by Kayt Miller
Peach sits up grabbing her spiral-bound notebook and a pen, “Okay. Survey. Let’s write down some sex survey questions.”
“A sex survey?”
“Yeah… sex sells. If you want to draw in a lot of surveyors, you need to focus on the sex part of this.
“Participants. Not surveyors.”
Peach ignores me and continues, “You could do an online survey.”
“I think I’d want to deliver the survey to the participants in person.”
“I bet you would, you naughty girl,” she says as she does that pervy eyebrow thing.
“You’d better quit doing that; your eyes are gonna stick that way.”
She stops immediately, looking horrified. “The survey could be about sex and preferences about partners, you know, looks, personality, careers, etc. We could ask about those dating apps plus, we could sneak in a question or two about virginity.”
I sit up and grab the notebook out of Peach’s hand. “Let’s brainstorm on some questions that we could ask. Then I’ll narrow them down to fifteen or twenty questions. They need to be qualitative and quantitative.”
“Ugh, stop with the sciency talk. Speak English.”
“I mean, I need some questions that I can tally statistics about them, quantitative. Then I need questions about thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc. That’s qualitative.”
“Whatevs. I get it.”
I know she gets it. Just because she’s an art major doesn't mean she’s not well rounded. I know for a fact her grade point average is higher than mine and she takes just as many science and math classes as me. “Let’s get started. Throw some questions out there that could work for a survey. The first few could just be about gender identity, age, major if they’re in college and their year, and sexual preference.”
“Yeah, no joke, you need to include all of those. We don’t live in a two-gender society anymore, and we need to honor that.” Peach has a few friends who identify as other than heterosexual. She’s right. “You’ll need to know how many sexual partners they’ve had.”
“Okay. Good. What else?
“You could ask about relationship status if they’ve had long-term relationships.”
“How long do you have to be together for it to be considered long term?” I ask her because I need a finite number for that.
“Six months?”
“That’s good. For this survey, it could be six months. Then, I think we need to ask questions about personal preferences as it relates to a potential sex partner. Like hair color, hair style, body type, height, etc.”
Peach nods, “You could even ask them to list their favorite body part. You know, some guys like boobs best when another one could be into feet.”
I stare at her. “Feet?”
She shrugs her shoulders, “To each his own. I love a man's forearms. Thick muscly forearms are the biggest turn on.”
“Gross,” I mutter.
Peach giggles again. “Whatevs. Just include it. Trust me.”
“Next, we should ask them to rate the qualities they consider important like faithfulness, being a good kisser or good in bed, a good listener, stuff like that.”
“Ooh, ooh, I know,” Peach has her hand up in the air like she needs me to call on her in class. “If you’re going to ask them to rate stuff, ask them things that attract them to a person at first. You know, like seeing someone across the room at a party that makes their heart go pitter-pat.”
“So, you got a look at some good forearm?” I chuckle. I never knew she was a forearm fetishist.
“Shut it. It’s a good idea.”
“It is. While we’re at it, we can ask them how they’ve met previous partners. Like a party for example.”
“Yeah, through friends, those infamous apps, the grocery store, the gym.”
“A club, classes, church, weddings.”
“Funerals.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Sad boys are surprisingly hot.”
I roll my eyes at my best friend because there are things about her that really, really concern me. Take that last thing. Funerals? I shake my head and continue to write. We add a section about personality types plus how much they use social media in relationships. We also ask about masturbation, favorite sexual positions/acts, if they’re drawn to certain stereotypes like cheerleader, nerd, or sexy librarian. We also include questions related to dirty talk and if so––to give or to receive.
All in all, it’s a very extensive list of questions. Now, I just needed to write it all out and decide which questions to keep and which to toss bearing in mind that it should be a valid research study. After that, I’ll need to present this idea to my major professor through proper channels to see if I can do this thing. Then, I’ll figure out how and when I can conduct the survey. But, I’ve got to say… I love this idea.
“Peach, I love this idea. This is going to be fun.”
“I hope I get to be there when you’re doing the survey. I could catch me a hotty.”
I roll my eyes are my best girl. She has no problems ‘catching hotties’. She’s a hotty herself. She can’t walk out onto the street without a guy hitting on her. She doesn’t even realize it’s happening, I swear. She’s oblivious to the fact that her five foot nine body is amazing. She’s into exercise and fitness, though she’s not stick-thin––she’s got muscles on her long legs and toned arms.
Couple the rockin’ body with the fact that she looks strikingly like Julianne Hough from Dancing with the Stars and you’ve got a knockout. It’s her cute yet sexy face framed with her light blonde hair cut in a short pixie style that makes her so endearing. I love this girl. It’s odd she has no idea what she does to men. Sweet Peach.
Chapter 2
Virginia
For several weeks, Peach and I work together on fine-tuning the survey questions for all participants. We ran into a few snags along the way. For example, when it was clear that we’d need different surveys for each gender. “Answers for some of these questions won’t be the same for both men and women,” I complain.
“Like what? Which question?”
