
Show HN: Tree of Reddit Sex Life - stared
https://observablehq.com/@stared/tree-of-reddit-sex-life
======
NowThenGoodBad
I really appreciate this perspective:

"While human sexuality is a delicate subject, I deeply believe it should be
discussed (vide my Dating for Nerds series) rather than shunned as a taboo
topic. Some discussion about ethics and implications of using such data were
covered in What I learned from building an AI that generates porn by David
Mack."

Until it becomes socially acceptable to talk openly about, we need more people
going out on a limb and being open in this way.

~~~
tsukurimashou
> Until it becomes socially acceptable to talk openly about

Well you see, I would hate to live in a world where it became socially
acceptable to talk about human sexuality

I think it is good to be able to talk about it to your close friends / family

But I'm already disgusted when I hear coworkers talk about porn or their (most
of the time imaginary) sexual life.

I think it is a very personal subject, and maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like
you'd get less freedom in your sexual life if everybody was talking openly
about it. Part of why I think that way is: people have weird fetishes for
example, you could think in a society where you can talk openly about sex and
you sexual life you could talk about your weird fetish, but I don't think
that's the case, only "popular" fetishes / sexual preferences would be
discussed, and "weird" fetishes / sexual preferences would be seen as
degenerate.

Again this is my opinion, maybe I'm wrong, but I would definitely not want to
talk openly about sex with random people.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
> but I feel like you'd get less freedom in your sexual life if everybody was
> talking openly about it. Part of why I think that way is: people have weird
> fetishes for example, you could think in a society where you can talk openly
> about sex and you sexual life you could talk about your weird fetish, but I
> don't think that's the case, only "popular" fetishes / sexual preferences
> would be discussed, and "weird" fetishes / sexual preferences would be seen
> as degenerate.

Likely exactly the other way around: people would hear other people having
weird fetishes, and they would understand that most people have this weird
side to them, and they would be more ok with their own weirdness.

~~~
jnty
You currently get looked at weird if you say you're interested in trains or
stamp collecting or something. I think this prediction is a bit too
optimistic.

~~~
din-9
Superheroes and fantasy have become mainstream over the last few decades.
Things do change.

~~~
close04
The 2 topics you mentioned simply didn't enjoy a general audience. But the
people who did enjoy them did so relatively out in the open.

I can't think of a time in recent history when any weird sex fetish was openly
discuss the weirder fetishes.

~~~
drsim
I object to the word 'weird' here but I get your point.

A time that comes to mind is Fifty Shades of Grey bringing sadomasochism into
popular culture and discussion.

~~~
apocalypstyx
(I will argue) the reason 50 Shades could be popular in the first place was
because it is fundamentally anti-bdsm: it deploys it for titillation, but
safely defines it as 'bad' and those who engage in such are 'broken' and
everything is wrapped up and 'fixed' in the end (of the trilogy), so the
audience gets to have the 'naughty thing' but get their previously conceived
notion of 'it was bad and always will be so' re-enforced at the end.

------
stared
Author here.

I wrote a description in the main file, so I don't have to add much here.
Though, I am open to feedback (especially for the graphical presentation, as
the taxonomy & subreddit list is not mine).

Even though I like and use D3.js a lot, it is my first post using
ObservableHQ. It seemed to me to be a nice choice for this kind of content.
Considered bl.ocks.org or repo/GH-page, but I think ObservableHQ makes it
easier to edit and share.

~~~
lecarore
This is neat, however (here comes the harsh critic) :

\- Rendering a simple tree like this would work just as well, if better, in
text only format (like the output of the "tree" command on linux) :
[https://justpaste.it/6r9un](https://justpaste.it/6r9un)

\- The classification also seems a bit manual and arbitrary.

Maybe giving each node a weight would make d3 worth using ? Maybe scrap the
subscribers of each subreddit, and make a force directed "map of reddit nsfw"
?

Your skills seem wasted on this if you're good at d3

~~~
stared
Your text-based tree is nice, but it comes with pros and cons, as every datq
visualization. In fact, it was my first idea, but I felt I need to create
something better for exploring the high-level structure.

But feel free to do a fork and a viz in this line:
[https://codepen.io/brendandougan/pen/PpEzRp](https://codepen.io/brendandougan/pen/PpEzRp)

There are quite a few maps of Reddit according to co-participation in
subreddits.

