Sex numbers again

I already explained this but apparently some people didn’t get the memo–Sex survey numbers don’t add up, mathematicians say:

But there is just one problem, mathematicians say. It is logically impossible for the mean number of partners for men to be different from the mean for women in any given population with equal numbers of heterosexual men and women, although the mean, or mathematical average, can differ from the median, the middle point of a range. Surveys typically report the median.

Still, mathematicians should set the record straight, said David Gale, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of California.

“Surveys and studies to the contrary notwithstanding, the conclusion that men have substantially more sex partners than women is not and cannot be true, for purely logical reasons,” Gale said.

Sevgi Aral, who is associate director for science in the division of sexually transmitted disease prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there are several possible explanations, and all are probably operating.

One is that men are going outside the population to find partners, to prostitutes, for example, who are not part of the survey, or are having sex when they travel to other countries.

Another, of course, is that men exaggerate the number of partners they have and women underestimate.

Aral said she could not determine what the true number of sex partners is for men and women. “I would say that men have more partners on average,” she said, “but the difference is not as big as it seems in the numbers we are looking at.”

Gale is still troubled. He said invoking women who are outside the survey population cannot begin to explain a difference of 75 percent in the number of partners, as occurred in the study saying men had seven partners and women four. Something like a prostitute effect, he said, “would be negligible.” The most likely explanation, by far, is that the numbers cannot be trusted.

Ronald Graham, a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of California, San Diego, agreed with Gale. After all, on average, men would have to have three more partners than women, raising the question of where all those extra partners might be.

It’s easy to explain, there is no mystery, other studies have shown the “prostitute effect” is not negligible. Read my previous post for an example that makes it all clear. These guys are professors in California. You shouldn’t expect anything but crap for brains from people like that.

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One thought on “Sex numbers again

  1. something to consider is the fact that it is easier for women to go out and find a partner purley for sex than it is for men (minus prostitution). for example, if a woman shows sexual interest towards a male, say in a bar, that male (unless he’s gay or married with a “one partner only” mentality) will be more than happy to accomidate. if a male shows sexual interest towards a female in a bar, she makes him really work for it, even if she’s interested in him in the first place. Assuming she’s not easy, of course.

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