So Wilt Chamberlain did lie about all those women.

[Hardbopjazz]

Why Men Report More Sex Partners than Women

Robert Roy Britt

LiveScience Managing Editor

LiveScience.com

Fri Feb 17, 11:00 AM ET

Most surveys about sex find impossibly that men have had far more partners than women, typically two to four times as many.

Either there are a bunch of phantom females out there, or somebody is lying.

Or perhaps men just have lousy memories.

Psychologist Norman R. Brown at the University of Michigan has done several studies on the apparent flaw in these surveys. The latest was a web-based survey of 2,065 heterosexual non-virgins with a median age in their late 40s.

The women reported on average 8.6 lifetime sexual partners. The men claimed 31.9.

Rather than let it go at that, Brown and his colleagues later in the survey asked the participants to rate the truthfulness of their response. About 5 percent said they lied. In addition, more than 10 percent said they knew their answer wasn't accurate.

"They gave an answer and then two minutes later admitted they had lied about the answer," Brown said.

But there's more to the discrepancy. Men and women use different methods to calculate their past dalliances.

Women rely on a raw count, a method Brown says is known to result in underestimation.

"They tend to say, 'I just know,' and if you ask them to explain how they know, they say, 'Well, there was John, Tom, etc.'"

Men also rely on a flawed strategy.

"Men are twice as likely to use rough approximation to answer the question," Brown said. "And rough approximation is a strategy known to produce over-estimation."

Then again, maybe Brown's study is flawed, too.

His next survey will be done by telephone, to find out if people lie and fudge as much in that medium, or if the Web-based surveys invite such behavior. The self-proclaimed liars "could be liars who lie about lying," he said.

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[Big Al]

Sure explains why Gene Simmons took all those pictures.

[relyles]

Were there an equal number of men and women participants in the study? I have not been single for a long time, but I think many women think the "supply" of elible men is far less than the demand for them. So, if that is true and we assume that there may be more women than men (I don't know), wouldn't it make sense that men would report more partners?

[Dave James]

I guess what this means is that Wilt may have been overly self-congratulatory when it comes to the number of women he slept with. I believe he'd pegged this at something in the neighborhood of 20,000. If this study is accurate, then he may really have only been with 5 or 10,000. Geez, what a whimp!

Up over and out.

Edited February 17, 2006 by Dave James

[JSngry]

Most surveys about sex find impossibly that men have had far more partners than women, typically two to four times as many.

Either there are a bunch of phantom females out there, or somebody is lying.

Or maybe a lot of guys encounter the same few women, relatively and proportionally speaking.

Look at it this way - Let's assume a group of twenty men and twenty women, each in a relationship with another. Let's also say that there's two women in this group who are "available" and eight of the twenty guys have sex with both of them, maybe just once apiece, over the course of two years, in addition to the sex with their regular partner. The other eighteen women and twelve men remain in comitted monogamous relationships for the same time.

That's 36 different pairings among the group, but 40% of the men have had three partners, and 90% of the women have only had one. Of course, the other 10% of the women will have had nine partners in this time, but since they're only 10% of the women, is their activity considered "unusual", and therefore discounted, whereas the men's activity is considered "normal" because, after all, 40% is a rather "significant percentage"?

Think about it - in this hypothetical (and not too far-fetched) example, isn't it most likely to be reported as "40% of men report having sex with three different partners in a two year span; 90% of women report remaining monogamous during the same time; Men MUST be lying!"? I think that's a quite plausible potential reporting of totally accurate data.

Now, extrapolate this out over a longer time span and a broader population base. Are the men really lying, or are the researchers just not considering all the possibilities?

This may have nothing to to with the particular story above, but my point is this - I'll believe anybody's statistics until somebody else can contradict them.

Which usually takes about five minutes...

[Jazzmoose]

Look, all you have to do is include one sailor, and then limit the female participants to U.S. locations only, and you've skewed the results beyond all recognition. Or so I've heard.*

*I don't think Barb reads this board, but who know?

[BruceH]

Most surveys about sex find impossibly that men have had far more partners than women, typically two to four times as many.

Either there are a bunch of phantom females out there, or somebody is lying.

Or maybe a lot of guys encounter the same few women, relatively and proportionally speaking.

