ronny’s like RiM except slightly less obvious.

Meh. I’m more likely to buy the Obama celebration sex than the idea of 9/11 terror sex. When you’re happy and celebrating you’re more likely to be in the mood.  Anxiety and sadness are boner killers. Only in lame movies to people comfort each other with hard pounding sex.

Even if the above comment is supposed to be some mind of parody, it is totally foul.

I meant ronny, no pablo.

I’d almost buy the “terror sex” idea.  My brother-in-law left on a military trip a couple days before 9/11, and my sister was scared out of her wits that day.  When he came back, it was only a few months later we found out she was going to have a baby (and we only found out very late - we couldn’t tell, my sister being an infinitely tiny person and all).  Coincidence?  Maybe.

(NOTE: THE PLURAL OF ANECDOTE IS NOT DATA)

My understanding from my health class in college (don’t ask how long ago), is that people generally have more sex when celebrating than when grieving. As Damian says, “the plural of anecdote is not data” so YMMV.

The Onion beats “real” press once again.<blockquote></blockquote>

I hate these statistics. Hate them. Because they serve only one purpose: making people feel bad about themselves. Its as if you can put a number on how intimate people are and that will somehow translate into their lives.

Right now I will tell you that I am feeling bad about my relationship. I wasn’t feeling bad about it five minutes ago, but my wife and I, who get a long just great, have sex maybe once a month. Sadly, this seems to mean that our relationship is bad, or we aren’t intimate, or my wife is frigid, or I’m ugly, or something. Basically the whole structure around this is bullshit. Can’t put it into words right now, but blech.

I don’t think that’s the entirety of why people buy into all the versions of this urban legend (power outages being the baseline, I think, before 9/11 and election night).  For what it’s worth, I worked at a nursery in the summer of 2002, and had nurses around me saying there were more babies being born that summer because of 9/11, which was demonstrably false.

But I think a lot of people actually are having less sex than they’d like, for reasons other than being single or busy work schedules.  I can’t really back this up with data, but my experience talking to friends indicates that a lot of relationships have one partner or another (or both) frustrated with how infrequently they can get the other partner into the sack.

Stories like this are a little hopeful comfort, that some jarring event can re-introduce the kind of early-in-the-relationship spontaneity that had both partners looking for any excuse to fuck.  When it’s actually going to take talking, or splitting up, to fix the problem.  Anyway, the end result is the same, I agree.  Abstinence, or relative abstinence, is seen as the norm.

Ferox-

How do we know there is even a problem? Is it possible that the frustration of partners is not because they actually want more, but because society is telling them they should have more, which translates to wanting more?

I assume that if someone says “I wish my husband/wife/etc and I had sex more often” they really want to have sex more often.  These stories don’t really make me feel like I’m not having enough sex, even when I’m having none, because I generally have a pretty good idea of how often I want it when I’m actually in a relationship.

Hope sex? 

That actually makes more sense to me than terror sex.  I’ve heard that being endangered puts the libido into overdrive possibly because of a biological urge to reproduce, but that’s never been my experience.  Getting scared just makes me want to curl up under the covers and go to sleep.

If there was a baby boom from the NY blackout, it would most likely be from something along the lines of “Yayyy!!!! I don’t have to go work 3rd shift! / Oh well, I guess we arn’t running errands/watching TV tonight”.

I think boredom is the best aphrodisiac.

Or even jokes about how the big feature of an anniversary celebration is the sex, like it’s an annual event.

I don’t know that it’s supposed to be an annual event.  It’s more that that day is supposed to be a sure thing, which I guess is its own kind of creepy if you think about it too much.

Wait, you DON’T need a condom charger?? What have I been doing wrong?!

Yet another argument for comprehensive sex ed…

I could totally see hope!sex. Certainly there was a LOT of energy going on on that night. But, eh, what I think “could” happen certainly doesn’t mean it did.

Well, I don’t know how many other people might have had celebration sex, but at our house we popped a whole lot of champagne after the election was called, and ended up way too hammered to even think about it.

I’m pretty sure that the “once a week” average was some kind of misprint that was supposed to read once a year.  What kind of filthy animals do they think we are?

I remember reading something years ago about the best policy to lower the birth rate was widespread electrification. I have no idea if it was true or not, but I guess the theory is that if you have more options (TV, movies, book, internet) then you’re less likely to be doing it. As Oscar Wilde said, sex is the theater of the poor.

That’s why a rise in birth rates would make sense nine months after a blackout—there’s less to do to entertain yourself without electricity. But it makes no sense to me that people who are worried and depressed, such as after a national disaster like 9/11, would have more sex. You don’t hear people talking about a post-Katrina birth boom, do you?