“Everything up to question number eight works no matter what your gender. After that, I ask specific questions about physical appearance.” Like which hairstyle they prefer on a potential sex partner like long and straight, long and curly, shoulder length and straight, etc. “Unless we’re talking about Fabio, we can’t ask women that question in the same way. I mean, guys can have long hair like that, but they’re more likely to have short hair.”
Peach taps her finger on her chin as she thinks. “Who’s Fabio?”
“Never mind,” I mutter. I’m ashamed to admit I know who he is.
“It’s almost like you need two surveys,” she continues without a beat.
I groan at that notion. I don’t want more than one survey. “Well, my major prof, Dr. Kellogg did mention something about a survey segmenting off at some point in the questionnaire based on demographics. I think this is what he meant.
“Okay, so you need to find out if that’s possible. What else do you need to figure out?” Peach asks yawning.
“Oh, I’ve kept you up too long. You’re tired. I’m sorry.”
“No, this is all cool. I love helping.”
“Okay, well, I need to do a more in-depth interview with some of the survey participants; like one-on-one interviews. I want to ask them the same questions in different ways to more verbal feedback. Should I just ask people when they’re taking the survey if they’d be willing to talk in person?”
“You could add a question to your survey asking for people. That would make it private if they’re with a bunch of people the day of the surveys.”
I jump up from the floor and hug my best friend. “You’re a frigging genius!”
“Okay, Virginia. It’s time to spill.”
“Spill? Whatever do you mean?” I say fanning myself. She knows me so well after only three and a half ye
ars. We started off as roommates in the dorms, and now we live off campus together.
“Tell me what’s going on with this thing? You’re too into it for this to be just about your senior project.”
Looking up at my friend I see her face, and it looks unhappy. “Well, here’s what I was thinking…” I settle back down onto my floor pillow, leaning back on my old, blue chair. “Remember when you suggested I find a way to choose who pops the ole cherry?”
“Uh-hmm,” Peach hums hesitantly.
“Well, what if I chose ‘the person’ based on their responses to the survey?”
“Uh-hmm.”
“I’d choose one of the guys who agreed to the one-on-one interview. That way I’d get to know them better and…”
“You want to hook up with one of your surveyors?”
“Surveyors?” I laugh. “It’s participants!”
“Don’t be a science snob. You’re telling me you’re doing this entire thing to meet someone who will do The Deed.”
I hate the way she says ‘The Deed’ like I’m going to murder someone, “Um, yeah.”
Peach gets the biggest smile on her face I’ve ever seen. “Awesome, Virginia! I knew I’d rub off on you eventually.”
I smile back and clap my hands together like a toddler. For a second there I thought Peach grew a conscience, but phew, we’re good, “I know. Right?”
“But, won’t that jeopardize your research?”
I look at her with as serious an expression as I can muster. “This is my Senior Thesis Project. I’m not publishing this stuff. The whole point of this is to learn how to do this type of research while making sure the results are fairly accurate. This isn’t going to be a damn book or article in some professional journal.”
“Okay. As long as you’re sure. I know how seriously you take your major. You want to be a Sociology professor, right?”
“Yeah. I do. But, this will be fine. Just fine.” Yeah. No worries. I’ve got this.
Chapter 3
Virginia
“Are you ready for this whole survey thing tomorrow?” asks Peach the night before the big event.
“I think so. I’ve gotten final approval from my major professor and the Sociology department chair. They were pleased by the final title: The Mating Rituals of the Millennial Generation.”
“That’s a good title. It’s general enough that you could shape the final paper to work with the whatever results you glean from the surveys.”
“Wow, Peach. Look at you talking all sciency?”
She giggles, “I know. I’m fascinated by everything you’re doing. Consider me your research assistant. It’ll be okay if I dip into the survey pool too, right?”
“Um, before or after they’ve taken the survey?”
“After, of course.”
“I suppose… anyway, I wanted to tell you about the actual survey. Dr. Kellogg helped me out with that issue of gender and different survey questions. There are several really good online survey building tools out there. We found one that let me design the survey to take the participant in different directions.” Honestly, I’m only interested in the statistics provided by male heterosexuals. This segmented type of survey is perfect, but I don’t want to exclude any of the other sexual identities, sexual genders.
“How does it work?”
“It works like this. The very first question is: What is your gender? With three possible answers: Male, Female, or Other.”
“Other? Okay, I’m glad you included that, but it seems harsh to call them Other.”
“Dr. Kellogg said it would be okay for this since I’m not doing a survey or research about gender identity.”
“What happens after that?”
“So, if you choose ‘Female,' the survey will take you to questions directed at only females. The questions are the same in all of the surveys like we talked about but with different choices. Once they choose their gender, they get a particular set of questions directed at that demographic. I also ask about sexual preference, which will take them to yet another survey. So, I’ve got Survey A through Survey F depending on sexual preference and sexual orientation.”
“That’s cool. It saves you from sifting through all of the same surveys to pull out the questions from one group or another.”
