Is there a way to calculate the “Franz Ferdinand Asking 100 people for Sex” theory on a worldwide scale?

[Maximum7]

Franz Ferdinand famously said “ If you ask 100 people for sex, surely 1 will say yes”.

I saw a YouTube video where they conducted this experiment; and to my non-surprise; all 100 women the man asked said no (except one who hesitated and said she wasn’t sure)

But how could this work on a global scale? Imagine if someone had access to every eligible woman between the ages of 18-39-this is completely impossible but just a thought experiment.

I found that the population worldwide of women between the ages of 20 and 39 in 2023 was approximately 1,170,000,000. I couldn’t find the statistics for women aged 18 and 19; but there is nothing I can do about that and there of course a larger population (slightly) within the last 2 years.

The control. Our tester is a heterosexual man of average looks, average height and average weight. We will make him Caucasian, because a study of 2.3 million heterosexual couples concluded that women of all races seemed to find white men the most desirable. A noted outlier in this study is that black women tend to only like black men. He will also ask in a “charming” and non-threatening way as being weird or creepy will destroy the experiment immediately.

Now you have to consider many conditions when dealing with our pool of ~1,170,000,000 women.

A small fraction of these women may have an intellectual disability and it would not be ethical to ask them as they might not understand what is going on

A small fraction of these women may have a physical disability and want no part in this experiment.

A quarter of these women may be gay and have no desire to have sex with a man whatsoever. There may also be bisexual women in this quarter that consider themselves 5’s on the Kinsey Scale and rarely find men attractive and also be unwilling to have sex

A big chunk of these women may refuse due to cultural and religious edicts. Women who are highly religious may not want anything to do with this experiment and women from Middle Eastern countries or South Asian ( India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) countries will almost always refuse as having sex before marriage can be considered a serious offense and they could suffer repercussions for agreeing. Some of them of course may be “rebels” and will say yes and hope their fathers do not find out but this is likely minimal

Some women will be married or in committed relationships and would never “cheat” on their significant others but this also needs to be adjusted for women who want to cheat or don’t care about cheating.

It is 2025 and there are many people who identify as women; transwomen; and it is only right to include them in the pool. They may be fully transitioned or in the process of transitioning. Top and bottom surgery should be complete before asking them to participate as it does create a hard to calculate grey area (in an already hard to calculate equation).

We will exclude intersex women for now as most heterosexual men do not like anal penetration

Lastly we have to be mindful when considering the physical appearance of each woman. Our control is neither handsome nor ugly but some women who may be considered conventionally “unattractive” may still refuse as their confidence may be low and they feel that this guy is crazy or malevolent in his intentions. Also it could be the opposite. A very conventionally “attractive” woman may not want to participate as they know their options for casual sex partners is much larger.

Varying sex drives of the women is a given but we will ignore that for now as the main part of the experiment is “let’s see we’ll find out”

Is there any meaningful way to make a calculation based on all these variables and statistics? I know this will probably be closed but they created the Drake Equation to calculate how many alien civilizations may be in the galaxy and that is even more speculative than women who would have causal sex (something we have undeniable proof exists).

If I missed any variables-let me know. This thought experiment has fascinated me for 3 years and while it may be a moonshot; someone with a brilliant math mind could try their best to make a meaningful calculation.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, Maximum7 said:

Franz Ferdinand famously said “ If you ask 100 people for sex, surely 1 will say yes”.

I saw a YouTube video where they conducted this experiment; and to my non-surprise; all 100 women the man asked said no (except one who hesitated and said she wasn’t sure)

But how could this work on a global scale? Imagine if someone had access to every eligible woman between the ages of 18-39-this is completely impossible but just a thought experiment.

I found that the population worldwide of women between the ages of 20 and 39 in 2023 was approximately 1,170,000,000. I couldn’t find the statistics for women aged 18 and 19; but there is nothing I can do about that and there of course a larger population (slightly) within the last 2 years.

The control. Our tester is a heterosexual man of average looks, average height and average weight. We will make him Caucasian, because a study of 2.3 million heterosexual couples concluded that women of all races seemed to find white men the most desirable. A noted outlier in this study is that black women tend to only like black men. He will also ask in a “charming” and non-threatening way as being weird or creepy will destroy the experiment immediately.

Now you have to consider many conditions when dealing with our pool of ~1,170,000,000 women.

A small fraction of these women may have an intellectual disability and it would not be ethical to ask them as they might not understand what is going on

A small fraction of these women may have a physical disability and want no part in this experiment.