Look at it this way - Let's assume a group of twenty men and twenty women, each in a relationship with another. Let's also say that there's two women in this group who are "available" and eight of the twenty guys have sex with both of them, maybe just once apiece, over the course of two years, in addition to the sex with their regular partner. The other eighteen women and twelve men remain in comitted monogamous relationships for the same time.

That's 36 different pairings among the group, but 40% of the men have had three partners, and 90% of the women have only had one. Of course, the other 10% of the women will have had nine partners in this time, but since they're only 10% of the women, is their activity considered "unusual", and therefore discounted, whereas the men's activity is considered "normal" because, after all, 40% is a rather "significant percentage"?

Think about it - in this hypothetical (and not too far-fetched) example, isn't it most likely to be reported as "40% of men report having sex with three different partners in a two year span; 90% of women report remaining monogamous during the same time; Men MUST be lying!"? I think that's a quite plausible potential reporting of totally accurate data.

Now, extrapolate this out over a longer time span and a broader population base. Are the men really lying, or are the researchers just not considering all the possibilities?

This may have nothing to to with the particular story above, but my point is this - I'll believe anybody's statistics until somebody else can contradict them.

Which usually takes about five minutes...

This is making my head hurt.

[JSngry]

Well then, that'll be one less partner for you!

[JSngry]

Seriously, the premise that men must be lying because they report having more partners than do females is a flawed on, because it implicitly assumes that all/most of the women surveyed are going to be the type that all/most of the men surveyed are always/usually going to have as partners. And that just ain't a safe assumption.

[Epithet]

Most surveys about sex find impossibly that men have had far more partners than women, typically two to four times as many.

Either there are a bunch of phantom females out there, or somebody is lying.

Or maybe a lot of guys encounter the same few women, relatively and proportionally speaking.

Look at it this way - Let's assume a group of twenty men and twenty women, each in a relationship with another. Let's also say that there's two women in this group who are "available" and eight of the twenty guys have sex with both of them, maybe just once apiece, over the course of two years, in addition to the sex with their regular partner. The other eighteen women and twelve men remain in comitted monogamous relationships for the same time.

That's 36 different pairings among the group, but 40% of the men have had three partners, and 90% of the women have only had one. Of course, the other 10% of the women will have had nine partners in this time, but since they're only 10% of the women, is their activity considered "unusual", and therefore discounted, whereas the men's activity is considered "normal" because, after all, 40% is a rather "significant percentage"?

Think about it - in this hypothetical (and not too far-fetched) example, isn't it most likely to be reported as "40% of men report having sex with three different partners in a two year span; 90% of women report remaining monogamous during the same time; Men MUST be lying!"? I think that's a quite plausible potential reporting of totally accurate data.

Now, extrapolate this out over a longer time span and a broader population base. Are the men really lying, or are the researchers just not considering all the possibilities?

This may have nothing to to with the particular story above, but my point is this - I'll believe anybody's statistics until somebody else can contradict them.

Which usually takes about five minutes...

Jesus. Did you even stop to think that, in your little situation, the average number of partners the men had is the same as the average number of partners the women had? The article explicitly notes a discrepancy between the averages.

Edited February 18, 2006 by Epithet

[JSngry]

Jesus. Did you even stop to think that, in your little situation, the average number of partners the men had is the same as the average number of partners the women had? The article explicitly notes a discrepancy between the averages.

Well, Jesus, yes I did. That's my point I'm wondering if the study is looking at the average number of partners among women collectively or the number of partners that the "average woman" reports. Totally different outcomes.

[clifford_thornton]

"Sexual Partners" can mean one night, or even two hours, right?

The numbers seem plausible to me; I think a lot of ladies downplay their own nature as cads.

[Epithet]

Jesus. Did you even stop to think that, in your little situation, the average number of partners the men had is the same as the average number of partners the women had? The article explicitly notes a discrepancy between the averages.

Well, Jesus, yes I did. That's my point I'm wondering if the study is looking at the average number of partners among women collectively or the number of partners that the "average woman" reports. Totally different outcomes.

Yeah, and what could 'the average woman' possibly mean in this context?

[JSngry]

Do you enjoy asking questions that have already been posed?

[Epithet]

Do you enjoy asking questions that have already been posed?

