Hedonic Philanthropy

I love the term "hedonic philanthropist." In the old days, they just called us sluts. ;)

Originally published on Eros Blog:

As I write these words, one respectable estimate puts the number of Internet users at two billion globally. That’s a lot of people, and if you make art, some of them will find you,. With numbers like that, there’s philanthropic magic in the math.

About anything you might create, you might think, “Well, it’s a strange thing and maybe not that many people are into it, and of those, not that many people will find it.” And maybe both of those propositions are true. Suppose your thing will only appeal to or give pleasure to one person out of a hundred. And suppose you’re not that easy to find, even if you optimize search terms for people who want to see the sort of thing you’re into, so only one person in 500 who wants to find your art will find it over the entire life of your site or posting or whatever where you present it.

Well, if you assume two billion Internet users worldwide and do the math, what do you find? That there are 40,000 people in the world whose day you’ll brighten up, at least a little. You could almost fill Wrigley Field with smiling folks (which is more than can be said for thebaseball team that plays there these days).

Suppose that creating a single work of art costs $200.00, whether in artist’s commission fees, the monetized opportunity cost of your time, or what have you. (And you can do something pretty nice for $200, in my experience.) Divide that $200 by 40,000 people and it works out to half a cent per person. How many other forms of pleasure can you buy for that little? In philanthropic terms that sounds like a tremendous bargain to me.

And it’s yours for the taking…

Redheads Like Sex More Than You Do

I first noticed it when I was three or four. "She has such beautiful hair!" chirped mothers at play dates, old ladies at supermarkets, and creepy men loitering on sidewalks. Often people felt compelled reach out and touch my hair, as if to check if it were real. They didn't seem to see me so much as they were spellbound by my tangle copper crown.

By the time I was 14 I noticed both boys and men staring at me in a different way. My red hair, emerald eyes and alabaster skin had made me a kind of fetish object. I remember waiting in line at Starbucks wearing my high school volleyball uniform, and overhearing two middle aged businessmen snicker behind me, "I wonder if the carpet matches the drapes."

"Red stands for passion and when a man sees a redhead he will think he is dealing with a woman who won't mess around, and gets straight to the point when it comes to sex." Or so said a German researcher back in 2006 (See the article here), which is coincidentally the year I first started having sex. His study showed that redheads statistically have more sex than blondes or brunettes.

Now anyone who knows me would agree that my libido is higher than average and my hair is bright copper red, but are the two really linked? Some have suggested that red hair (and high libido) is linked to the Neanderthals. (See article here). Redheads also, apparently need more anesthetic during surgery...but I stray off topic. I know that I became aware of my sexuality and the power it conferred at a young age, and that by age twelve I already had an extremely vivid and orgasmic fantasy life, even though none of my friends did. I was never sexually abused by an adult, but I can't help wondering if all the male attention triggered my sexual response in a way that was different from other girls.

So, to put a fine point on the question, is my innate horniness really a genetic difference linked to my red hair or is it the result of societal conditioning - the expectations of a society that equates the color red with sex? Statistics on online dating sites show that "Men with red hair are less likely to get responses than those with other colored hair." (See article here) Which suggests that men and women feel differently about the sexual attractiveness of red hair. I wonder if anyone has done a study of the libidos of redheaded men?

I think (based on no scientific data other than my own limited experience) that redheads of both sexes have higher sex drives but to men that higher sex drive is exotic and exciting (statistically speaking) while to women a higher sex drive is neither more or less exciting (statistically speaking). I'd even go so far as to say that for women red hair (like a balding head) is just not as aesthetically pleasing to a majority of women.

But in general, yes, I think fiery redheads are hornier than blondes or brunettes.  :)

Photograph by Leland Coleman