Evolution, Sex, and Gender, Not to Mention Research

NancyLebovitz

Take the question of promiscuity. Everyone has always assumed — and early research had shown — that women desired fewer sexual partners over a lifetime than men. But in 2003, two behavioral psychologists, Michele G. Alexander and Terri D. Fisher, published the results of a study that used a “bogus pipeline” — a fake lie detector. When asked about actual sexual partners, rather than just theoretical desires, the participants who were not attached to the fake lie detector displayed typical gender differences. Men reported having had more sexual partners than women. But when participants believed that lies about their sexual history would be revealed by the fake lie detector, gender differences in reported sexual partners vanished. In fact, women reported slightly more sexual partners (a mean of 4.4) than did men (a mean of 4.0).

So how sketchy is the research on human sexual behavior, anyway?

From The New York Times:

Take the question of promiscuity. Everyone has always assumed — and early research had shown — that women desired fewer sexual partners over a lifetime than men. But in 2003, two behavioral psychologists, Michele G. Alexander and Terri D. Fisher, published the results of a study that used a “bogus pipeline” — a fake lie detector. When asked about actual sexual partners, rather than just theoretical desires, the participants who were not attached to the fake lie detector displayed typical gender differences. Men reported having had more sexual partners than women. But when participants believed that lies about their sexual history would be revealed by the fake lie detector, gender differences in reported sexual partners vanished. In fact, women reported slightly more sexual partners (a mean of 4.4) than did men (a mean of 4.0).

So how sketchy is the research on human sexual behavior, anyway?

On a lighter side, this study reinforces (by a small quantity, due to all the caveat outlined in the comments) my idea that women are as promiscuous as men, but they are culturally forced to lie about that: not really big news.

On a more interesting side, the "fake lie detector" is another one of the techniques that are used to circumvent lies that occur even in anonymous surveys: the first that I heard of, anyway, was employed in a survey regarding illegal owning/hunting/farming of something in some parts of Africa (yes, I've lost almost all the details: can someone point me to the original article?). It consisted of telling people that for some answers, you need not to answer truthfully, instead you needed to throw secretly a dice and report the answer that came up. Apparently this, instead of randomizing the answer, gave the 'farmer' an excuse to tell the truth (yes, I really need to dig up the source).

ETA: see Alicorn's comment for the exact reference.

On a lighter side, this study reinforces (by a small quantity, due to all the caveat outlined in the comments) my idea that women are as promiscuous as men, but they are culturally forced to lie about that: not really big news.

What do you mean by "equally promiscuous"? Do you mean that women and men have the same average number of sex partners? Than this follows from basic arithmetic and I don't see why this study is relevant. Do you mean that they have the same average desired number of partners? Than this study has nothing to say on the subject.

0[anonymous]14y

Here it is.

3patrickmclaren14y

Keep in mind that this study only reflects upon individuals born between 1978-1985. Based on the recent increase in entertainment promoting promiscuous behavior (ie. the American Pie series, EuroTrip, ), I expect that current attitudes (of 18-25 y/o's) would differ, even from those in 2003.

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