The Floating Sheep Take on Casual Sex

Last week the OkTrends blog posted 10 charts about sex which has a wide array of statistics and graphics (essentially chartporn). As we know that FloatingSheep readers are a sensitive lot who can take offense easily, we will be relying upon a series of euphemisms for the act that Shakespeare so elegantly referred to as the "beast with two backs." Our hope is to be informative whilst preserving the dignity of our blog and readers.

We were most, ahem, attracted to to the surprising relationship that the OkCupid data showed between a country's GDP and interest in casual sex, as per capita income rises so does the search for a quick "trot around the waffle"...at least according to OkCupid.

Because it is the biggest free dating site in the United States, OkCupid has a unique look at dating and the ways in which people represent themselves and seek others. Moreover they have been extremely open about sharing their insights and amazing and surprising trends in the world of online dating. We're particularly amused by the relationship between the cost of college tuition and the number of times per week students desire to "wax the spoondiddle."

But as we are FloatingSheep (also known as geographers) we couldn't help but wonder what a map of the data from the chart above would look like. In short, "a cartography of casual carnality." So we geo-visualized the percent of OkCupid.com users per country that indicated an interest in casual "parsley padding."

So what could be behind this desire to "get one's wheels oiled" outside the constraints of a committed relationship? Is it simply a matter of income as the OkTrends data suggest? We don't really know the answer but we are able to visualize the relationship between the size of a country's economy and the size of its desire to "take a spin through the juniper." So in lieu of an answer, we'll make another map.

One can see how the size of the U.S. economy causes to bulge like a ripe melon (much to Canada's shrinking horror) while on the other side of the globe, the "miracle economy" of South Korea doggedly pursues a Japan whose swollen landscape of GDP is layered with a high level of interest in casual games of "hiding near the turnip."

But is GDP really the best variable to consider in this case? After all, individuals looking for a casual game of "bottle the carburetor" on OkCupid are, by definition, wired to the Internet. So rather than using GDP it might be better to use the number of people with internet access to determine country size. After all, you know what they say about the size of a man's broadband... faster downloads.

The result is remarkably similar to using GDP which we expect. But since the above map combines both the number of people online and the level of interest in casual hookups, it seemingly, albeit spuriously (not that it has ever stopped us before), creates a directory for would be trollers where they are most likely to find others interested in casually "grinding their Irish wappers." Again, the relationship shown in the above is rather spurious. More people are going to be looking for a casual "thrunking" online in places where, well, there are more people online.

A better measure would be internet penetration (snicker), or the number of people on the internet divided by the total population. Using penetration (snort) to determine the size (giggle) of a country results in the map below. Which seems highly suggestive (at least for a map) of some kind of global group effort to "hop the last train to Cleveland."

Initially, we assumed this would correlate with our religion map, but as it turns out, Americans just aren't looking for a casual "hauling of someone's tomatoes" at the same rate as Europeans.

However, by this point we are so confused by the euphemisms and cartograms that we're in a bit of muddle. I think we'll just wonder off for a quick lie down. No euphemism intended.

Mapping Male Enhancement: Distorting Size the Old Fashioned Way

As we feature various maps made by other folks from time to time, we thought the recent maps showing the average size of men's (and women's), ahem... private parts, were pretty interesting. Below is a static image of the map of average penis sizes, with a link to the original, dynamic map provided. These maps have been circulated around the interwebs for the last week or so, largely without a critical eye.

Average Penis Sizes Worldwide

But as has been pointed out since then, the data used in these maps is fairly dubious. The source of the data, Andromedical, is a company that provides solutions to all one's, ahem... enhancement needs. But the link to a company that profits from making men and women feel inadequate is not the only thing that calls this data into question. In the data presented by Andromedical there is no uniform source or method of standardization. In short, there's basically no way whatsoever of verifying the data these maps display.

So why in the world did we feel it necessary to mention this? Well, in addition to participating in the latest Internet meme, we thought it important to highlight the ongoing concerns of accuracy when it comes to neogeography and/or volunteered geographic information (we're looking at you, Goodchild). When anyone can produce and disseminate maps like these online, how are we to tell those that are legitimate from those that are not?

Obviously, not every map mashup or amateur cartographer should be written off automatically, nor even compared to a dubious medical company with intentions to profit off of people's lack of sexual self esteem. But the fact that this map was passed around the web so quickly -- if nothing else than for it's "oh, wow" factor -- points to the ease with which misinformation about any topic can be spread, so long as it's through the means of a colorful choropleth map mashup (not, as Time Magazine called it, a cartogram).

