Sex Sells

It's gone 3am. I tried to sleep for 3 hours and gave up. Insomnia is something that isn't new to me so, even though it still bugs me, I look for the positives. Amongst them is that the hours spent lying around in bed can be used to think various thoughts. With Euro 2008 in full swing it's obvious that football will take up a lot of my cerebral wanderings but, as wonderful as it is, it can only take up a certain amount of time. The weather's gone bad here and so mosquitos and bikinis (c.f. previous entry) are nowhere to be seen, and so my mind has to go further for inspiration.

It came to my attention a few days ago that a guy in Finland, known as Teppo M, has written a blog called Sataa Naista (One Hundred Women). My Finnish isn't good enough to really get much of it but from what I know, it started with his breaking up with his wife and subsequent frustration that he wasn't getting any action. A drunken bet with a friend of his led to him waking up the next morning with a 10.000€ wager that he could sleep with 100 women in 1 year, and his blog chronicles his efforts. A look at the site leads one to two conclusions : Firstly, the blog is in Finnish, and therefore can only be reasonably read by Finns living here (of which there are just over 5 million), foreigners abroad who can speak Finnish (who I'd imagine are quite negligible in number) and Finns in the diaspora (who I'd imagine are also quite negligible in number). Secondly, the guy has received over 500.000 visits to a site he used at the beginning and was active on for only 3 months. All in all, from this lesser used site, he's had 2000 hits a day since he began. This compares with 1,95 a day for me. Call me a cynic, but would so many people be reading if he'd aimed to drink 100 different beers in a year, back 100 winning horses in a year, complete 100 Rubik's cubes in a year or, to go for something as difficult as he has, to learn to speak 100 languages fluently in a year ?

There's nothing really groundbreaking here - Internet + Sex = Readership isn't exactly a formula which would have Fermat or Einstein spinning in their respective graves but, at times where I can't sleep, it's a symptom of society's state which I'm interested in. I'd imagine that people read this kind of site for the same reason that they watch Big Brother or read about celebrities' secret confessions in glossy no-brainer magazines - to satisfy the voyeur inside themselves while safely at home which they'd generally deny the very existence of to the outside world. Here's something that might surprise all the same - and above all, it should surprise guys who have been trying to weave their magic in nightclubs - a survey has revealed that 25% of European women get drunk in order to increase their chances of getting sex !!! Having spent my fair share of nights out and about, I find that statistic extremely hard to believe. In my case it's certainly worked - the majority of my "conquests" I wouldn't have touched with a barge pole if I hadn't been drunk - but had I known what was coming those nights I'd probably have been on the lemonade instead.

As a closing statement to this subject, I'd like the wish Teppo M the best of luck. Having been single for more than a year while I've been here, women (read: people in general) in Helsinki's nightspots are generally antisocial or completely battered. Neither of my two successful sleazes here have been Finnish and even Ross, the man who gets all, failed here. It ain't easy.

And in order to keep you all interested and reading - I'm on 12 so far. That's an average of 1,5 a year since I started.

I'm off back to bed.