Editing 1564: Every Seven Seconds

{{comic
| number    = 1564
| date      = August 14, 2015
| title     = Every Seven Seconds
| image     = every_seven_seconds.png
| titletext = Every few months, I think about sex every seven seconds and how weird and implausible it would be.
}}

==Explanation==
There is an oft-stated {{w|urban myth}} that men think about sex every seven seconds. See for example this [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140617-how-often-do-men-think-about-sex BBC article], where they say that a more realistic number is 19 times in a waking day, i.e. once every 50 minutes.

In this comic [[Cueball]] is a {{w|sociologist}}, and the thought bubbles show his train of thoughts regarding this myth. First of all, he flatly denies that it could be true, and progressively his thoughts move to the effects if it were true, and then Cueball considers how it would even be studied. The title of the comic ''(Every seven seconds)'' hints strongly that this is the subject he is thinking about, and this is subsequently confirmed both in the caption and in the title text.

The setup is that thinking about sex every seven seconds would be dysfunctional and unproductive in addition to making working, social interactions and etcetera nearly impossible as explained by the sociologist's thoughts. The punch line is that thinking every seven seconds about how ridiculous it is to think about sex every seven seconds is just as dysfunctional and unproductive even if the thought time is spent refuting the original notion as understood in third person.

The irony of the comic is that in thinking every seven seconds about how impossible it would be for men to think about sex every seven seconds, the sociologist is, in fact, thinking about sex every seven seconds, albeit in a roundabout way.

In the title text, the narrator ([[Randall]] or Cueball the sociologist?) says he thinks about how implausible it would be to have sex every seven seconds, several times a year. See alternate interpretations below:

In the title text, the narrator's statement leaves some meaning up to interpretation:
*Every few months, I "think about sex" every seven seconds [in one day, i.e. 8200 times that day] and how weird and implausible [having intercourse] would be.
**Implying that narrator's sex life is not very active.
*Every few months, I think about [the statistic that men think about] sex every seven seconds and how weird and implausible it would be.
**A take on the main comic's topic, mirroring Cueball's thoughts.
*Every few months, I think about "sex" every seven seconds and how weird and implausible [such an assertion] would be.
**This interpretation is a bit paradoxical, because it implies that the narrator finds himself thinking about the very thing he dismisses as a possibility to think about so often.
*Every few months, I think about "sex every seven seconds" and how weird and implausible [such behaviour] would be.
**A humorous twist on the main comic's topic, in which the narrator imagines having sex every seven seconds.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking with four thought bubbles above him.]

:Cueball (thinking):
::There’s no way that’s true.
::It would interfere with basic cognition.
::Such a ridiculous view of masculinity.
::How would you even ''study'' that?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Every seven seconds, sociologists
:think about that made-up statistic
:about how often men think about sex.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Psychology]]