So in the end, these maps are simply another example of how maps distort size. But rather than area distortion based on map projections, it is simply the old standby of using questionable data.

The Floating Sheep translation project

As many of our readers have pointed out, a key issue with the methods that we have been employing for some of our maps is that we usually only conduct searches in English. With that criticism in mind, we have decided to perform a search for eight words (food, mother, house, land, family, love, water, sex) in sixty-six languages that are commonly spoken in Europe (we are limiting the search to Europe for the time being).

But to do this we need your help. We'd like to ask all of our readers to take a quick look at our spreadsheet of languages and suggest appropriate translations for any of these words in any languages that you know.

We are well aware that in some languages the selection/spelling of words depend upon the context and grammar. So there will be comparability issues, but we'd like to give it a try anyway.

You are welcome/encouraged to record your name in the comments section of the spreadsheet, and we may even send a floating sheep t-shirt to some of the most prolific contributors.

Mapping Escorts, or what's up with Plano, TX?

The role of sex in the American economy (let alone, culture) is complex and exceedingly contradictory. While sex is used extensively to sell to the consumer-citizens of the U.S. (see any TV ad) it is also the focus of efforts to control it (who is allowed to marry) and regulate its sale (the illegal status of prostitution in most of the U.S.).

This latter issue is particularly convoluted as leafing through the back of many a local newspaper or postings at Craigslist (or other websites) will aptly demonstrate. There is any number of "escort services" for sale, with the majority presumably being a thinly veiled offer to exchange sex for money.

The wide spread availability of these listings led to today's maps which visualize the distribution of directory listings for "escorts" within Google Maps. The map of the absolute numbers of escorts identifies major urban centers as key sites for this activity, with Denver, Dallas, New York and Miami representing particularly large clusters.

Absolute Number of Escorts Listed in the Google Maps Directory

It is only through the analysis of the relative number of escort listings (see the map below) that more surprising patterns emerge.

Relative Number of Escorts Listed in the Google Maps Directory


Most large urban centers are still present although some such as Detroit or Salt Lake City are very small. Additionally, smaller cities such as Tampa, FL, Knoxville, TN, Tulsa, OK and Lexington, KY appear to have a much higher number of escort listings than their mere size would suggest. As Lexington is the U.S. home for floatingsheep.org we are somewhat nonplussed at this result. Who knew? Particularly since "Sin City" aka Las Vegas is completely absent in this map. Not really the category that Lexington's city council has been trying to get the city highly ranked on.

But the clear front-runner in this category is Texas in general and Dallas in particular which appears as the most specialized metropolitan area in escort services in the U.S. The nearby city/suburb of Plano contains the highest rank which leads inexorably to our final observation (apologies in advance) that…

...Debbie does Dallas, but prefers Plano.

Google's Geographies of Religion

“Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds”
Susan Sontag

Following up on the earlier discussion of the user-created geographies of religion, the following maps simultaneously display all four religious references (Allah, Buddha, Hindu, Jesus) in order to visualise distinct religious cyberscapes. Below we see the data on a global scale. This map clearly mirrors many of the expected religious geographies of the offline world: references to Allah being most prominent in the Middle East, references to Buddha being most prominent in East Asia, references to Hindu being most prominent on the Indian subcontinent and references to Jesus being prominent in Europe and much of the Western Hemisphere.

Interestingly, there are are no large-scale homogeneities in the data and this reflects the sometimes scattered nature of religious practice in the world. Looking at the below map of user-created religious references in Europe, it can been seen are a significant number of places (e.g. parts of Switzerland, Germany, the UK) in which there are more references to Buddha than any other religious terms. Likewise there are parts of Belgium and France with a dominant number of references to Allah, and parts of the UK with a dominant number of reference to Hindu. (The cluster of Hindu references on the Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa is tied to a village named Hindu rather than religious practice). Also of note is the transition of religion as one moves eastward and southward with references to Allah becoming more prevalent in Muslim North Africa and Turkey. However, one can also see how this is far from monolithic with references to Jesus also sprinkled throughout this region as well as strong clusters in Israel/Palestine as well as within Armenia.

In Asia a similar amount of diversity can be seen. The United Arab Emirates is a particularly interesting example. While officially a Muslim country, Indians make up the largest demographic presence and the dominance of references to Hindu (rather than Allah) is likely a reflection of this fact. Likewise the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago (particularly the island of Java) illustrate the complexity of religious practice in this region. References to Buddha, Allah and Hindu are all in evidence on Java. Other examples include the predominately Buddhist nation of Sri Lanka with some Hindu areas to the North and the difference between Pakistan (more Allah) and India (more Hindu).



