SILICON BEACH — Not that we're keeping score but Santa Monica ranks fifth among California cities in terms of average length of sex.
This is according to data culled by the founders of the Santa Monica-based app Spreadsheets, which monitors and then catalogues users' carnal movements and sounds through the accelerometer and microphone on their iPhones.
Just to quickly couch the bedroom achievements of the Bay City: There's only so much an accelerometer and a microphone can tell us about the act of love. Without getting too graphic, but also being careful to respect all sexual preferences and the myriad of definitions of sex, Spreadsheets is largely measuring thrust-oriented sex. Santa Monica's fifth place showing is out of the 210 (of 458) California municipalities in which people used the app.
And how long do you have to last to be average in Santa Monica? Two minutes and 57 seconds.
Founders Danny Wax (a 2004 Santa Monica High School graduate) and Tyler Elick recently released the endurance data for all 50 states. Californians lasted two minutes and 38 seconds.
"People like to have something to compare themselves to and I don't think it was too threatening," Wax said. "And maybe that turns out that they feel proud of themselves. That's all we want. I think it took away all these perceptions that people have of lasting 30 minutes and 45 minutes. It brought it back to reality."
This, more than anything, is their goal, they said. The app, which launched in August and has already been downloaded in 125 countries, is not a perfect science but it can be a conversation starter.
"It's definitely been misinterpreted many times," Elick said. "I think the biggest misconception is that we're pushing louder, faster, longer, bigger, stronger, heavier, whatever; The SUV mentality. Whereas were looking at just providing a tool or a resource for people to begin a dialogue with their partner."
Spreadsheets marks the days it's being used and asks all parties involved: "Was it good for you?" Users can look back over the data from their past liaisons. Peak decibels and thrusts per minute are measured along with the length of time. It's lighthearted, the founders said, and it gets people talking.
Spreadsheets costs a buck and can only be downloaded on Mac products. Thus far, most downloads have come from 28- to 33-year-olds, Wax said. About 60 percent of the downloads are by men.
This is both Wax and Elick's first foray into the tech startup world. Wax played professional golf before working on the app and Elick worked in real estate.
"I don't know how big a fan we are of the Silicon Beach name but the movement is kind of what we go after," Wax said. "It hasn't been as big as everyone's made it out to be."
"It's young and segmented and there's great tight knit pockets but I don't think there's all that much outside of certain co-working communities," Elick continued. "It's young. That's the challenge and it's also the excitement."
They came up with the idea when they were brainstorming about the pros and cons of our intimacy with technology.
"We were thinking about the fact that people are increasingly attached and comfortable with their phones," Elick said. "As well as the fact that generally, in a relationship, the phone becomes a nuisance."
Wax is a user of Spreadsheets and he sells it as an aphrodisiac of sorts.
"For me, it just gives me a reason," he said. "I think that's the number one reason. If we do it twice a week, now it's three times a week. That's the best usage case right there."
dave@www.smdp.com
