritage in their profiles. "Taiwan" is the #1 term on the men's list, with "Korea," "Singapore," and "Korean" following in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th positions. Food ("pho," "a foodie," "sashimi") and sports ("cricket," "tennis," "badminton") are important to Asian men, but not as important as education and occupation. "Freakonomics," "mechanical engineer," "an engineer," "entrepreneur," "analyst," "Malcolm Gladwell," "finance," "accountant," "pursuing my," "investing," "electrical engineering," "investment," and "currently studying" all make the list.

Asian women also describe themselves as foodies (with a particular interest in "chocolates," which is #2 on their list), but show an interest in cooking the food as well as consuming it ("Food Network," "Anthony Bourdain," "new recipes," "cooking and baking," "cookbooks"). Like the women of every other culture, Asian women enjoy music ("Jason Mraz," "Michael Buble," "Norah Jones") and movies ("Slumdog Millionaire," "Sleepless in Seattle," "A Walk To Remember"), but what really makes Asian women stand out is their worldliness and urge to explore. "Different places," "different cultures," "trying out new things," and "my passport" appear on their list but, with the exception of a couple of overlaps with Asian men, not on any other lists.

Rudder does not provide commentary on the lists for Indians, Middle Easterners, and Pacific Islanders, so join us next time for a breakdown of the final 3 cultures and a look at effectiveness of the study.

OKCupid’s official blog, OKTrends, recently sent a powerful warning to its readers:

Don’t Be Ugly By Accident!

The eye-catching admonishment is the title of a post about the site’s latest study, an in-depth technical look at profile photos that forms the perfect follow-up to their previous report on the subject, “The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures” (check out our review of the article here). Instead of merely considering the content of the photos we post, writer Christian Rudder advises, we should also take practical matters like aperture, flash, and focus into account.

The article chronicles the results of a study that aggregated 11.4 million opinions on what makes a successful photo. The experiment was simple: subjects were shown two photographs of different people, chosen randomly from the 552,000 sample user pictures that were collected, and asked which person they would prefer to go on a date with. The information gathered was then compared with data about the photography itself, like the time of day and shutter speed at which the pictures were taken.

The most amusing claim, by far, is that iPhone users have more sex than users of other mobile devices. BlackBerry users came in second place, with Android aficionados bringing up the rear. No word on how much sex Windows Mobile users can expect during their lifetimes (or at least the lifetimes of their cell phones).

In less humorous news, OKCupid’s findings show that the best photos come from Panasonic Micro 4/3s cameras, while the worst come from the cameras on Motorola phones. The next best camera brands were Leica, Canon, Pentax, Nikon, Sony, and Olympus (in that order), while Kodak was judged to be almost as bad as the Motorola phone. Of the camera phones, Sidekick was considered the best, with Apple’s iPhone close behind. Somewhat surprisingly, Android, Nokia, BlackBerry, and Windows phones were all rated lower than phones of less popular brands.

The flash, according to the study, should always be avoided. Subjects consistently assigned a higher attractiveness rating to photos that did not use the flash. Based on their data, the experimenters determined that the flash adds about 7 years of age to the person in the photo (and, consequently, not using a flash can remove 7 years of age from a person’s appearance).

Other findings suggest that the best pictures have “a very shallow depth of field,” which means that the photo’s subject is sharply in focus while the background of the picture is blurry. The article goes on to give a very technical explanation for this effect, and some examples of it, so be sure to visit the source at the link provided below if you’re interested in photography.

The study’s final conclusion is that late night and late afternoon are the ideal times at which to take your profile photo. Rudder “irresponsibly theorize[s]” that this is because “photos taken in the former bracket tend to be more provocative,” while “those taken in the latter tend to be pleasantly lit.”

OKCupid’s findings are certainly attention-grabbing, but do they actually have any value? Tune in next time when we’ll take a look at what the data actually means, and where it might be leading you astray.

Read more about the study here.