Now that's really funny! I pose it because the answer to it is clearly the the same as that of an already-answered question, and this appears to have eluded you. It means of course that your distinction between the average woman's number of partners and the average number of partners a woman's had is no distinction at all.

That is, unless you think the study is computing, say, the number of partners of a woman with an average-size bust, or average height, or anything else. But surprise, surprise—they never talk about the 'average woman' anyway: 'The women reported on average 8.6 lifetime sexual partners. The men claimed 31.9.'

And of course it's miles away from your percentages and other unrelated facts.

[JSngry]

Do you enjoy asking questions that have already been posed?

Now that's really funny! I pose it because the answer to it is clearly the the same as that of an already-answered question, and this appears to have eluded you. It means of course that your distinction between the average woman's number of partners and the average number of partners a woman's had is no distinction at all.

What seems to have eluded you is that it's about the interpretation of the data and how that interpretation is presented in terms of "conclusions" than it is the data itself. All I'm asking is, using my hypothetical scenario, if the fact that 10% of the women would report multiple partners would be discounted, or at least given less weight, than the fact that four times as many men would report the same. Afer all, 10% could easily be viewed as an "insignificant number" and therefore downplayed or perhaps even not considered. It's harder to do that with a 40% figure. Since I have no way of knowing if this type of interpretation was or was not done in this study, I'm going to question both the methodolgy and the conclusions. For all I know, these people could just be trying to raise a "controversy" just to get some more funding. Or not.

To figure out if that was or was not the case, you'd have to look at who did the study, who funded the study, and to what ends the study was intended to be put. In other words, you'd have to question before accepting, and you'd have to accept with prejudice, knowing that any group of behavioral statistics is at best predicitive of probability only, and then only within the parameters of the group within which they were compiled. At best.

Now, that's what's really funny!

Edited February 18, 2006 by JSngry

[Chas]

The average number of partners reported must be the same if we assume no sampling error , no homosexual activity , and if we assume all respondents agree on what constitutes a sexual encounter .

What Jim's line of reasoning points up is the fallacy of drawing conclusions about means from facts about medians and modes . The median or modal number of sex partners for men is in fact higher than that for women . Basic biology and the higher incidence of STDs in the male population would lead us to suspect as much .

Now I don't think the investigators are mistaking mode or median for mean , so it's not a question of the interpretation of the data being driven by extra-scientific agendas . More than likely , men over-report and women under-report for cultural reasons . Perforce , prostitutes would under-report greatly .

[Chuck Nessa]

My mode seems to be around the mean median.

[JSngry]

What Jim's line of reasoning points up is the fallacy of drawing conclusions about means from facts about medians and modes . The median or modal number of sex partners for men is in fact higher than that for women . Basic biology and the higher incidence of STDs in the male population would lead us to suspect as much .

Thank you. My point exactly.

Now I don't think the investigators are mistaking mode or median for mean , so it's not a question of the interpretation of the data being driven by extra-scientific agendas . More than likely , men over-report and women under-report for cultural reasons . Perforce , prostitutes would under-report greatly .

Perhaps not, but then again, there would appear to be no shortage of sprurious "research" going on for entirely (or at least primarily) self-serving ends (and by "self-serving", I in no way am implying implicit and/or omnipresent malevolence). I have no idea if this study is such an instance, but the reporting of it in the posted article would suggest that it might be, if the researcher fed the reporter his information in such a way as to lead to the article being written with the tone that it took. Or maybe the reporter's just a doofus looking for a sexy premise. Again, neither scenario would be particularly unusual, unfortunately.

Anyway, it was the opening two sentences of the article that raised a red flag for me and triggered what followed:

Most surveys about sex find impossibly that men have had far more partners than women, typically two to four times as many.

Either there are a bunch of phantom females out there, or somebody is lying.

That's about as blatant an example of jumping from Point A to Conclusion Z without looking at any of the possibilities in between as any you could imagine. And that's what set me off. Sloppy journalism, at the very least, and it does nothing to encourage me to take seriously the story it reports. For one thing, the participants are only described as "2,065 heterosexual non-virgins with a median age in their late 40s". Well, big whoop. Hopefully the selection process applied at least a little more selectivity than that, but we don't find out whether it did or not in this story.

