What’s the sexiest profession? According to the dating app Tinder, which collected data on the jobs listed on user profiles with the highest ratio of right swipes to left swipes, it’s pilot for men and physical therapist for women. You might have read about this study in Jezebel. Or Time. Or Fortune, Mashable, U.S. News, the Billfold, CNN or the BBC. (I could go on, but you get the idea.)
Tinder is not the only source of recent data about the sexiness of various professions. In September, the Atlantic’s Liz Zhou pointed out that the list of words used disproportionately by men on OkCupid profiles includes several words related to professions, like “engineer,” “software,” “musician,” and “construction,” while the only profession on the list of words used disproportionately by women was “nurse.” (Women were more likely to use words like “girly” and “sassy.”) In June, the U.K. version of Match released its own list of hottest professions based on users’ stated preferences: Women were most interested in doctors, dentists, and veterinarians; men were most interested in teachers. That same month, a survey found that Brits were most attracted to soldiers, pilots, and nurses. Two months before that, data from the “date auction” website WhatsYourPrice—in which men make cash offers to women for a first date—revealed that CEOs, financial advisers, and software developers were the most likely to have their request for a date accepted (perhaps because their offers were disproportionately high).
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