Data Science Reveals the Unintended Effectiveness of Male Genital Accoutrement

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The people of American Optdicks created a gag gift to raise money for prostate cancer research. Their product, eyeglass frames for male genitalia, while humorous, could theoretically improve heterosexual women’s ratings of male genitalia. This group of humanitarians reached out to me to employ the practice of data science to conduct a seminal study to help test this proposition.

Prostate cancer is the leading cancer for men in the United States, with 160,000 new cases diagnosed each year; prostate cancer will inflict 1 in 7 men and is responsible for 27,000 deaths each year. Not only is prostate cancer deadly, it can also result in fatigue, pain, urinary problems and even sexual problems. Prostate cancer has affected celebrities and public figures like Ben Stiller (read his story here), Colin Powell, Robert De Niro and the late Dennis Hopper.

American Optdicks

To fight this disease, my nephew wanted to raise money for prostate cancer research. Toward that end, he created a product to donate part of the profits to organizations that conduct prostate cancer research. After having a discussion with some friends regarding product ideas, he imagined creating eye glass frames for male genitalia. He is calling this venture, “American Optdicks.”

He spent the next few months conducting market/product research to determine the size of the opportunity (adult novelty toys is a $15 billion/year industry) as well as the design and size of the frames that would optimally “fit” 99% of men. He created four different frames, including Hairy Peter, Elton Dong, The Moonshot (glow-in-the-dark) and Blue Ribbon (symbol for prostate cancer awareness).

The Value Proposition

While a value proposition of these frames for the user is to spread laughter (in addition to raising money for prostate cancer research), my nephew wanted to see if he could apply data science principles to help in the marketing of the product. He reached out to me to think about this problem.

After thinking long and hard about this problem, I found related research that suggests American Optdicks frames could improve the attractiveness of penises. Specifically, we know that women prefer men with glasses; men who wear eyeglasses are viewed as more intelligent, attractive and sexier than their optical-deficient counterparts. Perhaps American Optdicks’ frames would have a similar effect on male genitalia. So, I designed a study to determine if, in fact, his frames would improve how people perceive men’s pensises.

The Study

I acquired pictures of 15 penises from the Web (who would have thought there were so many?!). I then asked a friend who is a talented graphic designer and videographer to modify each picture by adding an accurate overlay of the Moon Shot frames on each penis in the image.

I created an online survey, presenting 30 pictures (15 genitalia without frames and the same 15 genitalia with frames), and the pictures were presented in random order to each survey respondent. I solicited responses from my heterosexual female friends and 13 of them completed the survey (all responses were anonymous). For each picture, respondents were asked to rate the penis on five characteristics: 1) Attractive, 2) Intelligent, 3) Funny, 4) Friendly and 5) Sexy. Respondents were asked to indicate how much they agreed that each of the five adjectives describes the penis in the picture on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).

Warning: the survey is Not Suitable For Work (NSFW) but if you want to see the images and take the survey when you’re not at work, you can go here.

The Results

Figure 1. Impact of American Optdicks Frames on Ratings of Male Genitalia. Click image to enlarge.

The study employed a repeated measures design (each survey respondent rated each of the 15 genitalia twice (with and without frames) on each of the big five characteristics. This type of research design provides greater statistical power because it controls for individual differences that can introduce variability across respondents. Because my sample size was small, this research approach help improve our chances of finding some meaningful results. For each of the 15 genitalia, I conducted a paired t-test (rating with frames – rating without frames) for the five characteristics. A positive difference score reflected an improvement in ratings while a negative score reflected a decrease in ratings.

The magnitude of improvements in ratings varied across the big five characteristics. For the “Attractive” characteristic, statistically significant improvement in ratings occurred for 2 of the 15 genitalia. For “Intelligent,” statistically significant improvement in ratings occurred for 5 of the 15 genitalia. For “Funny,” 14 of the 15 genitalia showed a statistically significant improvement in ratings. For “Friendly,” 9 of the 15 genitalia showed a statistically significant improvement in ratings. For “Sexy,” 1 of the 15 genitalia showed statistically significant improvements in ratings.

The change in improvements for each characteristic were averaged over the 15 genitalia, and the results of that aggregation exercise appear in Figure 1. Generally, speaking, we found that women tended to rate male genitalia with frames more favorably than male genitalia sans frames, especially for the characteristics of Friendly and Funny.

Summary

Click image to visit Amercian Optdicks.

In this seminal study, we applied the practice of data science to determine if genital accoutrement would improve heterosexual women’s ratings of male genitalia. Toward that end, we leveraged important elements of the scientific method to answer our question. The long and short of the story is that dick glasses do appear to improve how women perceive men’s penises. Heterosexual women rated penises as more funny and friendly if they donned a pair of American Optdicks frames.

I believe that a world without cancer is a world that is within our reach. If you want to help rid the world of cancer, here is your chance to make a difference. You can buy this product on their site. Not only will you be improving their market penetration, they are donating ten percent of proceeds to organizations that support prostate cancer research. You can check out their video below (Yes… that’s me in it. I’ll do anything for my family).

Thanks for reading this crazy blog post. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving with your loved ones. If you’re afraid to talk politics for fear of ruining your family gathering, you can always mention this study to lighten the mood. You can also get the men talking about their prostate health.

Special thanks to Stephen Foster, Stephen King and Mike Wentz.