LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Gay husbands, fat kids

“‘Is my husband gay?’ is a surprisingly common search by married women.” — author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

According to official surveys, married men and women each report having sex about once a week.

Google, however, paints a bleak picture of American sex lives.

“On Google, a top complaint about a marriage is not having sex,” Stephens-Davidowitz writes. “There are 16 times more complaints about a spouse not wanting sex than about a married partner not being willing to talk,” he writes.

“Searches for ‘sexless marriage’ are three and a half times more common than ‘unhappy marriage’ and eight times more common than ‘loveless marriage.’ Even unmarried couples complain somewhat frequently about not having sex. Google searches for ‘sexless relationship’ are second only to searches for ‘abusive relationship.’ ”

These searches also show that men may be the ones holding back, as “there are twice as many complaints that a boyfriend won’t have sex than that a girlfriend won’t have sex.”

Connected or not are the findings that women often question their partner’s sexual orientation; “Is my husband gay?” is a “surprisingly common search.”

“‘Gay’ is 10 percent more likely to complete searches that begin with ‘Is my husband . . . .’ than the second-place word, ‘cheating.’ It is eight times more common than ‘an alcoholic’ and 10 times more common than ‘depressed.’ ”

Google searches not only help us see another side of relationships but also help cut through the lies we tell on social media, as they starkly undermine the rosy pictures we paint on Facebook.

Stephens-Davidowitz notes that the top five terms women use to describe their husbands on social media are “the best,” “my best friend,” “amazing,” “the greatest” and “so cute.” When they search anonymously, however, typing “my husband is . . .” into a search box, the top five results are “gay,” “a jerk,” “amazing,” “annoying” and “mean.”

And if searches reveal the depressing reality of how people feel about their mates, their attitudes toward their children are no better.

When people contemplate reproducing, they worry about possible regret if they don’t, as “people are seven times more likely to ask Google whether they will regret not having children than whether they will regret having children.”

Once those kids are born, however, the sentiment undergoes a rapid reversal, as “adults with children are 3.6 times more likely to tell Google they regret their decision than are adults without children.”

Google also reveals the inherit sexism among parents toward their kids.

“Parents are two and a half times more likely to ask ‘Is my son gifted?’ than ‘Is my daughter gifted?’” Stephens-Davidowitz writes, noting that this carries through for all intelligence-related queries, such as, “Is my son a genius?”

(Stephens-Davidowitz notes that in reality, young girls are more likely to be in gifted programs than young boys.)

Parents’ concerns for their daughters remain appearance-based, Googling “Is my daughter overweight” twice as often as posting the same query for their sons. In reality, he notes, “about 28 percent of girls are overweight, while 35 percent of boys are.”