“Exaaactly. Ooh, plus I’ve added that last question asking for volunteers for that one-on-one interview. So, are you ready to sit at a table all day and attract men?”
“Like bees to honey, baby. Like bees to honey.”
Chapter 4
Virginia
It’s finally here––survey day. Peach has generously volunteered to skip all of her classes to help me, ‘er, for science’. Yeah, right. We’ve decided to set up outside of the Memorial Union, one of the four main buildings that surround central campus. It’s a hub of activity on a normal day, but on Friday, it’s even busier thanks to the bookstore, restaurants, and study rooms in the Union. By lunchtime, there will be people heading to the Memorial Union for lunch, while others will hang out on central campus playing Frisbee, and laying in the sun.
Peach and I get to our spot extra early. Since most classes start at eight in the morning, we begin to set up at six thirty. To get as many surveys taken as possible, we’ve set up a table with signage that is sure to attract the attention of passers-by. I’ve made a bright red banner to hang in front of the table that simply says: S-E-X. Because sex sells. What college student in their right mind would not going to stop and check that out? Plus, research has shown that red is the color of love and the most attractive color. Red represents energy, vibrancy, strength, and virility. People are drawn to it like a beacon.
For the survey part of this, I’ve checked out ten iPads from the library and have uploaded the survey software that I’ve chosen to use. The software will calculate all of my information and give me the ability to sort through data and compile the short answer and written comments. It’s amazing. All I need is at least one hundred people to participate.
By seven thirty, Penny and I are set up and ready to go. It’s a slow start with only a few people checking out our banner. It may be too early for our student body. We chose a Friday because everyone is happiest on Friday (yep, research says). But, at Iowa State, that’s also the day after most of the off-campus parties. Affectionately named ‘Thirsty Thursday,’ many of our dedicated student body drink themselves into oblivion and ends up hung over to beat the band on Friday.
“I forgot about all of the hangovers,” I complain to Penny.
“Yeah, everyone looks like they just slid out of bed in the clothes from last night and slithered to class,” she smirks. Penny is a morning person. She gets up at the ass-crack of dawn to work out and then drinks a minimum of three cups of coffee to get the day going.
“I sure hope it picks up. It’s eight thirty, and nary a one survey is done.
“Nary a one? What are you now? A pirate?”
“Aye, matey,” I say in my best pirate voice.
Peach snorts, “Dork.”
Another twenty minutes pass, and we’ve finally drawn some attention. The first round of classes has ended, and people are trickling out of the campus buildings. Several guys spot our table––and probably Peach––and stride right up to her asking her for S-E-X. Yeah, it’s going to be one of those days.
“So, you ladies want sex?” asks a guy in red and yellow striped overalls and no shirt. That look is usually reserved for tailgate parties and sporting events but Friday works, I guess.
Peach flutters her eyelashes, “We’re doing a sex survey. Men confuse us, so we’ve got questions.” She says winking. Ugh.
“Well, let us help you. We’re pretty easy,” he winks right back. “But, if this helps me get to know you better, I’m all for it,” he says looking directly at Peach.
“You’re so sweet,” she coos as she stares at him for just a bit too long.
I look at her and mouth, “That guy?”
“He’s cute,” she w
hispers.
She then points to her forearms and I start to giggle. I guess if you like frat guys who wear overalls and no shirt to class then he’s the one for you. When he finishes up, he hands her back the iPad. He pulls out a card from the pocket on his chest, “Here. Call me.”
“You’ve got a card?” I deadpan.
“Of course. I’m a professional.”
The three guys around him crack up with laughter. “A professional asshole,” one of them mutters.
Ignoring all of that, Peach slides the card into her bra. “Thanks. I’ll give you a jingle.”
“Great! I’ll look forward to it, beautiful.” Winking one more time, he turns and walks away looking back once as he makes his way to Fraternity row.
Oh, geesh. “Seriously? Him? He’s so cocky.” I lean over to read the card and read aloud, “His name is Ryan Reynolds?”
“Apparently.”
“What’s it say below his name?”
It says, “Much hotter than the other one.”
I giggle. “That is pretty funny.”
She shrugs, “Yeah, it is? He’s adorable. Oh, and he’s not cocky, he’s confident.”
“Whatever floats your boat, sis.”
As the morning progresses, more and more men hit on Peach. After she, sweetly, turns them down, she explains the survey. They each grab a tablet and begin. I’ve timed the survey myself, and it takes less than five minutes from start to finish unless you’re really concentrating on your responses. Then I’d say closer to ten minutes. Once the participant’s finish, they hand over the tablets. Several of the guys try to get Peach’s number, but she just smiles and tells them she’ll see him around and that, “She’s got important sciency stuff to do.”
By one o’clock, there’s a lull in traffic. I grab two iPads deciding to step out from behind the table to see if I can drum up some more participants. Walking out into central campus I nearly fall over someone’s feet, I stumble but correct myself in time. “Oh, sorry,” I say to the guy lying in the grass, baseball hat over his eyes.