Though it does not make it semantic. (Maybe semantic things can be extracted
from the post content; though, I didn’t try.)

~~~
wongarsu
If you wanted to do more than just a straight tree: For any pair of subreddits
draw a line between the subs weighted according to the number of commenters
that commented in both subreddits. Maybe doing a similar graph with people
that post in both subreddits would be interesting too. I expect both variants
to yield a somewhat more natural grouping of subreddits than an artifically
curated list, but making it readable and explorable would be a challenge.

0:
[http://files.pushshift.io/reddit/comments/](http://files.pushshift.io/reddit/comments/)

~~~
stared
Well, if you want to do it, go for it.

If I were to do so, I know more suitable methods, vide description from
[https://github.com/stared/tagoverflow/](https://github.com/stared/tagoverflow/).
Without such normalization, it won't work given that there are networking with
different orders of magnitude of users.

Right now don't have much time for this project, and well - I am this kind of
person that has a few dozen times for idea than time, not the other way. :)

------
mfkp
Website is unfortunately unusable on mobile. The decided to disable zoom, and
the right side of the tree font size is about 2px high. I've got good eyes but
no amount of squinting is going to make that happen.

~~~
tareqak
I can zoom in on the diagram fine on iOS 12.2 Safari (just another data
point).

~~~
mfkp
Android Chrome can't zoom at all (anywhere on site, or on chart).

~~~
quietbritishjim
You can if you turn on the "desktop site" option (in the menu in the top
right). I believe this works for all sites.

------
tareqak
The link doesn’t contain any pictures, but it does have words inside a
diagram. Here is the full quote of the content warning from the link:

>> Begin quote

 _Content warning_ : Explicit names of sexual practices (some are niche/fetish
and one can find them distasteful or triggering). Most channels contain
sexually explicit images. None of these links is an endorsement.

Subreddits are clickable. Though, think twice before you do so. :)

>> End quote

------
hedgew
This is the kind of important explorative research that probably hasn't been
done extensively or truthfully before, and yet shows deep insight into how the
human mind works.

It's worth noting that this only contains subreddits with explicit NSWF
images. There are also who knows how many subreddits that are sexual in
nature, but text-only!

~~~
aasasd
There's also the “well-known (in marginal circles)” map of nsfw subreddits:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3z4k7v/map...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3z4k7v/map_of_nsfw_subreddits_oc/)

Using Reddit as a dataset is a regular pastime on r/dataisbeautiful, so afaik
plenty of attempts have been made at this topic.

~~~
wongarsu
Direct link to the interactive version:
[http://electronsoup.net/nsfw_subreddits/](http://electronsoup.net/nsfw_subreddits/)

It's both beautiful and somewhat disappointing to me: It looks great but I
don't get much new insight from looking at it.

------
winningcontinue
i don't know what this data set is showing sociologically. it's just a scrape
of data and not very well presented. that said, nice project but go on and
give it something else.

~~~
tareqak
It’s a classification. It’d be interesting to see the size of the different
subreddits too (number of subscribers and number of threads/replies/posts).

------
d33
Would be interesting to see a graph of how things get reposted between
subreddits. Also, I think you missed one quite relevant category:
"perspectives". In many cases, it's just about the angle the picture was shot
from. Perhaps it's worth including in your research?

~~~
stared
No need for suggestions, as this one is obvious. If you want to do so, go for
it.

It is a one-shot thing rather than research, BTW.

------
Myrmornis
The linked article contains a hell of a lot of stuff showing men thinking
about women in ways that women would not like to be thought about (en masse at
least). I'm completely against political correctness, I think Codes of
Conducts on Github are progressive nonsense, but I don't really think this is
a pleasant thread to be on HN, and I don't think it contributes to a welcoming
atmosphere on HN for women and other non-male genders.

------
mirimir
What a trip. I had no clue.

------
muzani
If this is Reddit, I wonder what the dark web holds.

