A growing number of people collect data on themselves: how many steps you take, how many calories you burn, your heart rate, your sleep, your eating habits. There are many ways to track those data. Not just with your smartphone, but also with wearables like the Apple Watch or Fitbit, that can register certain body functions automatically for you. This trend of lifelogging, or quantified self, can also be extended to your sex life. But why would you translate your sex life into data and how can you do that?
What is lifelogging?
The Quantified Self is a movement that uses technology to collect data on several aspects of your daily life in terms of input (what have you eaten, what is the quality of the oxygen you breath, speel), status (mood, excitement, heart rate, weight, length, blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels) and performance (sport, exercise). This movement tracks their life in data by means of technology, like apps, wearables and monitors; We call this lifelogging, self-tracking, auto-analytics, body hacking, self quantifying, or self-surveillance.
I myself wear an Apple Watch, with which I continuously measure my heart rate, how often I stand (to warn me if I sit too much or too long), how much I exercise and how many calories I burn during normal activities and during workouts. Every once in a while I also keep my weight. Am I a health freak? Au contrair. I’d rather take the car, I do not enjoy running, and I am more of a Burgundian that loves his greasy evening snack. Still, I find this technological development interesting. And it motivates me (sometimes) to stand just a bit more often or to move a bit more.
There are already over 40,000 apps (!) for smartphones to track personal data. In The Netherlands we are somewhat behind concerning wearables. In the US it is estimated that 60% has some kind of health and fitness tracker, in The Netherlands this was only 13% in 2016 (a bit more women then men). Young people have a tracker more often than older people. Of all people globally that wear a tracker, 47.5% does so to measure and improve their health and condition, 39.5% to measure weight and for weight loss, and 30.1% to motivate themselve.
Why would you want to track your sex life (too)?
Blogster Girly Juice keeps a spreadsheet of her sex life. On her blog she says that she couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t. Everyone with a slight interest in sex and that is a well organised geek would want to do that? She explains why she keeps a detailed spreadsheet. For one, she wants to discover patterns. She discovered that she never had an orgasm on a one night stand and that made her decide to never have one again. Also the spreadsheet helps her to determine what sex toy works best for her. But she also used it for health issues when she tried to get pregnant or to track which partners she had in case of an STD. Futher more, the data helped her to gain confidence and it was just a lot of fun to do.
Lifelogging your sex life
There are different apps that can help you track your sex life. For iPhone for example there is SLog that visualizes how much you move during sex (I guess you must attach the iPhone to your body, unless you keep your clothes on). It also tracks your sex partners. But that’s not the only app that can do that. SkillMon keeps track of how much sex and how many orgasms you had.
But you can also make your own spreadsheet, like Girly Juice did. Make colums wfor the different data you want to keep track of:
- date and time,
- name of the partner(s),
- gender of the partner(s),
- number of orgasms you had,
- number of orgasms your partner had,
- time/duration
- fingers (yes/no), oral sex (yes/no), penetration (yes/no), anal (yes/no), etc.,
- what sex toys did you use,
- location,
- condom/protection (yes/no),
- use of alcohol or drugs,
- an overall rating.
Fill in the spreadsheet as soon as possible, so you won’t forget details.
After a while you can make analytics with pivot tables, averages, totals and other statistical data. Know which partner gave you the most orgasms, what time works best for you, and much more. It will be more fun if you share your data with friends or fuckbuddies. Who preforms best?
Marc van Lier
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