Today in online dating: men are “ageist,” everyone’s racist
OKCupid is interesting for a variety of reasons, one being that they don’t bombard us with suicidal thought-inducing commercials that could be mistaken for Cialis ads, featuring depressing people frolicking on a boat.
Another cool thing is the way they analyze and blog about trends present in their massive pool of daters- whether it’s the impact of religion on relationship marketability or the relative success of profile picture poses, OKCupid has a knack for presenting stats in a way that recalls the pop-statistics book Freakonomics. While a lot of the data gathered by the algorithms address things users can control like cleavage exposure, today’s topic is one sadly less adjustable on the user end: aging out of the dating pool.
The lengthy post to which I refer isn’t all bad news though- while it confirms that online matchmaking favors the under-thirty set, an argument is made that there’s an untapped sweet spot of women in their thirties and beyond who are, get this, “in a fellatio-positive time in their lives.” Yes, if you take nothing else from reading this, remember those words: fellatio-positive. There’s even an interactive map showing level of enthusiasm towards oral sex by region and age that you can adjust to show how bj-friendly women in your area happen to be. Isn’t math fun?
It’s not just a propensity for sword swallowing that increases after a woman leaves her twenties- kissing, bondage and threesomes were all looked upon more favorably in OKCupid’s data collection. Still not convinced? The OKCupid data goes on to point out that women over 30 are generally happier (although this inexplicably drops off at 40), more self confident, and shower/brush their teeth at a higher frequency. As for attractiveness, while the writer of the post concedes that youth and beauty are inextricably linked, attractiveness level stays fairly constant throughout one’s twenties and thirties. (Out of your league is out of your league, homes.)
TIME posted an article today with slightly more sobering statistics regarding online dating. While America’s still patting themselves on the collective back for electing a black president, an overwhelming number of us would be far less content with a black date. Studies conducted by other dating sites, including Match, Yahoo and Chemistry, found that 73% of female users indicated a racial preference for potential partners, and of that 73%, 64% of those studied have a “whites only” sign above their dating water fountain. Men aren’t that much more racially enlightened, with nearly 60% of those surveyed expressing a preference, and possibly only branching out from white women because they think Asian women get their freak on more in the boudoir. (The exact word used was “hypersexual.”)
Black women and Asian men seem to have the hardest go of it when looking for a mate online, again partially due to stereotypes. (Black women are mentioned in the study as being stereotyped as “bossy,” and I won’t speculate on what people say about Asian men.) Once again, OKCupid is heading up the data gathering game, from the earlier link about profile pics:
After attempting to control for attractiveness… the study found that black women garnered the fewest responses of any female group. White women responded at much higher rates to white men than to men of color. Asian women’s and Latinas’ response rates showed even stronger preferences for white men. (The site’s latest eye-opening study determined which types of profile pictures elicit the most responses. To all the single ladies: the older you are, the more cleavage you should show.)
So there it is- plenty of fish in the cyber sea, if you’re young, white and hate giving BJs. What do you think? Is it worth the possible rejection? Do we all deserve a lifetime of not getting laid because we’re superficial, racially unenlightened jerks?
