Internet searches for porn ebb and flow with the seasons in a predictable way — like the mating habits of animals.
X-rated Googling for terms like “porn” and “xxx” — and, presumably, “gang bang,” “dirty sluts” … well, you get the idea — peaks in the winter and late summer, following regular fluctuations not exhibited by other common searches, according to an Archives of Sexual Behavior paper called “Seasonal Variation in Internet Keyword Searches: A Proxy Assessment of Sex Mating Behaviors.” From the abstract:
Harmonic analyses were used to examine the seasonal trends of Google keyword searches during the past 5 years for topics related to pornography, prostitution, and mate-seeking. Results indicated a consistent 6-month harmonic cycle with the peaks of keyword searches related to sex and mating behaviors occurring most frequently during winter and early summer. Such results compliment past research that has found similar seasonal trends of births, sexually transmitted infections, condom sales, and abortions.
So in the dryness of science speak there are no real surprises here — mining vast amounts of internet data teaches us that we act like animals whether on- or offline.
But The Atlantic‘s Megan Garber points out the study’s implications regarding the power of the internet to “reveal the patterns of human emotion in a new scope”:
The Internet knows what we want. It knows what we do when we are alone, or think we are. And it knows all of us with the same totality of intimacy. As the blog Neuroskeptic points out, the researchers’ findings could “reflect a more primitive biological cycle” — something profound in the complex dynamic among biology, technology, and the world of flesh that mediates the two.
Does your libido come and go with the seasons? How do you feel about internet data teaching us about human sexuality and our primal urges? Let us know in the comment section below.