So let's geek out for a minute. This will be the first in a series of reports based on a project I'm working on using the Manhunt and Adam4Adam databases. These websites both include extremely powerful search functions, whereby users can search their users through a number of criteria: height, weight, age, dick size, etc.

Today I'm going to talk about the racial diversity on these sites, and in particular a finding that surprised me: on both sites, racial diversity decreases dramatically as age increases. Now, it's appropriate here to urge a heavy dose of caution. What I've sampled here is 17,299 profiles from Adam4Adam, and 7,823 profiles from Manhunt -- all in San Francisco proper. Profiles are not people. They are representations of people. People may have several profiles, or may be less than forthcoming in their profiles. I use phrases like "profiles of color" below to emphasize that fact.

But despite that, I believe that the data is still compelling on a trend level. That is to say, while individual pieces of data are bound to inaccurate, looking at how data changes (in this case, with increasing age) can reveal some interesting information. Let's get started.

Overview: SF versus Manhunt versus Adam4Adam

So, before we can assess anything about these websites, it's useful to know what the demographics of the city itself. San Francisco is a fairly racially diverse city, compared to many places in the United States. As the graph below shows (source), less than 50% of San Francisco's population is white, and the city has large Asian-American and Latino communities:

San Francisco General Population:

It's hard to estimate what the demographics of San Francisco's gay male population look like. Getting any solid population-level data on LGBT people is tricky -- on what criteria do you count them? By what method? But we'll take a leap of faith here and say that we would expect that men who have sex with men in San Francisco are probably racially distributed along similar lines to the general population in SF.

With that leap of faith behind us, let's look at Manhunt's overall racial distribution. For folks who've logged onto the site, you probably have noticed that it's a predominantly white website. So I wasn't surprised when the data sifted out to reveal that over 70% of profiles on Manhunt were labeled as white -- they're grossly overrepresented on Manhunt versus the general SF population. Similarly whereas almost one-third of SF generally is Asian of some descent, less than 10% of profiles were labeled as such. Latinos and especially Blacks are similarly underrepresented:

Manhunt San Francisco Profiles Racial Demographics:

This data didn't particularly surprise me, as I've said. I've been a user of Manhunt for over five years, and in every city I've been in, most guys on there have been white. In contrast, Adam4Adam (A4A) has a history of being a predominantly African-American website in many places. In most cities in the US with large Af-Am populations, A4A is crowded with Black guys. But SF does not have such a large population, so it is more racial diverse. Thus, I expected there to be a stronger showing of "profiles of color" on A4A than on Manhunt. I was somewhat surprised to find that, while A4A was less white overall, Asian-Americans were still grossly underrepresented, while to a lesser extent so were Latinos. African-Americans were about on par with the city's demos:

Adam4Adam San Francisco Profiles Racial Demographics:

Part of the underrepresentation of folks of color is the inclusion of some guys under the category of "Other." For instance, I categorized guys who identified as "Mixed" under "Other," but on a census form with one box allowed, they might have checked "Asian" or "African-American" instead. But the "Other" category -- at about 11% on A4A and 9% on Manhunt -- isn't big enough to account for all of their under-representation.

Race and Age: Age Goes Up, Diversity Goes Down

Now here's where things get really interesting! I was pretty shocked to find that, on both websites, the racial diversity among age groups decreased dramatically as age went up. Unfortunately, I don't have access to data on San Francisco's general population that crosses age with race. But one would think that racial diversity does not shift all that much across age groups -- though it certainly probably does to some extent. One would expect, for instance, increased mortality among African-Americans in SF due to the higher rates of homelessness in that population.

But the shift in diversity on these sites as age increases is far too dramatic to be explained by those kinds of trends. Let's start with Manhunt, where the trend is (not surprisingly) more exacerbated. As you'll see below, in the 18-21 year old age group, about approximately 50% of the profiles on Manhunt are labeled as white. However, by the time you reach the 38-41 age group, that number has gone up to almost 80%. The final 58+ age group is nearly 100% white.

Percentage of White Profiles in San Francisco on Manhunt, By Age Group:

I've included a second graph that maps out the trends among people of color, since their numbers are so low that including them in the same graph as white folks would make it difficult to see their numbers. As you'll see, while there is a strong representation of "profiles of color" in the youngest age groups, almost all non-white racial groups are reduced to near-zero by the time you get to the final 58+ group:

Percentage of "Profiles of Color" in San Francisco on Manhunt, By Age Group:

Now, I expected this shift to be less dramatic on Adam4Adam -- since they had a larger percentage of "profiles of color" overall. I was surprised to find similar trends however. As you'll see in the two charts below, while the youngest age groups are diverse, again the representation of "profiles of color" is reduced to near-zero on A4A at the oldest age group. You'll also notice that in the youngest age group, over 20% are labeled as "Other," which almost certainly includes a number of folks who would in a census be classified as Black, Asian, or Latino.

Percentage of White Profiles in San Francisco on A4A, By Age Group:

Percentage of "Profiles of Color" in San Francisco on A4A, By Age Group:

Conclusions?

Obviously, this is fuzzy data at best. But I found the dramatic trends in racial diversity among age groups pretty shocking. How to explain this phenomenon? Are older folks of color less familiar with the Internet than their white counterparts? Do they log off the Internet at increasing rates as they get older, to return to their ethnic communities of origin? Are older men who have sex with men of color just less likely to be "out" than white guys?

As a young white gay man, I have little insight here. What do you think?