Studies

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.

David over at the Online Dating Insider found a study of online dating called "Scripts for Online Dating: A Model and Theory of Online Romantic Relationship Initiation". This 298 page paper was authored by Bridget L. Long. She is a student at Bowling Green State University and the paper was one of her requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I have only skimmed the paper at the moment but the study examined the online dating processes from both the standpoints of the services themselves, and members. Bridget used the dating sites Match.com, eHarmony and Plenty of Fish in her research.

To download the study, visit the OhioLink ETD page.

Match.com released a interesting study on April 20, 2010 about America's dating behavior. Back in 2009 and early 2010 Match.com commissioned Chadwick Martin Bailey to conduct 3 studies. With these studies, 3 surveys were created to collect data:

• Marriage Survey - A survey of people who were married within the last 5 years.
• Online Dating Survey - A survey of people who have used dating sites within the last 5 years.
• General Survey - A survey of people who are single or are in a new relationship.

Over 11,000 people participated in these surveys. All are 18 years or older and live in the United States. The General Survey's participants also had income of at least $30,000.

From these surveys Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB) concluded several interesting findings.

Marriage Survey - 7000 participants

• 38 percent of couples who married in the last year met through work or school.
• 27 percent of couples who married in the last year met through a friend or family.
• In the last 3 years (and year), 17 percent of couples who married met on a online dating site. (1 in 6 couples)
• Bars, Clubs and other social events counted for only 8 percent of marriages.
• Churches counted for 4 percent of marriages.

Online Dating Survey - 3000 participants

• Match.com counted for 30 percent of all marriages of people who met on dating sites. The 2nd ranked competitor was at 16%, followed by the 3rd at 15 percent.
• 35 percent of Match.com members had a relationship of 3 months or more. The 2nd ranked competitor was at 17%, followed by the 3rd at 16 percent.

General Survey - 2525 participants

• 20 percent of single people have dated someone they met on a dating site. (1 in 5 singles)
• 20 percent of people in a new committed relationship met on a dating site. (1 in 5 singles)

Click here (pdf file) for the full Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey study. To find out more about this dating site, read our Match.com review.

If you missed installment one of this article series on OKCupid’s report on age-based dating practices, click here to read OKCupids Asks: Why Aren’t Men Into Older Women?

According to OKCupid, men are pretty much missing the boat when it comes to the women available in the dating pool. Why? Because they skew their age preferences toward women significantly younger and pay little attention to those even marginally older. Men would do much better, they say, at meeting their goals for a healthy, happy relationship if they didn’t rule out the “older woman.” OKCupid used a sample set of 100,000 female users in their study and narrowed down the case for older women into three key areas: sexuality, attitude and looks.

It’s incredible what OKCupid’s user data revealed about sexual preferences for the female population. The original post has a really cool “heat map” that shows, by sliding a slider from age 18 to 40, how female users’ sexual preferences change with age. The younger lean towards preferring sex once per week, while that preference distinctly changes as you approach and move beyond women in their 30s. (Guys – take note. No more complaints about lacking an active sex life if you’re ruling out women who may be a bit older than you!)

Older women also have healthier perspectives on sexual issues like contraception and STD testing according to the post, with older women feeling more strongly about protected sex and frequent STD testing. In a nutshell, younger females seem to want less frequent sex, do it unprotected and are less interested in regular STD testing. (Guys?)

The overall attitude of the older woman is better adjusted as well, according to OKCupid. Their member profile data indicated that women in their 40s have significantly high levels of self-confidence, are happier with their lives overall and feel that the best days of their lives are ahead of them. Now that’s a refreshing outlook, isn’t it? If you’re worried about getting marched to the altar, however, fear no more. 96% of women in their 40s are content being in a relationship that may not end in marriage, but only 62% of 18-year-old women can say the same.

The final area of comparison: looks. OKCupid cites a misconception that women become less attractive as they get older. They also rule-out those who are in long-term relationships or already married and may tend to pay less attention to their appearances. They concluded: women are equally as attractive, regardless of age. Want a real shocker? Check out the fabulous photos of actual OKCupid users at the end of the article. We think you’ll have a hard time guessing who’s the “older woman!”

Bottom line for the guys: maybe you want to take another look at your age preferences in your online dating profile. If you’re willing to pass up a great sex life with an attractive woman with a killer sense of self-confidence, well – your loss! But they’re out there and waiting – all you have to do is click. For more information on the dating site, check out our review of OkCupid.