Fascinating article in the Times yesterday that analyzes Google searches about sex and made me laugh out loud a couple of times.
The author concludes:
Just about every study I have done relying on Google searches made me feel worse about the world. Huge numbers of people are racist and sexist; far too many children suffer from unreported abuse. But after studying the new data on sex, I actually feel better.
This data makes me feel less lonely. In my previous studies of Google data, I had found the viciousness that humans often hide. But this time around, I have seen our hidden insecurities. Men and women are united in this insecurity and confusion.
Google also gives us legitimate reasons to worry less than we do. Many of our deepest fears about how our sexual partners perceive us are unjustified. Alone, at their computers, with no incentive to lie, partners reveal themselves to be fairly nonsuperficial and forgiving. In fact, we are all so busy judging our own bodies that there is little energy left over to judge other people’s.
Maybe if we worried less about sex, we’d have more of it.
“There is no greater nor keener pleasure than that of bodily love—-and none which is more irrational.” Plato, 400 B.C.
“Sex is the lyricism of the masses.” Baudelaire, 1887.
“Sex is the great amateur art.” David Cort, 1963.