These Are The States That Value Sex Over Love

When it comes to finding mates, priorities vary widely by state.

The new book "Dataclysm," which uses data to examine human trends, shows what each state prioritizes when it comes to sex and love.

Somewhat surprisingly, states that are politically conservative - such as Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming - tend to prioritize sex over love.

Check out this visualization from the book, which maps answers to the question, "What's more important to you right now, sex or love?":

Ohio seems to be the outlier in the US. It's the only state that firmly prioritizes love over sex.

Most states are somewhere in the middle, but states in the north-central area of the US seem to be firmly on the side of sex.

Christian Rudder, co-founder of OkCupid and author of "Dataclysm," explains in the book:

In fact, the explanation is rather banal: If you are looking for people to have sex with in a place like Pierre, South Dakota, your local options are limited. So you try a dating site to find what you want. It's simple selection bias in our data ...

Basically, because people living in certain areas of the country might be more likely to join dating sites than others, this data doesn't come from a representative sample of Americans.

Rudder also notes, however, that he's seen this trend again and again in OkCupid data - the north central and western US identifies as more sexually open, adventurous, and aggressive despite some states' conservative reputation.

Charts reprinted from "Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking." Copyright © 2014 by Christian Rudder. Published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House LLC.