A quarter of these women may be gay and have no desire to have sex with a man whatsoever. There may also be bisexual women in this quarter that consider themselves 5’s on the Kinsey Scale and rarely find men attractive and also be unwilling to have sex

A big chunk of these women may refuse due to cultural and religious edicts. Women who are highly religious may not want anything to do with this experiment and women from Middle Eastern countries or South Asian ( India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) countries will almost always refuse as having sex before marriage can be considered a serious offense and they could suffer repercussions for agreeing. Some of them of course may be “rebels” and will say yes and hope their fathers do not find out but this is likely minimal

Some women will be married or in committed relationships and would never “cheat” on their significant others but this also needs to be adjusted for women who want to cheat or don’t care about cheating.

It is 2025 and there are many people who identify as women; transwomen; and it is only right to include them in the pool. They may be fully transitioned or in the process of transitioning. Top and bottom surgery should be complete before asking them to participate as it does create a hard to calculate grey area (in an already hard to calculate equation).

We will exclude intersex women for now as most heterosexual men do not like anal penetration

Lastly we have to be mindful when considering the physical appearance of each woman. Our control is neither handsome nor ugly but some women who may be considered conventionally “unattractive” may still refuse as their confidence may be low and they feel that this guy is crazy or malevolent in his intentions. Also it could be the opposite. A very conventionally “attractive” woman may not want to participate as they know their options for casual sex partners is much larger.

Varying sex drives of the women is a given but we will ignore that for now as the main part of the experiment is “let’s see we’ll find out”

Is there any meaningful way to make a calculation based on all these variables and statistics? I know this will probably be closed but they created the Drake Equation to calculate how many alien civilizations may be in the galaxy and that is even more speculative than women who would have causal sex (something we have undeniable proof exists).

If I missed any variables-let me know. This thought experiment has fascinated me for 3 years and while it may be a moonshot; someone with a brilliant math mind could try their best to make a meaningful calculation.

To be honest I find this post a bit creepy, especially the revelation that this has fascinated you for 3 years. 

Obviously trying to do an actual statistical survey would be highly objectionable, and I can't see you have any sound basis for making an extrapolated calculation. I also don't think such a calculation, if it could be done, would offer much by way of worthwhile insight. The whole exercise seems to have a faint whiff of, well, incel about it. 

But I do note the remark you attribute to Franz Ferdinand (do you mean the Archduke whose assassination precipitated WW1, or someone else?) does not specify the sex of the "people". Maybe he was including the likelihood of +ve responses from gay men in his statistics.  Are you still fascinated now 😁?

 

[Maximum7]

10 minutes ago, exchemist said:

To be honest I find this post a bit creepy, especially the revelation that this has fascinated you for 3 years. 

Obviously trying to do an actual statistical survey would be highly objectionable, and I can't see you have any sound basis for making an extrapolated calculation. I also don't think such a calculation, if it could be done, would offer much by way of worthwhile insight. The whole exercise seems to have a faint whiff of, well, incel about it. 

But I do note the remark you attribute to Franz Ferdinand (do you mean the Archduke whose assassination precipitated WW1, or someone else?) does not specify the sex of the "people". Maybe he was including the likelihood of +ve responses from gay men in his statistics.  Are you still fascinated now 😁?

 

I think you are being a bit of a jerk in the fact that you are judging me in this way. I am very fascinated by the sociology and and the science of sex and it really has nothing to do with what I feel personally. This was an experiment done on YouTube and I always wondered how it might work on the largest scale possible; much like how we want to test gravity on the largest scales.

 

And the Archduke was heterosexual, had a wife and was likely thinking the way I am thinking as well; if not more carnal and creepily. Thank you very much 

[exchemist]

57 minutes ago, Maximum7 said:

I think you are being a bit of a jerk in the fact that you are judging me in this way. I am very fascinated by the sociology and and the science of sex and it really has nothing to do with what I feel personally. This was an experiment done on YouTube and I always wondered how it might work on the largest scale possible; much like how we want to test gravity on the largest scales.

 

And the Archduke was heterosexual, had a wife and was likely thinking the way I am thinking as well; if not more carnal and creepily. Thank you very much 

I find the whole idea suggestive of a predatory attitude towards women and consequently distasteful. And it is not a scientific exercise, as it is purely speculative and the resulting estimate would provide no insight into the science of sex or sociology, as far as I can see.

