I’m late to blogging this, as I’m really quite ill with the flu (no insurance, ack), but it’s a popular one this week: my datamining of sex acts on Bay Area Craigslist Casual Encounters, results and spreadsheet. Thanks to my friend Kevin Burton for the real-time tracking link, and Jonathan Moore for stat math. Technical issue: I wish Google Spreadsheets retained the “freeze panes” function in the published documents — it would be easier for you to see the categories if it did. Got tons of great mail on this, like: “Finally someone has done the math.” Snip:
Crazy sex ads on Craigslist isn’t news or a secret, and the Casual Encounters ads are commonly regarded as a reliable source of entertainment and titillation for parties and long days at the cube farm alike. Even more interesting — for scientific purposes, of course — is looking at how people are using the ads for sex and what they’re up to. Or not up to, as the case may be.
Using a very unscientific method of stat gathering, while relying on a tried-and-true knowledge of colloquial sex terminology and search-fu skills that cut like a knife, I set about data mining Craigslist Casual Encounters over a seven-day period — and compiled an Excel spreadsheet that would make a Microsoft development team squirm, beg for mercy and then pass out. (NSFW Google document online here.) I mean, what girl doesn’t want to know in which San Francisco neighborhood men think they’re the best hung? Or which Bay Area city has the most golden-shower enthusiasts?
With filthy spreadsheet in hand, I developed a set of specific categories based on majority results of what people were looking for (and who was seeking the activity) and added categories as I went along. For instance, the numbers told me that in any given “anal” search, the numbers revealed that Men Seeking Women was the majority default for results, and Men Seeking Men was the lesser variable. So either the gay-anal assumptions for “Sodom by the Bay” were wrong (likely), or the gays prefer to use other online hookup services and local community resources for anonymous anal sex.
However, for fellatio action, the default was Men Seeking Men in all neighborhoods and cities, with the exception of Berkeley, Palo Alto and Mountain View. My final categories were (seeking to get and give) blow jobs, cunnilingus, anal sex, immediate hookups, married, well-hung, use of the word “normal,” people who were “bored,” a biohazard category (for those seeking activity including bodily fluids) and fetish interests (like the nice fellow in Cole Valley who enjoys vinyl inflatables, as evidenced with the lovely 5-foot-tall Godzilla in his photos).
Link. Link to spreadsheet. Link to my crazed videoblog post I filmed while writing my column. Image via.