In a lecture on human sexuality once, we were told that the semen from the sexual intercourse performed by human couples, worldwide, on a single day… would fill two Olympic sized swimming pools.
This mental image is not pleasant.

cynical, but i also think it’s about well, selling stuff.  if people view sex as “an event”, they’re more likely to buy fun lingerie, sex toys, candles, chocolates, a nice dinner, etc.  it may be a stretch but i think there’s some truth to the idea that certain industries benefit by hyping up sex to be a big fucking deal.  it sells makeup, it sells self-help books and it sells all that other crap because people think they need to spend money in order to have a better sex life. 

i think another reason is a psychological problem we have in this country with being comfortable with sexuality as a natural and beneficial part of life.  if you give people, particularly women, an excuse to let loose, it gets out all the pent-up tensions and anxieties they may have about sex as a normal part of life.  it’s the reason “sexy fill-in-the-blank” is the most popular halloween costume—because are aren’t comfortable with everyday sexy.  i have always found it odd that we use sex to sell everything, but in many ways we aren’t quite ok with it.

Personally, if there is anything to it at all, I buy the “this knocked us out of our cozy rut, got us talking to each other, and one thing led to another” theory - which applies to anything momentous.

I’d also bet that there’s a lot of the coincidence = causality people, along the lines of those who consider that people behaving oddly during the rest of the month are odd, but people behaving oddly at the full moon are influenced by it. Show me actual birth statistics, then compare them to other Septembers (gosh, it’s getting chilly, wanna cuddle?) and I consider it.

I used to work in the state office of vital statistics doing data entry putting marriage, birth, death, and divorce records into the computerized system.

I can tell you without a doubt, the only events that regularly caused a boomlet in the birthrate were blizzards or hurricanes.  Not bit Katrina hurricanes, Atlantic coast remnants of hurricane but enough to shut everything down.  And both of those are rare events around here.

Seems that when people can’t get out of the house, shit happens.

If there was a baby boom from the NY blackout, it would most likely be from something along the lines of “Yayyy!!!! I don’t have to go work 3rd shift! / Oh well, I guess we arn’t running errands/watching TV tonight”.

Relating this thought to 9-11, all flights were cancelled, and some businesses across the country were closed for a day or so (at least the power company where I worked was).

It’s a hell of a lot easier to manage “relations” when the alarm doesn’t go off the next morning. Just saying.

Hm. I am speaking as someone who’s generally single, in life. I’ve had brief spurts of involvement, but for most of my life i *have* been completely abstinent. Not by choice, natch. This was in fact extra-true after 9/11, when my boyfriend had a ‘revelation’ that life is short so he should fuck someone more attractive.

However, during blizzards I’ve gotten lucky more than once. Boredom does wonders for the unattractive.

Damn, blasphemed too soon. Anyway, I do honestly wonder whether most people are actually having sex multiple times a week. Certainly nobody I know is…an informal poll of my friends revealed an average more like 3-5 times a month, and oddly enough it didn’t seem to matter that most were in stable relationships.

There were a number of historical “baby booms” in the 30s and the 60s, and people like to try and link various historical events to these sudden spikes in the population.  So when CNN talks about the “9/11 Generation” they can make the claim that a bunch of people being born are the direct impact of some big historical event.

Back during various wars, this actually made a lot of sense.  If I’m about to spend the next year or more in the shits with a bunch of high school buddies, I’m going to be sexing the hell out of my wife / girlfriend / hot female co-worker / whomever right up until I leave and as soon as I get back.  And since its the 30s or the 60s, I’m probably not using protection.

I have no doubt that if you took a poll of Iraq veteran wives, they’ve got quite a few kids with conception dates that can be narrowly pegged to the weeks before deployment or after return.

But this modern “terror sex”, “hope sex” nonsense doesn’t mean nearly as much because there won’t be a big lack of sex afterwards.  It’s not like once you hook up with your girlfriend you’re going to go away on the hope bus or the terror train for the next six months.  So the odds that you get your girlfriend knocked up today aren’t any more than you getting her knocked up a month down the line.  You don’t get any significant generational gaps because people don’t magically stop fucking after the big day.

:-p

I would have had hope sex, but my husband works 3rd shift.  By the time he got home, Prop 8 and Prop 102 (and Joe @#$%$ing Arpaio) kinda put out the flame.  Also, it was Tuesday, with no blackout or blizzard, so the damn alarm had to be obeyed.

