News Flash: People Who Write About Sex Also Interested In Sex

May 30, 2014
COLEEN-AND-DAN-SINGER

by Coleen Singer at Sssh.com

Some surveys yield more predictable results than others.

For example, if I go to a sports bar filled with drunken football fans and conduct a survey asking them whether they like to drink beer while watching sports on television, I’m not going to be shocked if a hefty majority of them reply in the affirmative. On the other hand, if I were to ask that same question at a meeting of the Concerned Women for America…. I wouldn’t be too surprised to find myself being ushered off the premises immediately.

So color me somewhat less than startled to hear that a survey of erotic writers conducted by TheFussyLibrarian.com reports that these people are “more sexual” than the average schmoe. Don’t tell me, let me guess: next you’re going to tell me that people who subscribe to Chefs Illustrated eat out less than the average American, or that people who are employed as auto mechanics tend to fix their own cars more often than people like me, who barely know where to pour in the antifreeze. (Spoiler alert: it’s NOT the same hole your motor oil goes in.)

The criteria for the “more sexual” claim is somewhat murky in the press release, but it appears to be based on the cumulative adventurousness of the authors, of whom the release says “heat up the bedroom — and just about everywhere else: church basements, on stacks of drywall, on stage at a concert, on horseback, in canoes, in elevators, at museums, and on playground slides and Disney World rides.”

The only place on that list that hoists either of my eyebrows is the stack of drywall; that’s a story I want to hear. The survey results show that 94% of the respondent are women, and I keep trying to picture the context that led to this woman having sex on pile of building materials. Maybe her partner was a mustachioed, Blue-Collar Casanova on a service call to her luxurious mansion, or maybe she was working at a hardware store at the time and decided to take a little roll in the… um… gypsum board with a coworker? I’d say the possibilities are endless, but honestly these are the only two I could come up with, outside of certain nightmarish post-earthquake scenarios.

Having sex outdoors (which 84% of these authors say they have) shouldn’t qualify as adventurous, obviously. Most of the planet is outdoors, after all, and if it weren’t for the prospects of having sex on the beach there, even fewer American teenagers would know where to find Mexico on a map.

On the frequency of sex continuum, about a third of the authors said they fall in the 2-5 times per month category, with only 14% saying they have sex more than 14 times per month. That doesn’t seem too out of line with the outlandish claims of people who aren’t erotic authors, so these scribes probably aren’t exaggerating any more than the average person on this question. (OK, there was one wiseass who claimed he’s having sex more than 30 times per month – but maybe nobody told him masturbation doesn’t count, even if your sex doll watches while you do it.)

More of these authors (21%) report having taken part in a threesome than the average American (14%, according to ABC News), and many more report having given BDSM a whirl – 41% of the authors compared to less than 20% of the general population (according to the Kinsey Institute). Absent more detail, though, that claim could mean anything; some of the more delicate guys I’ve been with consider it “bondage” if you tuck the covers in too tight.

The least surprising response on this survey was one specifically about erotic fiction: On a scale of 1 (“terrible”) to 5 (“great”) stars, these authors rated Shades of Grey a 2.2, on average. I’m not saying this result is predictable because Shades really is that bad (I haven’t read it; it might be the second coming of Pride and Prejudice for all I know), but because if there’s one thing I know about authors who are semi-or-less-successful, it’s that they are ALL better writers than the authors who have acquired significant wealth and fame writing about the same subjects. Some might call this professional jealousy – but I’m sure that erotic authors are also less prone to jealousy in light of being “more sexual” than the rest of us…. right?

Riiiiiight.

About Coleen Singer Coleen Singer is a writer, photographer, film editor and all-around geeky gal at Sssh.com, where she often waxes eloquent about sex, porn, sex toys, censorship, the literary and pandering evils of Fifty Shades of Grey and other topics not likely to be found on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist. She is also the editor and curator of EroticScribes.com. When she is not doing all of the above, Singer is an amateur stock-car racer and enjoys modifying vintage 1970s cars for the racetrack. Oh, she also likes porn.