« Is the GOP making a Latin mistake? | Gene Expression Front Page | Patent for Race Specific Drug »
November 09, 2004

Let's talk about sex (in America)

In my previous post on sperm competition I wondered about the use of the term "promiscuous" to describe females and GC responded that males are (generally, and with caveats) by definition promiscuous (at least by aspiration). Since I believe it nice to put numbers on such things, here is what I found in the 1994 book Sex in America, based on the University of Chicago sponsored survey in the context of the number of sexual partners since age 18:

Partners 012-45-1010-2021
male 3% 20% 21% 23% 16% 17%
female 3% 31% 36% 20% 6% 3%

The survey also gives 2 and 6 as the median numbers of sexual partners for females and males respectively. Even assuming for underreporting (females) and embellishment (males) there is a nontrivial difference in the distributions. It would be best if we could look at 60 year olds, but I couldn't find that particular table via Amazon's search feature.

Posted by razib at 03:14 PM