[TheVat]

Urgk.  One confounding factor is that most people have basic inhibitions about consenting to sex with a complete stranger.  This is doubly so for women, where there are more fraught consequences, and this underlies the creepiness.  And improbability of a yes.  (I would be quite concerned for the welfare of a woman who would readily agree to such a random solicitation) 

The study I can almost envision is an anthropologist conducting a survey, anonymized, on past sexual encounters.  And self-report, especially on such an unorthodox sexual encounter, is pretty dubious as data.  More locker room boast than factual report.

4 hours ago, Maximum7 said:

saw a YouTube video where they conducted this experiment

The YouTube that's a vast trove of sensationalism and exploitative crap?  That's not science.  That's some jerk pestering strangers in hopes of garnering some titillating video clips.  If I saw that on the street, I'd put his camcorder way up there where the moon don't shine.

 

 

[iNow]

2 hours ago, Maximum7 said:

Thank you very much 

You’re gonna need to grow a thicker skin if you plan to continue engaging here 

[MigL]

Other than 'incels', who else might be interested in this thought experiment ?
IOW, of what use are the results ?

[Dama77]

On 3/15/2025 at 7:49 PM, Maximum7 said:

Franz Ferdinand famously said “ If you ask 100 people for sex, surely 1 will say yes”.

I saw a YouTube video where they conducted this experiment; and to my non-surprise; all 100 women the man asked said no (except one who hesitated and said she wasn’t sure)

But how could this work on a global scale? Imagine if someone had access to every eligible woman between the ages of 18-39-this is completely impossible but just a thought experiment.

I found that the population worldwide of women between the ages of 20 and 39 in 2023 was approximately 1,170,000,000. I couldn’t find the statistics for women aged 18 and 19; but there is nothing I can do about that and there of course a larger population (slightly) within the last 2 years.

The control. Our tester is a heterosexual man of average looks, average height and average weight. We will make him Caucasian, because a study of 2.3 million heterosexual couples concluded that women of all races seemed to find white men the most desirable. A noted outlier in this study is that black women tend to only like black men. He will also ask in a “charming” and non-threatening way as being weird or creepy will destroy the experiment immediately.

Now you have to consider many conditions when dealing with our pool of ~1,170,000,000 women.

A small fraction of these women may have an intellectual disability and it would not be ethical to ask them as they might not understand what is going on

A small fraction of these women may have a physical disability and want no part in this experiment.

A quarter of these women may be gay and have no desire to have sex with a man whatsoever. There may also be bisexual women in this quarter that consider themselves 5’s on the Kinsey Scale and rarely find men attractive and also be unwilling to have sex

A big chunk of these women may refuse due to cultural and religious edicts. Women who are highly religious may not want anything to do with this experiment and women from Middle Eastern countries or South Asian ( India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) countries will almost always refuse as having sex before marriage can be considered a serious offense and they could suffer repercussions for agreeing. Some of them of course may be “rebels” and will say yes and hope their fathers do not find out but this is likely minimal

Some women will be married or in committed relationships and would never “cheat” on their significant others but this also needs to be adjusted for women who want to cheat or don’t care about cheating.

It is 2025 and there are many people who identify as women; transwomen; and it is only right to include them in the pool. They may be fully transitioned or in the process of transitioning. Top and bottom surgery should be complete before asking them to participate as it does create a hard to calculate grey area (in an already hard to calculate equation).

We will exclude intersex women for now as most heterosexual men do not like anal penetration

Lastly we have to be mindful when considering the physical appearance of each woman. Our control is neither handsome nor ugly but some women who may be considered conventionally “unattractive” may still refuse as their confidence may be low and they feel that this guy is crazy or malevolent in his intentions. Also it could be the opposite. A very conventionally “attractive” woman may not want to participate as they know their options for casual sex partners is much larger.

Varying sex drives of the women is a given but we will ignore that for now as the main part of the experiment is “let’s see we’ll find out”

Is there any meaningful way to make a calculation based on all these variables and statistics? I know this will probably be closed but they created the Drake Equation to calculate how many alien civilizations may be in the galaxy and that is even more speculative than women who would have causal sex (something we have undeniable proof exists).

If I missed any variables-let me know. This thought experiment has fascinated me for 3 years and while it may be a moonshot; someone with a brilliant math mind could try their best to make a meaningful calculation.

With so many factors like culture, personal preferences, and relationships, it's almost impossible to make a solid calculation. People are just too unpredictable! But it's definitely an interesting way to think about probability and behavior.

Edited March 16 by Dama77