Set 1 - Quarter 2

Hope everyone had a good Monday and a better weekend! Overall, the level of guessing accuracy improved quite a bit from Q1 to Q2, so bravo! For those of you still struggling with making the leaderboard, know that this is a game that gets easier both over time and as the user base grows, so stick with it and remember that scores reset completely after every 4 quarters. Examine your guessing and betting strategy… are you betting more points on guesses you are more confident in? Are you thinking about the age-group midpoint when making guesses? Are you making the mistake of assuming too much concordance between your experiences and those of the typical sapphic you are guessing about?

Honestly, there were not a lot of meaningful sub-group differences by age or sexual identity in Q2 for us to riff about here. In terms of the diffs that we did see, the rings data was probably the most interesting… While we don't see any really notable diffs by sexual identity…

we do by age-group… despite the actual number of rings worn by users all basically rounding to 2, younger users both perceived the typical sapphic to wear more rings and also found doing so to be ideal.

WHY MIGHT THIS BE? My hot take here is TikTok, which is more broadly used by younger people, is at least somewhat responsible. One very distinctive genre of GenZ #lesbiansoftiktok are those suggestible and questionably sexy young masc lesbians taking off rings off vids. If you are over 35 or don't use TikTok you might be unfamiliar so here are a couple of cringe examples…

https://www.tiktok.com/@vanderlindy/video/7418710239257562410?lang=en

https://www.tiktok.com/@shesyknow/video/6805009729895599365?lang=en

Another common genre of GenZ lesbian TikToks are those which indicate that wearing multiple rings is a high level signaling tool among femmes. Examples:

https://www.tiktok.com/@whiterefrigerator/video/7321105303020309803

https://www.tiktok.com/@seohbn/video/7441384068299656466

But wait… TikTok also has some thumb ring commentary that us old timers might relate to a bit more, which may also play a role in explaining the age differences observed. Back in the day, sapphic signaling efforts were limited to very specific wearing of a ring on the thumb, as explained here: https://www.tiktok.com/@rainbowhistoryclass/video/7134601497211391234?lang=en

Although we would need to collect more data to verify the TikTok explanation for these differences directly, there exists a huge empirical literature linking what you see frequently on social media (and what you see get reinforced by high levels of engagement) directly to your perceptions (and misperceptions) of others. What you see online isn't always representative of real life and this is something to keep in mind as you submit guesses and wager points in future quarters. It never hurts to ask yourself if social media might be biasing your sapphic perceptions!

Moving onto Orgasms… lots of them.

Q2's most interesting question notably submitted by OG user, Wolfee, (shoutout!) inquired as to the most orgasms the typical sapphic has had in "one session". While the exact definition of "one session" here is a little bit unclear, we interpreted it as a single session in bed that is not broken up by things like sleeping for several hours, or leaving the bed to eat a meal, run an errand, or walk the dog.

For context, peer-reviewed, representative survey studies with cis-gendered heterosexual women have found that only about 15% report experiencing multiple orgasms at all… meanwhile…

and drum roll please…

Pretty impressive/shocking (aren't y'all like totally famished & dehydrated!?) Needless to say, the multiple orgasm stereotype is very fortunately fact. This also seemed to be pretty well known as 79% guessed the typical sapphic's orgasms accurately enough to win points on this question! Well done!

Quite a bit has already been written on this phenomena so we aren't going to try and reinvent the wheel here. For more explanation and discussion see:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/new-research-helps-explain-lesbians-report-orgasms-straight-women-rcna146661

https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/02/a-survey-found-that-lesbians-give-women-way-more-orgasms-than-men-wonder-why.html

Our final interesting piece of data this week concerns the sizes of your extra bets. We were wondering if bet size tendencies were related to age-group… thinking that older users might be a little more confident in their guesses, and subsequently bet more points, than younger users simply because they have been around wading through stereotypes a bit longer. It looks like that is sort of the case in Q2 at least…

Thinking forward to what might be helpful to you all concerning strategy analysis in the future… when we get to the end of SET 1 in 2 weeks, we will take a look at average bet size among users who made the top 100 scorer leaderboard for the SET and those that did not. Note, you can also track your own scores, bet sizes, and profile badges unlocked in the Stats section of the app!

Leaving you with some additional reading related to Q2's other questions….

Flannels:

• https://www.vice.com/en/article/lets-end-flannel-as-a-lesbian-signifier-once-and-for-all/

• https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/05/ask-a-homo-why-do-lesbians-love-flannel-video.html

• https://www.autostraddle.com/pride-2023-flannels/#:~:text=Lesbian%20Flannel%20is%20a%20stereotype[…]20among%20bisexuals%20of%20all%20genders%2C%20an

• https://www.elonedge.com/blog/2023/5/9/a-look-inside-queer-fashion#:~:text=Some%20say%20the%20popularization%20of%20Coachella%20revived,fashionably%20in%20favor%20of%20comfortable%2C%20practical%20clothing.

Knew by age 13:

• https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/06/13/chapter-3-the-coming-out-experience/#467c49d608631d24f9d8ec587bf90b2d

• https://news.gallup.com/poll/647636/lgbtq-adults-coming-younger-ages-past.aspx

• https://www.autostraddle.com/9-famous-queer-ladies-who-figured-it-out-a-little-later-237273/

• https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a28477370/am-i-gay/

Hope everyone has a great week!