I am certain people have more sex when they have less to do.  Which is why people like my parents would have been wise to let their kids drive more, stay up later, and spend more money on theatre tickets/computer games etc.  Boredom plus parents who work til 2 hrs after school makes for (more) monkeying around. 

Also I don’t know about terror sex, but I’ve certainly had Bad Weather sex, Sleep Deprivation sex, Thesis Rejection sex… It’s a good way to take your mind off bad stuff, and fear and discomfort can lower your inhibitions so you’ll do it with people you might consider bad news otherwise.

But none of the things I mentioned relate to birthrates, since they wouldn’t change whether you used protection.  I’d be more inclined to believe in high birthrates nine months following a particularly good economic event.  Not so much trouble to have a kid when you’re not worried about affording it, so you might ease up slightly on the contraceptive routine.

Thank you Amanda!!!
I am so renaming my band-

THE CONDOM CHARGERS!!!!

By Ceiling Cat, I believe we got it…

Oh, yeah, per discussion:
Until We broke up in May, my girlfriend and I were about average, once or twice a week, regardless of 9/11, BushCo., & Cetera.

Now, you’ve reminded me how sad the last months have been… D’oh

I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. </Stuart Smalley>

Also I don’t know about terror sex, but I’ve certainly had Bad Weather sex, Sleep Deprivation sex, Thesis Rejection sex… It’s a good way to take your mind off bad stuff, and fear and discomfort can lower your inhibitions so you’ll do it with people you might consider bad news otherwise.

lonespark on 11/14 at 01:36 PM

I actually think this point might be more at the core of the urban legends: that during blackouts, disasters, major unsettling events, there are more RANDOM HOOK UPS goin’ on in the dark, as it were. In other words, people would be lovin’ the one they were with, rather than with the one they love right after ‘the event.’ Didn’t Don Delilo write a novel about this?

For what it’s worth as a data point: I was at a party on election night and people were very very happy, and I ended up semi-publicly making out with someone I had just met, and we’ve continued to pursue this since. I would be surprised if I were the only one.

Everyone there was pretty bummed about Prop 8 too, but that’s a kind of defeat we’re used to, whereas the celebration was for something we’re not used to. But if Prop 8 had failed, I doubt I would’ve made it home that night at all or to work the next morning.

I’m on the fence about this one. I can see the logic is there, as we do have evidence of how emotional events can affect hormones. How much of that evidence is real and how much is anecdotal, though, I’m not sure, as I don’t think I’ve directly read any of the studies that lead to my general knowledge of these “facts.”

Personally speaking, that might have been the only night that week that I didn’t have sex, as we were up late and there was too much going on. Also, I was pretty bummed out about prop 8, so I wasn’t in a purely good mood.

I think it’s foolish to think moments of great import don’t have SOME effect on people’s sex lives, but I can’t help but suspect that they even out statistically to the point of being irrelevant. If “hope sex” really occurred on November 4th, it was surely canceled out by the “despair going to bed early” of the other roughly half of the voting population (no joke, I had in-laws who CRIED when McCain lost!). And likewise, events like 9/11 probably had similar polarizing effects, with the people whose hormones went into overdrive from the danger or fear being canceled out by those who went into depression.

Others, though, surely have some validity. Considering how much my plans change on a night with a blackout, I can’t see why it wouldn’t change for others. Internet, TV, video games all go away on those nights for me and my family. What’s left? Well, personal time, talking, reading (by flashlight or outside), stargazing, and other non-electronic activities. And if it goes late enough, probably going to bed earlier. And considering some people skip sex due to lack of time and energy, an early night might be exactly what they need to get laid for a change. How much of a difference does it make? Probably not a huge one. But if there’s a 5% increase in sex that night, and every 1 in 1000 people on the pill get pregnant, or 1 in 100 with a condom, then yes, you’re likely to see a small blip from the event in a large enough effected population. And let’s not forget the obvious pre-war/post-war evenings.

Point is, while I disagree with you that these events do NOT effect people getting laid, I can loosely agree that they would have little or no statistical impact.

What I will STRONGLY agree with you about is the general anti-sex attitude and the likely reasons why people like to believe nobody’s getting laid (despite the other common, inaccurate assumptions that everyone but you is getting laid, or that you wish you were still single so you could get laid more). I’m really tired of living in this world where sex is marginalized, put in the corner, and given such a low priority. It’s still a giggly subject, and one otherwise open-minded people think is personally reasonable to criticize others over. I look forward to a time when it’s treated like the normal activity it is. Then maybe people won’t feel the need to count how much everyone’s having sex because they’re too busy openly having whatever kind of fun sex they feel like themselves.