~~~
viraptor
Not sure what you expect. Apart from purely illegal content like CP, what's
the reason not to use Reddit? For anything else Reddit is great for topic
communities.

~~~
londons_explore
Reddit is doing more and more content restrictions lately.

If I was starting a community for something controversial or borderline
illegal (sex acts, drug discussion, discussing pirate movies, radio spoofers,
bomb design, etc.), Reddit wouldn't be the place I'd choose anymore.

------
metta2uall
Wow, I'm quite shocked that reddit allows so much extreme violent content..
It's readily accessible, even advertised as subreddits, and there aren't any
warnings or self-help resources. If people get into that stuff, which is
readily addictive, I would think it has significant potential for
psychological harm, especially for teenagers. One can argue that it's possible
to compartmentalize it, but I doubt it since the mind/brain is a single highly
integrated system..

Research seems to be mixed, and unfortunately I don't have time to study it in
depth, but there are many articles like this:
[https://www.abc.net.au/religion/pornography-violence-and-
sex...](https://www.abc.net.au/religion/pornography-violence-and-sexual-
entitlement-an-unspeakable-truth/10098248)

------
aasasd
Huh, apparently some people don't think banana boobs and torpedo tits are the
same thing.

Anyway, time for mashups between tree branches!

------
negamax
Wow.. it's like an entire part of reddit I was oblivious to.. good work

------
randompi
That's a can of worms unleashed that I never knew!

------
adontz
Bookmarked in the name of science!

~~~
mr__y
Did you mean For Academic Purpose (F.A.P.)?

------
d2161
Huh that's interesting

------
aphantasiac
Something I wonder about is ... if people can commonly imagine in a "minds
eye" [0], why would they use porn?

My ex-wife and I got along fine when we first met. But it wasn't a match made
in heaven. We didn't kick boots [1] very often after getting legally hitched.
In the dry months I went back to using the internet porn, which i
despised/despise, but horny is horny. I would have rather have an imagination
[3] or a partner, than 2-dimensional pixels on a screen.

Reddit has vastly more subreddits of pictures of naked women than of naked
men. Mostly this is a scarcity thing: penises are a dime a dozen; $$$ is
enough to motivate some women to show skin for men who they otherwise have no
interest in.

Many young women have vast amounts of interest from men. One of my female
friends, who isn't particularly attached to her partners, has a string of ex-
boyfriends who obsess over her. She's said something about her fitting the
'wild-woman' archetype, whatever that means.

When women get pregnant they have a long-term project on their hands, so
evolution has decided that women get to decide who to father their likely
children. (not all human societies respect womens' desires -- arranged
marriages, etc. most societies don't help girls appreciate that boys'
attraction is entirely different). Feudal societies disposed of excess men
with conscription and pointless wars.

Women whose best assets don't show up on the pixels sometimes have to put more
effort into fishing for males than those with looks, but they still find
partners. A friend of mine, who did not reciprocate my attraction for her,
hooked me up with her not-particularly-choosy friend. I did not find the
friend particularly attractive, but it was complicated at the time. It was
traumatic, and completely unsatisfying.

Men who have money get more attention from women who market their looks. But
money is not required for female attention. Some men have figured out how to
be smooth, and develop a magnetism for female attention.

Other men have no idea what it is that makes them so annoying to the other
gender. Some of these men have latched on to the incel label [2], which seems
to feed on itself in a downward spiral.

I suspect many of the redditors who build the subreddits featured in this
"tree of reddit sex life" would much rather have partners, than to spend their
free hours cultivating collections of pixelated women.

I noted a comment here recently -- one of you fellas told about secretly
fantasizing about a coworker (iirc), and that the coworker[s] wouldn't know
about the fella's inner fantasies about her/them.

If only 1/50 is an aphantasiac, that's still millions of men who don't
fantasize. It's easy for them to turn to the pixelated women to get themselves
off when they get horny. But I know men who have a fully-functional
imagination, who use porn anyways.

My question for the gallery: imagination is better than porn, is it not? Why
do some men put so much _effort_ into their collection of pixelated women?
Perhaps it's a compulsion, not so different from heroin?

[0] submission from 2 days ago about aphantasia:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19618927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19618927)

[1] kick boots --
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kickin%27%20...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kickin%27%20boots)

[2] a woman coined the term 'involuntarily celebate', then she figured herself
out and was no longer celibate. The term was taken over by lonely men.
[https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a34512/woman-who-
started-i...](https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a34512/woman-who-started-
incel-movement/)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15176547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15176547)

~~~
pjc50
Why does art exist, if people can imagine things with their minds?

------
alanpetrel
Tree of Reddit sex life? Isn’t that just a stump?

