A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.
There are a lot of terrible things that happen in the world, but this is the week that brought us the phrase “sex litter,” so hold onto that when life seems unbearable.
250,000: total sales for 50 Shades of Gray, an erotic novel based on Twilight characters, before being acquired by Vintage Books
11: airtime for Savage U, Dan Savage’s new college-focused sex advice TV series for MTV
23: age of the peacock at India’s Lucknow Zoo that has recently undergone a spontaneous sex change from female to male
23: age of Jenna Talackova, the woman who may become the first openly transgendered contestant in the Miss Universe pageant
650,000: signatures on a thank-you card delivered to Starbucks headquarters for its recent support of same-sex marriage
0: number of times the two pandas at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland have mated during the breeding season, confirming everyone’s suspicions that pandas have been trying to commit species-wide suicide for decades now and human attempts to force them to continue to exist are bordering on cruelty now
15: bags’ worth of used condoms and pornography cleaned up from England’s Bristol Downs during a “sex litter” cleanup campaign
Confidential to our Bristol Downs readers: I’m glad you’re using protection, but is it that hard to find a trash can? Sorry, a ‘bin.’