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With the lack of comprehensive sex education in many schools and an administration more concerned with a narrow view of morality than sexual health, people are turning to the internet for their sex education. A metrics blog recently reported the prevalence of sex searches on the Wikipedia (via Violet Blue). According to the Compete.com 17% of the top 100 wikipedia searches are sex related, they conclude “The top terms include very straightforward inquiries on human reproductive ‘parts’ and basic concepts of what sex is and how it is performed. It appears many people are learning about what sex is and how to have it by referencing Wikipedia.”
This isn’t the first time a relationship between Wikipedia’s and sex has been established — a while back it was mentioned that many of the most visited articles were all about sex. Sadly recent statistics are not available but the Google Cache version (August 06) lists “List of sex positions”, “List of Big-bust performers,” “List of female porn stars” in the top ten.
While the Wikipedia presents a vast amount of knowledge and can be a really great resource, it sometimes comes with a dose of bias (an interesting article about WikiChix, an organization addressing sexism on the Wikipedia). One illustration might be the number of mentions for particular terms related to sexual anatomy: when you search the Wikipedia for ‘penis’ it returns 7421 results (testicles 1615, scrotum 627). Anus returns 4938 results. Vagina only has 2818 mentions, Clitoris 907, Vulva 651 and G-spot only 271 results — less than penis when all put together. Cunnilingus returns 283 mentions while Fellatio returns 569 (and analingus 39). The terms ‘ass’ and ‘breasts’ beat all of these hands down with 14653 and 13216 mentions respectively, although many of these results are far less on topic. By contrast, the Encyclopedia Britannica Online gives penis 129 mentions, vagina 140.
More is not necessarily better, and to really draw conclusions would require an in-depth analysis of the thoroughness and accuracy of the available resources, a task maybe better suited to a graduate thesis than a blog post. I do think it highlights how larger cultural and institutional notions of significance are reflected on the internet and in the wikipedia. Decentralized media offers a great outlet for people to speak their mind and distribute information, but as these tools evolve and become more popular, the question rises that even if everyone has the opportunity to speak, who and what get heard in the end…
