SexyPolitics.com - Sex, Politics, and Striptease

Monica Lewinsky. Marilyn Monroe. Senator Larry Craig. For better or for worse, sex has always found its way into the world of politics. SexyPolitics.com embraces this pairing by encouraging political knowledge and awareness in a pop-quiz format with a virtual striptease as the prize. You pick your stripper and their outfit, as well as the soundtrack, and for each question you answer correctly, you will see a brief video showing another item of clothing being removed (down to their undies). You do have the option of turning off the music or striptease. The questions can be fairly long or obscure, and mix political knowledge with pop culture and historical references. The more quizzes you take, the more points you can earn. Registered users can accumulate their points to donate to charities or redeem for prizes like politics-themed books and witty t-shirts (which can also be outright purchased in the SexyPolitics.com store). This site also includes editorial content about politics, which users can leave comments about or share with friends.

“We believe sexy is being informed. Sexy is clear and simple. Sexy is understanding why global events often have local impacts. We think a political news story is sexy when it simplifies a misunderstood concept or illuminates a trend that should be followed. When a person is sexy, they inspire those around them. When a movement is sexy, it makes others jump on board.”

Given the upcoming presidential elections and heated democratic primaries, now is as good a time as any for launching a political website. With its fun, ‘sexy’ edge, SexyPolitics.com manages to promote political awareness without being the least bit boring or average. If you take enough quizzes (and manage to answer questions correctly), you can win something for nothing. And most of the potential strippers (male and female) are pretty good-looking!

Is this really a good strategy for teaching anyone about politics? The quiz questions can be pretty obscure, and if you answer wrong, the explanation provided still isn’t helpful much of the time - the focus seems to be on being witty rather than clearly and concisely explaining a point. Between the wordy questions and answers, music, and striptease, it may be hard for users to actually learn from the quizzes. And most prizes cost 2,500,000 points - and the quizzes aren’t very easy - so users may wander elsewhere long before they actually accumulate enough points to win a prize.