Really, we don't find out too much of anything really solid in this story other than that a survey's been conducted by Psychologist Norman R. Brown at the University of Michigan, who has already conducted several such studies, and who is going to conduct another one. We don't learn where the proper results have been published, or even if they have been.

This may be a perfectly legitimate study, with perfetly legitimate findings. Or it may not be. Robert Roy Britt, the LiveScience Managing Editor of LiveScience.com gives me nothing with which to decide one way or the other. What he does give me is reason to question whether or not I should take his reporting of the study seriously, and I have decided not to. Whether or not the study itself sould be considered likewise is impossible for me to determine with the facts at hand.

[Epithet]

What seems to have eluded you is that it's about the interpretation of the data and how that interpretation is presented in terms of "conclusions" than it is the data itself. All I'm asking is, using my hypothetical scenario, if the fact that 10% of the women would report multiple partners would be discounted, or at least given less weight, than the fact that four times as many men would report the same. Afer all, 10% could easily be viewed as an "insignificant number" and therefore downplayed or perhaps even not considered. It's harder to do that with a 40% figure. Since I have no way of knowing if this type of interpretation was or was not done in this study, I'm going to question both the methodolgy and the conclusions. For all I know, these people could just be trying to raise a "controversy" just to get some more funding. Or not.

?!?!

One minute you're saying that your hypothetical situation suggests the false conclusion that the men must be lying due to irrelevant (you say 'plausible') percentage reports. And that the researchers need to consider more of the 'possibilities'. Nowhere did the researchers use percentages like that to draw their conclusion, and even if they did, it'd be a question of using the right statistic, not of considering extra possibilities. Given this, you must have changed your position a great deal to come up with:

What Jim's line of reasoning points up is the fallacy of drawing conclusions about means from facts about medians and modes . The median or modal number of sex partners for men is in fact higher than that for women . Basic biology and the higher incidence of STDs in the male population would lead us to suspect as much .

Thank you. My point exactly.

Now on the third go at it (I'll assume the average woman vs average number of partners stuff has been aborted) you're saying that if they dropped the 10% most prolific women you'd conclude that the men are over-reporting and/or the women were under-reporting... OK, you can push this one a little further, but I guess it's easier to just claim just general foul play:

To figure out if that was or was not the case, you'd have to look at who did the study, who funded the study, and to what ends the study was intended to be put. In other words, you'd have to question before accepting, and you'd have to accept with prejudice, knowing that any group of behavioral statistics is at best predicitive of probability only, and then only within the parameters of the group within which they were compiled. At best.

Now, that's what's really funny!

Yeah, thanks for the funny platitudes.

[JSngry]

You're welcome. You seem like the type who could use a good laugh!

But then again, we all could. And this report of this study gave me one.

[JSngry]

Nowhere did the researchers use percentages like that to draw their conclusion, and even if they did, it'd be a question of using the right statistic, not of considering extra possibilities.

Well DUH! Don't you think that being aware of all the possibilities would affect what kind of statistics were gathered in the first place? Did they think to include prostitites or other likely "high activity/random partners" women in their sampling? Did they want to? Did they ask the men if they were including incidences of sex w/prostitutes, group sex, or any other "non traditional" encounters in their count? Did they ask the men if they were counting women who only gave them handjobs and blowjobs (and women who only did that to a man) as "sexual partners"? Did they ask them to include or not to include those in their count? Did they just ask the questions and then just draw the conclusion that there was some lying going (and then set about trying to anaylze the "lying") on when some of that "lying" might in fact be the result of sloppy sampling and/or a failure on their part to clearly deliniate the terms up front?

You don't know, do you? And neither do I.

Tell you what - you go on along believing any study you want to believe at face value, and I'll go on being skeptical of most all of them until given good reason not to be. That way, we can both keep smiling at the naivite of the other.

After all, a smile is a terrible thing to waste.

Edited February 19, 2006 by JSngry

[JSngry]

Here's Dr. Brown's C.V.: http://www.ualberta.ca/~nrbrown/cv.html

A long list of accomplishments, to be sure.

[JSngry]

The same story fleshed out a little more: http://pda.physorg.com/lofi-news-partners-...rown_10824.html

[JSngry]

And a chart of the findings: