How representative is the Lit population?

[Experimentalist]

1. No i do not think so. People are different, so I am sure this small forum is not good representation.
2. Yes this can happen. If someone ask "who like honey?", I think most people who averagely dont think about eating honey will also join in because they like it. So common ones will get over-represent.
3. Yes, I can fully agree the safety that is provided from anonymity to people to become open. Because no stake to lose than an account.

So do you think the anonymity allows people to be more “honest” in what they want when they are here?

 

[LaotianLass]

Probably a little overweighted with racists and sexists, but otherwise pretty representative.

 

[Noor]

I think it’s fairly representative. People just show themselves more here and try out fantasies. It’s a relative safe place.

 

[waynefar]

I'm not even sure to be honest.

It is fairly representative of the people we've chosen so surround ourselves with. Outside of of that group maybe not so much, but I am often surprised how kinky some outwardly conservative people can be in private.

 

[Kanaki]

So do you think the anonymity allows people to be more “honest” in what they want when they are here?

I think so. Difficult to think a value to be not-honest.

 

[Experimentalist]

I think so. Difficult to think a value to be not-honest.

Agree it would be better if everyone were more out and honest, but a place to explore ideas, at least in the context of how challenging it can be to be open about sexuality feels like it has some value at this moment in time?

 

[lifeis2short2b]

Do you think the sexual appetite and interests, and the proportions of people that express these interests, are representative of the population at large? Or do you think there are some groups - sexuality, fetish - that are overrepresented here?

Does the anonymity let us be who we really are, or is there a natural self selection to this community that draws in certain sexual interests?

Well since this is a sex site it does draw people who are more active or like to express themselves more in regards to sex.
So Lit does draw some over representation for sure. As a whole people seem to be more to themselves and less outspoken in every day life. Most guys excluded
Then again people now a days are a little less up tight discussing about sex then in years past.

 

[Experimentalist]

Probably a little overweighted with racists and sexists, but otherwise pretty representative.

Is that even possible against the general population?

 

[StrongMaster7]

Great Question! Great thread! The following is my opinion.

Lit is at least 75% men, perhaps as much as 90%. More than half of the ‘women’ on Lit are men.

Strange how the vast majority of ‘women’ on Lit are bisexual. I note that many, many of them only want to chat with ‘other women’.

I live a pretty normal life. I have plenty of friends of all ages and of all types. None of my friends openly talks about sex. I do not know a single person who is a ‘swinger’. Since my time in college many years ago, I have never heard of any kind of orgy, group sex party, swapping event or anything of the kind. The few friends I have ever talked to about sex seemed to be pretty much like me. Wife gives me 15 minutes, once a week, limited menu.

I’m not saying there are no nymphomaniacs, orgies, swing parties, and such. I’m saying they cannot be very common.

Most porn, strip clubs, and prostitutes are for men. Men are five to ten times more sexual than women, in general. So, Lit does actually reflect the real world. It’s mostly a bunch of horny men looking to have contact with one of the few females present.

 

[lil_jenni]

Probably a little overweighted with racists and sexists, but otherwise pretty representative.

Is that even possible against the general population?

Out in the real world, sexism and racism tend to be quieter, which makes those who are willing to overtly express these ideas and act on them stick out. And although more people seem empowered to do that in the real world than a decade or so ago, most of us probably think of them as outliers.

Thus, on the surface, it appears that misogynists (the aspect I have experienced most on here) are over represented on Lit, but I suspect that is mainly illusory. People are more free to express their extremes here, so we get to see those extremes in a way we may not in real life. I think this is especially true for white knight misogyny, as it is so much less overt and thus harder to recognize in someone when encountering them in the real world.

I don't know if it is the same with racism, but it seems likely it may be. People who have racists beliefs they may never express in the real world are emboldened to do so place like Lit.

 

[lil_jenni]

Strange how the vast majority of ‘women’ on Lit are bisexual. I note that many, many of them only want to chat with ‘other women’.

Strange that a website that attracts people with non-standard sexuality has more women users with non-standard sexual preferences? Strange that women who are bi, and may not have many opportunities to express that in their real lives, may come here to express it, just like sexually frustrated men with no outlet for it in their lives come here for that outlet? Strange that women who likely have more male attention than they want in real life (and that is the vast majority of women, by the way) would prefer female attention over more of the same from men?

 

[Wonderer67]

My own two cents is that this site is not that representative of overall society.

People on here probably have much more interest in sex and sexuality than the average person. I’d imagine that’s what brought them here to begin with. That is not to say that there are some very sexually active and sexual people who could be your neighbors or coworkers and are not on lit… (that idea turns me on to no end…)

As for the male to female ratio, who am I to say… but I’d guess it’s skewed more male. Some people are pretty easy to see thru.

 

[lil_jenni]

Most porn, strip clubs, and prostitutes are for men. Men are five to ten times more sexual than women, in general. So, Lit does actually reflect the real world. It’s mostly a bunch of horny men looking to have contact with one of the few females present.

I was pretty fired up yesterday (kids waking one up early on New Year's Day will do that), so I decided not to respond to this. But it's still bugging today when I'm not in a mood that would make folks think red is my natural hair color, so...

The above is confirmation bias bullshit. Porn-minded men come to Lit and see a porn site, then they question why women would be here because porn is geared toward men, and then they assume the women here (especially the ones who don't conform to the sexual norms that society tries to impose on women) must not be women at all. QED.

But wait. Some folks don't see Lit as a "porn" site in the way porn-minded men mean porn. We see it as an erotica site. And news flash guys -- women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica. Have any of y'all read bodice ripping type romance novels? They aren't fucking romance. They are erotica. And it is a fucking huge industry, growing when the rest of publishing is shrinking. And why? Because women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica.

And there is a lot of erotica on Lit that does not grade to "porn" in the way porn-minded men use that term. Sure, sometimes finding it takes wading through porn, but it is there. And moreover, sometimes some women actually like more hardcore erotica (let's call it porn ), some of which is made by women for women (and for men too). Sure it's not the standard, but it exists. Also, there are some wonderful curators of the female erotica/porn aesthetic, visual and literary, on Lit.

Or put another way, Lit is not just a fucking porn site unless you came here to find porn and ignore all the less "porny" erotica on here.

And another thing... a significant subset of the "all the girls on lit are dudes" crowd seem to be operating on a rather misogynistic level. Namely, that women don't like 'X', wherever X is the thing the guys likes that the women in his life may not like, and therefore women who say they like X are dudes unless proven otherwise with pics, preferably nudes. Well, guess what? Many women like a lot of things that they aren't "supposed" to like. They may not like it at every point in their life and with every partner. Or, they may have just never liked it with you (this is the generic use of "you", not the particular, so be calm easily offended guys who are going to gasp and say, "not all men" or the like). But most women are much more interested in sex than guys think. Hence, the massive industry that is women's erotica.

Okay. Rant over... for now.

 

[Purple_Fronds]

I was pretty fired up yesterday (kids waking one up early on New Year's Day will do that), so I decided not to respond to this. But it's still bugging today when I'm not in a mood that would make folks think red is my natural hair color, so...

The above is confirmation bias bullshit. Porn-minded men come to Lit and see a porn site, then they question why women would be here because porn is geared toward men, and then they assume the women here (especially the ones who don't conform to the sexual norms that society tries to impose on women) must not be women at all. QED.

But wait. Some folks don't see Lit as a "porn" site in the way porn-minded men mean porn. We see it as an erotica site. And news flash guys -- women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica. Have any of y'all read bodice ripping type romance novels? They aren't fucking romance. They are erotica. And it is a fucking huge industry, growing when the rest of publishing is shrinking. And why? Because women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica.

And there is a lot of erotica on Lit that does not grade to "porn" in the way porn-minded men use that term. Sure, sometimes finding it takes wading through porn, but it is there. And moreover, sometimes some women actually like more hardcore erotica (let's call it porn ), some of which is made by women for women (and for men too). Sure it's not the standard, but it exists. Also, there are some wonderful curators of the female erotica/porn aesthetic, visual and literary, on Lit.

Or put another way, Lit is not just a fucking porn site unless you came here to find porn and ignore all the less "porny" erotica on here.

And another thing... a significant subset of the "all the girls on lit are dudes" crowd seem to be operating on a rather misogynistic level. Namely, that women don't like 'X', wherever X is the thing the guys likes that the women in his life may not like, and therefore women who say they like X are dudes unless proven otherwise with pics, preferably nudes. Well, guess what? Many women like a lot of things that they aren't "supposed" to like. They may not like it at every point in their life and with every partner. Or, they may have just never liked it with you (this is the generic use of "you", not the particular, so be calm easily offended guys who are going to gasp and say, "not all men" or the like). But most women are much more interested in sex than guys think. Hence, the massive industry that is women's erotica.

Okay. Rant over... for now.

Love everything about this post -

 

[BillyWalrus]

I was pretty fired up yesterday (kids waking one up early on New Year's Day will do that), so I decided not to respond to this. But it's still bugging today when I'm not in a mood that would make folks think red is my natural hair color, so...

The above is confirmation bias bullshit. Porn-minded men come to Lit and see a porn site, then they question why women would be here because porn is geared toward men, and then they assume the women here (especially the ones who don't conform to the sexual norms that society tries to impose on women) must not be women at all. QED.

But wait. Some folks don't see Lit as a "porn" site in the way porn-minded men mean porn. We see it as an erotica site. And news flash guys -- women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica. Have any of y'all read bodice ripping type romance novels? They aren't fucking romance. They are erotica. And it is a fucking huge industry, growing when the rest of publishing is shrinking. And why? Because women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica.

And there is a lot of erotica on Lit that does not grade to "porn" in the way porn-minded men use that term. Sure, sometimes finding it takes wading through porn, but it is there. And moreover, sometimes some women actually like more hardcore erotica (let's call it porn ), some of which is made by women for women (and for men too). Sure it's not the standard, but it exists. Also, there are some wonderful curators of the female erotica/porn aesthetic, visual and literary, on Lit.

Or put another way, Lit is not just a fucking porn site unless you came here to find porn and ignore all the less "porny" erotica on here.

And another thing... a significant subset of the "all the girls on lit are dudes" crowd seem to be operating on a rather misogynistic level. Namely, that women don't like 'X', wherever X is the thing the guys likes that the women in his life may not like, and therefore women who say they like X are dudes unless proven otherwise with pics, preferably nudes. Well, guess what? Many women like a lot of things that they aren't "supposed" to like. They may not like it at every point in their life and with every partner. Or, they may have just never liked it with you (this is the generic use of "you", not the particular, so be calm easily offended guys who are going to gasp and say, "not all men" or the like). But most women are much more interested in sex than guys think. Hence, the massive industry that is women's erotica.

Okay. Rant over... for now.

You have given hope to all the desperately horny and terminally thirsty bastards who populate this site.

 

[Britva415]

So do you think the anonymity allows people to be more “honest” in what they want when they are here?

I think it allows some of that, I think it also allows some people to misrepresent themselves.

 

[Experimentalist]

I was pretty fired up yesterday (kids waking one up early on New Year's Day will do that), so I decided not to respond to this. But it's still bugging today when I'm not in a mood that would make folks think red is my natural hair color, so...

The above is confirmation bias bullshit. Porn-minded men come to Lit and see a porn site, then they question why women would be here because porn is geared toward men, and then they assume the women here (especially the ones who don't conform to the sexual norms that society tries to impose on women) must not be women at all. QED.

But wait. Some folks don't see Lit as a "porn" site in the way porn-minded men mean porn. We see it as an erotica site. And news flash guys -- women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica. Have any of y'all read bodice ripping type romance novels? They aren't fucking romance. They are erotica. And it is a fucking huge industry, growing when the rest of publishing is shrinking. And why? Because women consume a fucking shit ton of erotica.

And there is a lot of erotica on Lit that does not grade to "porn" in the way porn-minded men use that term. Sure, sometimes finding it takes wading through porn, but it is there. And moreover, sometimes some women actually like more hardcore erotica (let's call it porn ), some of which is made by women for women (and for men too). Sure it's not the standard, but it exists. Also, there are some wonderful curators of the female erotica/porn aesthetic, visual and literary, on Lit.

Or put another way, Lit is not just a fucking porn site unless you came here to find porn and ignore all the less "porny" erotica on here.

And another thing... a significant subset of the "all the girls on lit are dudes" crowd seem to be operating on a rather misogynistic level. Namely, that women don't like 'X', wherever X is the thing the guys likes that the women in his life may not like, and therefore women who say they like X are dudes unless proven otherwise with pics, preferably nudes. Well, guess what? Many women like a lot of things that they aren't "supposed" to like. They may not like it at every point in their life and with every partner. Or, they may have just never liked it with you (this is the generic use of "you", not the particular, so be calm easily offended guys who are going to gasp and say, "not all men" or the like). But most women are much more interested in sex than guys think. Hence, the massive industry that is women's erotica.

Okay. Rant over... for now.

Love this response!

 

[Susscrofa]

Do you think the sexual appetite and interests, and the proportions of people that express these interests, are representative of the population at large? Or do you think there are some groups - sexuality, fetish - that are overrepresented here?

Does the anonymity let us be who we really are, or is there a natural self selection to this community that draws in certain sexual interests?

Online forums are a self-selecting sample of people. I suspect that many people who post here do so because they have experiences and/or fantasies that they aren't comfortable discussing openly with their friends and acquaintances, and the reason for that discomfort is that their fantasies (cuckoldry, incest, etc) are perceived as strange or worse by most people.

 

[Susscrofa]

I'll also add

Do you think the sexual appetite and interests, and the proportions of people that express these interests, are representative of the population at large? Or do you think there are some groups - sexuality, fetish - that are overrepresented here?

Does the anonymity let us be who we really are, or is there a natural self selection to this community that draws in certain sexual interests?

A few years ago, a book came out called "Everybody Lies" by data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, it got a lot of press. The author used Google web search data to make inferences about people's sexual preferences and fantasies, their political and social views, etc.

I only browsed the book and so haven't read it in detail, but to me the whole notion of using Google searches to determine what's typical in the population at large is terribly flawed, because those who gravitate towards particular websites are a self-selecting group of people that don't represent a random, unbiased sample from the population at large.

For instance, the author states that about 5% of porn searches are for gay male porn, from which he infers that 5% of men are primarily homosexual. This is about twice the number of men who identify as primarily gay. So there are two possibilities - either those 2.5% are lying, or gay men simply consume more pornography. I would guess that the latter is just as likely - if you're a small town gay guy who thinks he's the only one around, porn is probably your only sexual outlet, whereas the straight guys in the same small town have other sexual outlets.

Similarly, people with minority or fringe political views tend to seek out echo chamber websites and discussion boards and falsely conclude that their views are mainstream.

The same thing applies to the folks on this site. If cuckoldry and incest fantasies are common among posters here, that tells us nothing about how common these fantasies are in the general population, because the self-selecting group of people with these fantasies have congregated on this website.

One may as well go to a website devoted to stamp or coin collecting and try to infer from that site that most people are obsessive stamp or coin collectors whether they admit it or not.

 

[LMWM321]

If cuckoldry and incest fantasies are common among posters here, that tells us nothing about how common these fantasies are in the general population, because the self-selecting group of people with these fantasies have congregated on this website.

Perfectly summed up. And I also like your use of the phrase echo chamber in your full post.

Yes, people who come to Lit have convinced themselves that a whole host of sexual interests are common. ..And that's not so surprising, and not necessarily harmful. It's the non-consensual proclivities that people have convinced themselves that are "harmless" that worry me.