December 30, 2001

6:20 AM

Sexchart Degrees of Separation(from this Wired story). Picture a connect-the-dot puzzle in which the dots represent people, mostly computer geeks and their ilk, who have hooked up romantically with others. And, whew, there are a lot of connected dots.
posted by helloboys (17 comments total)

This is disturbing. Someone took the time to make that?
posted by JakeEXTREME at 6:40 AM on December 30, 2001

Someone took the time to make that?

...and in ASCII no less.

Interesting how incestuous a lot of online communities can be. I've been involved with a couple of them, and there can be quite a lot of romantic entanglement and rivalry between various folks. Oddly, I haven't seen any evidence of that here in MeFi. Might make a good MetaTalk topic.
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:51 AM on December 30, 2001

Those crazy kids at my boyfriend's dorm have made one too. It's in some format on a higher plane than ASCII, though. I don't think it's online yet, but if I find it, I'll post it. I know of at least one omission...

According to more than just rumor, this place is also the source of the first purity test. I'd link it, but the server is also my boyfriend's primary linux box, and it's how I watch TV...
posted by phoenix enflamed at 6:52 AM on December 30, 2001

The sex chart has been around for a long time. It first started kicking around an IRC channel when I was uh, 17 or so. I'm 26 now.
posted by xyzzy at 8:19 AM on December 30, 2001

The Purity Test has been around since at least the early 60s.
posted by stbalbach at 8:42 AM on December 30, 2001

Wow, "shitgau" is quite the stud.
posted by starduck at 9:07 AM on December 30, 2001

and when you sleep with one person without protection, you're sleeping with everyone else they've ever slept with.
posted by sugarfish at 9:54 AM on December 30, 2001

The sex chart isn't everyone people have slept with. It's everyone they even held hands with, or kissed, or were rumored to have slept with. I should know. I am in there, somewhere. ;)
posted by xyzzy at 10:11 AM on December 30, 2001

My only question is: why?
posted by Samizdata at 10:29 AM on December 30, 2001

Supposedly, it's wet kisses at minimum. Hand-holding doesn't count. Wet hand-holding, maybe.
posted by rodii at 10:35 AM on December 30, 2001

Oh my god.. I grew up with and hung out with many of the original people on that chart.. I've known about it for years.. never did I expect it to hit wired.com .. scary...
posted by twiggy at 1:36 PM on December 30, 2001

Ack! I've had sex with somebody on that chart!!!
posted by karaleah at 2:32 PM on December 30, 2001

... which means you've had sex with everybody on that chart. For, you know, STD scare purposes.

I imagine it would count if only one person's hand were wet.

So, twiggy, karaleah, et al. -- how up to date is that thing? or is it an historical artifact at this point?
posted by dhartung at 2:49 PM on December 30, 2001

how up to date is that thing?

From the chart:

revision history -- last updated 11-23-01
posted by rodii at 3:14 PM on December 30, 2001

Man! That is one of the most juvenile, embarrassed-to-be-a-human things I've seen in a long time.
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:47 PM on December 30, 2001

Man! That is one of the most juvenile, embarrassed-to-be-a-human things I've seen in a long time.

It's a nice bit of information design though. It would be way easier to maintain the chart in a relational database and spit it out as a Visio diagram, but not nearly as fun as the ASCII version.
posted by jkottke at 11:18 PM on December 30, 2001

Yeh, I agree with the aesthetic value, but yeesh.
posted by Kafkaesque at 11:54 PM on December 30, 2001