There's a common stereotype about San Francisco (and California in general) that, when it comes to our home, we residents are a bit…narcissistic.
California was recently named the most hated state in the nation by a Public Policy poll, and plenty of commenters noted our cavalier tendency towards self-admiration. When The Huffington Post San Francisco covered the Jean Paul Gaultier opening at the de Young, one reader wrote: "Are you kidding me? Typical San Francisco hype." Cough.
We'll be the first to admit that, though there is plenty to get excited about, San Franciscans might have a little excessive enthusiasm about this city (is it such a crime?) which can sometimes lead to the slightest bit of exaggeration.
But when Men's Health magazine released its ranking of the Smuttiest Cities in America and San Francisco was not named first or second or tenth but twenty-third…well…
We. Were. Outraged.
Twenty-third! San Francisco: the home of the Mitchell Brothers, Folsom Street Fair and Kink.com; the city that filmmaker Stephen Elliott called "ground zero" for porn; the birthplace of the Summer of Love and sex parties like Cum and Glitter. We are fighting the war on pornography on our doorstep and we were beat out by Anchorage, Alaska. I'll let that sink in for a moment.
And though Los Angeles is the pornography capital of the world, our sexy neighbors to the south didn't even make it to the top 50. (Don’t worry, HuffPost LA – we know you're no vanilla.)
In fairness, Men's Health considered a number of factors that might help help clear up any confusion about the situation.
The study considered the number of DVDs purchased, rented or streamed (AdultDVDEmpire.com); adult entertainment stores per city (StorErotica.net); rate of porn searches (Google Insights) and percentage of Cinemax-subscribing households (SimplyMap). So those of you with a full dance card on the sex party circuit were not considered in the results. (And as SFist's Brock Keeling pointed out, "What self-respecting gay uses AdultDVDEmpire.com or Cinemax for ejaculatory assistance?") Thank you, Brock.
So which cities were deemed the smuttiest in America? Click through our sexy slideshow to find out:
