Why people are more interested in sex during the holidays

The feeling of happiness and safety during the holidays, be it Ramadan or Christmas, results in increased sexual activity, a study has found.

Using Google Trends and Twitter data, researchers at Indiana University and the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia in Portugal discovered a rise in sex-related searches during the festive period.

The study, which was recently published in Scientific Reports, says there’s a worldwide correlation between increased searches for sex and major holidays.

Based on the data from both Google and Twitter, predominately Christian countries searched for “sex” the most around Christmas while in Muslim countries, the same search was highest at the end of Ramadan.

According to Luis Rocha, co-lead author of the study, “We can only speculate right now, but it may be that when people are feeling happier and less anxious—at the end of the year and around the holidays, in this case—they are more likely to think about starting a family.”

The study drew data from nearly 130 countries that included sex-related Google search terms from 2004 to 2014 and 10 percent of public Twitter posts from late 2010 to early 2014.

“We observe that Christmas and Eid al-Fitr are characterized by distinct collective moods that correlate with increased fertility,” Rocha said.

“Perhaps people feel a greater motivation to grow their families during holidays when the emphasis is on love and gift-giving to children.

“The rise of the web and social media provides the unprecedented power to analyze changes in people’s collective mood and behavior on a massive scale.

“This study is the first ‘planetary-level’ look at human reproduction as it relates to people’s moods and interest in sex online.”