Helloooooo, St. Louis!! So, you’re looking for sex toys, hmm?
By Judi B. • Aug 15th, 2006 • Category: View from the Top| by Judi B.Technology is a wonderful (and sometimes terrifying) thing, isn’t it? I mean, in one day you can send tons of photos of your dogs to your family and friends, look for that elusive limited-edition Madonna belt-buckle you lost and need to replace, shop for documentaries about great whites, check to see if the Outlaw is in stock at GV, check your bank balance, and reserve a cabin for a weekend getaway. (Wow, I just described my afternoon.)
But there’s something else you can do…you can see what other people are doing on the internet too!! Well, not exactly, but kind-of. A coworker of mine just showed me something very, very cool that is proving to be both educational and entertaining. And this, my friends, is called Google™ Trends. So, on Google’s Trend site, You can type in either a word, or two words (actually, up to five words will work) and see a graph comparing the popularity of the searches for those words, and check out what cities and regions did most of the searching. Here’s how Google™ explains it: “Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results — our search-volume graph — plotted on a linear scale.” and… ”As a Google Labs product, it is still in the early stages of development. Also, it is based upon just a portion of our searches…” Got all that? And, why am I writing about this? Well, check this out…
If you type in “sex toy” you will see that in late 2005, there was a spike in popularity in sex toy searches. (Must have been the holiday sex-toy gift-giving season!) And if you look down, sorted by city, you’ll see that St. Louis edged out Tampa in the city searching the most for sex toys. Right on, St. Louis! It looks like that Arch makes you horny, hm? Chicago, Philly and Miami round out the top five sex-toy searching cities. Florida!—good job on having two top cities. It’s all that sun and fresh ocean air, isn’t it? Switching to region, we the top five: South Korea, Norway, the US, Canada and Thailand. I can’t even begin to analyze that. Next search: ”Masturbation!” Who’s the most curious about masturbation on the web? Oh, Montreal!…that would be you. Followed by Paris, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Um, okay Australia! Do you like to: Jerk Off, Jerk the Gherkin, Jiggle the Jewelry, Shine the Pole, Feed the Bearded Clam, Fiddle the Bean, Paddle the Pink Canoe, Pet the Pussy Cat, Polish the Pearl…or what? For my next search, I do a comparison. Do more people search the web for dildos or vibrators? And the winner is………..(can you feel the anticipation?)…………Dildos! The race was close, but more people do internet searches for dildos. However, vibrators dominate the “news reference”….poor dildos, the media never covers their stories! And hey, there’s Brisbane again…doing more web searches for dildos than any other city. Um, I think it’s time to book a trip to Brisbane! Next comparison…anal sex vs. oral sex! Can you guess what’s searched on most? I bet you can. That’s right: anal sex! And who’s the most fascinated with anal sex? Miami, Ankara (Turkey), Seattle, Chicago and Birmingham (UK). There’s Florida, representing again. Are there direct flights from Miami to Brisbane, I wonder? Maybe GV should start hosting an around-the-world sex-positivity tour….I’m going to talk to someone about that. In the meantime, I conduct several other comparisons: Anal sex vs. intercourse: winner—anal sex! Masturbation vs. intercourse: winner—masturbation! Butt plugs vs. cock rings: winner—cock rings, but not by much! (And, wow the UK loves their butt plugs!) Flogging vs. bdsm: winner—bdsm (and hey, San Diego…you can get your floggers here at GV!) G-spot vs. clit: winner—CLIT! So, I could go on and on! Looking at sex toy trends (I *heart* graphs!) is fun. It’s like being a voyeur into the world of others’ sex interests, without getting arrested or trespassing. Sweet! |
Judi B. >> a cake eater and the ex-editor of GV Magazine. Her idea of a perfect day would involve: mimosas in bed, Huevos Rancheros with real red chili, a phone call from her mom, a trip to the dog beach, and cocktails with friends while watching America’s Next Top Model. She shares her life with her hot librarian girlfriend and their two brilliant pit bulls. She has over 80 neck-ties.
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