14 is a really lucky number

Catching up on back xkcd, I saw this absolutely brilliant gem of data presentation (though line charts inaccurately suggest the interpolated data is meaningful) and had to try it out myself.

I searched for “I’ve had sex with people” and varied x from 1 (person) to 50 (people). After about 15 it gets kind of boring, but for some reason 14 is the 3rd most frequent answer after 5. 4 is the most common, 5 the second, then 14. 8 also stands out as anomalously frequent, more than twice the frequency of 7 or 9, but we already knew 8 is a lucky number; clearly 14 is the right answer for number of sexual partners.

Now this inspires another search for “ is a lucky number,” and there’s almost an inverse correlation. 8 is a lucky number, but 14 is much less lucky than 13. Perhaps with this illuminating data analysis, people will realize that 14 really is the luckiest number and drop the fascination with 13.