Uncovering sexual preferences by data-mining sex-toy sales [NSFW]

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If you’re going to buy something that you’d be embarrassed if the fact that you bought it is publicly known (or any assumptions/assertions that can be made based on the purchase), then you should purchase it in cash from a physical store.

They still have not connected some of the dots yet. If I watch girl-on-girl porn online I get banner ads for gay male cruises. I don’t have the citation, but liking girl-on-girl porn is an actual diagnostic standard of heterosexuality in men. So if a woman finds her guy watching girl-on-girl porn, it means he is not gay.

And then do not leave a review on Amazon. BTW, those reviews are comedy gold.

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But if we’re talking about big, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

B-b-b-baby?

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(Naked Lunch)

The County Clerk: "So there I was sitting in front
of Jed’s store over in Cunt Lick my peter standing up
straight as a jack pine under my Levis just apulsin’ in
the sun… Weell, old Doc Scranton walks by, a good
old boy too, there’s not a finer man in this valley than
Doc Scranton. He’s got a prolapsed asshole and when
he wants to get screwed he’ll pass you his ass on three
feet of in-tes-tine… If he’s a mind to it he can drop
out a piece of gut reaches from his office clear over to
Roy’s Beer Place, and it go feelin’ around lookin’ for a
peter, just afeelin’ around like a blind worm… So old
Doc Scranton sees my peter and he stops like a pointin’
dog and he says to me, ‘Luke, I can take your pulse
from here.’ "

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What is not clear from what I read is whether they are assuming that men buy those big toys for themselves, or as I assume, as a bit of wishful thinking related to their partner’s…abilities.

Also, I want more information about this “rabbit hole” mentioned in the source’s title, but I see no such product mentioned on the Lovehoney website.

lol diagnostic standard? I’m imagining how that doctor visit would go. “The results so far are showing that you might have Gay, but we want to run a few more tests to be sure. Could you watch these two ladies get it on?”

Of course, I guess it wasn’t that long ago that sexuality really was considered as a medical condition, so maybe it’s not as laughable as I imagine.

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I find sex, gender, and toys all rather interesting - but this study illustrates IMO exactly the wrong approach, for bringing meaningless criteria to get meaningless results.

There’s the assumption of sexual polarity, assumption of gender identification, assumption of consonance with these and and other people (gay, straight, etc). The assumption that toys are capable of having a sex or gender. The assumption of equivalence between toys and human anatomies. And finally the commercial assumptions of purchase = identification, the idea that all of this “says something” about the buyer. There is also the statistical skew that this data mined from one vendor, as it was interpreted by Google analytics. These assumptions about the toys and people are also built into the Lovehoney website, so the customers are automatically going to “fit” it whether they identify with these categories or not.

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One time a gay friend on Facebook posted something about Putin and then said, “Oh well, there is nothing I want in Russia anyway.”

I posted a pic of a shirtless Russian sailor and said, “Oh really, nothing?”

Then later I’m like, “I hope you laughed because I now have ‘gay russian sailor’ in my search history. God knows what kind of ads I’ll get now.”

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It’s been my experience that straight men buy the super-mutant sex toys more or less for comic effect. Just something to put on display or bring out in the middle of the party, just to see peoples’ reactions.

Just an expensive joke.

It’s been my experience that both “straight” and “men” are only socially fabricated categories, so it only says anything about the society, rather than the individual. We’d be just as well off polarizing between blue people vs green people, or lemon people vs lime people.

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For a moment there I thought Doctorow had a new book coming out.

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“Diagnostic standard of heterosexuality in men”?

It might mean he’s not gay, but if you think it means he’s not bisexual… well, you might be misoverestimating your diagnostic skillz. (-:

Hence the existence of the penile plethysmograph. And, for madam, the vaginal photoplethysmograph.

“Diagnostic standard of heterosexuality in men”?

My sex dungeon has a Plethysmograph.

this article says that it’s discredited and even evil

“Hard data”

fnarr fnarr

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“UK sex-toy retailer Lovehoney”, why not Pussy Galore!

Anyone else think it’s odd to measure a butt plug by it’s girth (circumference) rather than its diameter?

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I think that some of the men that are probably labeled as “straight” in this study don’t fit entirely into that category. Heterosexual and homosexual do not really allow for those men that are attracted to hermaphrodites or transgender women who have not had the bottom surgery. A cursory search of craigslist will reveal a sizable population of men who are attracted to women with dicks. So where on the sexuality binary do these men lie? Most of them identify as straight simply because there is no term for their sexuality. And I would think that they would probably make up a large portion of the polled “straight” men who buy the large sex toys.

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