Finally, it is informative to include one additional map with this set. Here we included placemarks that reference the word ("sex"), a popular and international used term with very different connotations than the religious keywords used earlier. The purpose of including this term is to compare user interest in religion to user interest in sex. If (as some say) the three topics to avoid in polite conversation are religion, sex and politics it seems only right that this Internet blog (the antithesis to polite conversation if there every was one) takes on the question. Sadly, the inclusion of politics will have to wait until another day.

In Asia there are very few places where there are more references to sex than Allah, Buddha, Hindu or Jesus.

Constrasting this is Western Europe (especially the UK and Scandinavia) and North America (especially the East and West Coasts) there are more references to sex than any of the four religious terms that we searched for. The distribution in the U.S. mirrors our early maps of the virtual bible belt and church-bowling-firearms-strip clubs. There are, however, exceptions such as the Iberian countries of Spain and Portugal which continue to show more references to Jesus.

So it would seem that Susan Sontag's observation has some merit, at least in the European and North American context.

User-Created Geographies of Religion: Allah, Buddha, Hindu, Jesus

Are there distinct geographies to religious references in user-created content indexed by Google? The following maps will demonstrate that there undoubtedly are.

User Generated References to Allah

User Generated References to Buddha

User Generated References to Hindu

User Generated References to Jesus

High rankings (in terms of specialization and absolute references) are often found in the most likely regions. For example, the Middle East, North Africa, and Muslim parts of South and Southeast Asia are all characterised by a significant amount of specialization and a large number of references to "Allah."

References to "Buddha" are similarly clustered in East and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas and Sri Lanka. The geography of references to "Hindu" is even more clustered. Here, the Indian Subcontinent, Afghanistan, Angkor Wat, Bali, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (two cities with large Indian populations) have a large number of references.

References to "Jesus" are more broadly distributed than any of the other three terms, but still show an incredible degree of concentration. The Americas, Western Europe and the Philippines are blanketed by references to Jesus.

Unlike user generated references to sex and business, religious search terms tend to display a geographic concentration in both absolute and relative terms. Or in other words, it is interesting that sex and business are far more global in scope than even these four very global religions.

Peer produced business and sex

One of the real advantages of user generated placemarks is that there are no restrictions on the type of references that can be made. Historical references, pop culture icons and everyday minutia are all potential topics for placemarks. With this breadth in mind, we wanted to see how the common global memes of "business" and "sex" become evident via the geoweb.

In each of the following maps, the size of the black circles indicates the absolute number of references to either "sex" or "business" in user-created Google placemarks. The shading of each map represents the specialization in references to each term (each term was compared to an index of all other user-generated content).

User Generated References to Business

Sex and business clearly have distinct albeit related geographies. Not surprisingly the developed world has the largest concentration of both types of placemarks; consistent with the information inequality we've already noted.

North America, Japan and much of Europe are largely blanketed by references to business., while most of the rest of the world is characterized by far fewer virtual references. The UK and North America also have a high degree of specialization in terms of references to business, but high values are also present in non-Western countries that have strong ties to global business networks. As the largest low cost manufacturer, China shows a high degree of business specialization as does much of Central America which recently entered the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) accord. The two largest economies of sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria and South Africa) are specialized in business, as is the U.A.E. (where Dubai is located). Other countries such as Indonesia and Hungary are highly specialized as well.

User Generated References to Sex

Interestingly, references to business, are much more geographically dispersed than references to sex. Again, in absolute terms, the United States, Northern Europe and Japan have by far the most references to sex. However, when looking at specialization, intriguing patterns emerge. The United States and parts of Northern Europe (particularly the UK, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, and for some reason the Norwegian Island of Svalbard) continue to be ranked highly.

Yet it is large parts of Africa that contain the highest degree of specialization. Or, in other words, user-generated content in countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Tunisia is far more likely to contain references to sex than user-generated content in most other places. While one would expect to see a degree of specialization in countries like the Netherlands (due to well known sex industries of Amsterdam), the amount of specialization in places like Mauritania, Zambia and Lesotho is truly surprising. It could simply be a spurious result based on the generally low number of user generated placemarks in those locations. Alternatively it suggests that "sex" may be one of the first topics in which people comment about a place and it is only later that more mainstream foci appear.