Top-Secret Librarian Sex Survey More Weird, Less Titillating Than Expected

In 1992, Will Manley commissioned a sex survey of 5,000 librarians. The results were allegedly deemed so scandalous that not only was Manley fired, but the Wilson Library Bulletin destroyed any remaining copies. Now, Manley has released them:

The survey is a weird one. While the Village Voice’s Jen Doll deems the results “less than scintillating,” we were kind of intrigued – although more by the questions than the answers.

A few notable Q&A’s: :

Sexual Harassment by a Patron: 78% of the female respondents and 7 percent of the male respondents indicated that they had been sexually harassed by a library patron.

Sex Without Love: 20% of the respondents felt that sex without love is by definition bad sex.

Nuclear War and Roseanne Barr Arnold: 30% of the male respondents indicated that if there were a nuclear war and Roseanne Barr Arnold was the only woman on earth to survive, they would have sex with her in order to propagate the species.

Nuclear War and PeeWee Herman: 38% of the female respondents indicated that if there were a nuclear war and PeeWee Herman was the only man on earth to survive, they would have sex with him in order to propagate the species.

Especially apropos were the literary questions:

Shakespeare and “the 1st Time: When asked to pick the Shakespearean title that best described their first sexual encounter, 28% chose Comedy of Errors; 23% chose Midsummer’s Night Dream; 22% chose Much Ado About Nothing; 21% chose All’s Well That Ends Well; and 6% chose Rape of Lucrece.

Genre Fiction and Sex Lives: 38% of the respondents classified their sex life as a “romance”; 31% as a fantasy; 22% as a comedy, and 9% as a tragedy.

Librarians and Sex Books: 91% had read The Joy of Sex; 29% had read How to Make Love to a Man; 14% had read Human Sexual Inadequacy; and 3% had read Macho Sluts.

And perhaps strangest of all:

Marriage and Celebrities – Men: Given a list of 12 celebrities, 27 % of the males preferred to marry Kathleen Turner; 25% Jane Fonda; 14% Dolly Parton; 13% Diane Keaton, 8% Diane Sawyer; 6% Madonna; 4% Prince; 2% Elton John; and 1% split between Marla Maples, Yoko Ono; Dianna Ross, and Tina Turner.

Marriage and Celebrities – Women: Given a list of 12 celebrities, 60% of the females chose Robert Redford; 18% Patrick Swayze; 7% Woody Allen; 5% Michael Jordan, 4% Martina Navratilova, 3% Cher, 2% Eddie Van Halen, and 1% was split between Prince, Dan Quayle, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Geraldo Rivera, and Michael Jackson.

At the end, Manley asks his readers whether he “deserved to be canned” for it. He also says that he has theories about his firing that he’ll reveal in coming days on his blog. Curious to know whether said theories involve either Roseanne or PeeWee Herman – or, for that matter, Prince. Because with the exception of datendness (and of course implied insult to aforementioned celebrities) the only really controversial info in there is #17, in which “14% of the respondents indicated they had been sexually harassed by a library supervisor.”

Results Of Librarian Sex Survey About As Exciting As Librarians Actually Having Sex [VillageVoice]
WILL UNWOUND #78: “The 1992 Librarians And Sex Survey Results” By Will Manley [WillManley.com]