Waching daily Jul 26 2018

My name is Kirstin Mitchell, I'm a researcher on the British national

survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles. I'm often asked whether

people really do tell the truth about their sex lives in surveys of sexual

behavior. In fact people generally do try to be accurate especially if they think

the research is important and if they feel reassured that their answers will

be confidential

But there is one thing that has been puzzling sex researchers

for many years, and that is why men report far more lifetime opposite sex

sexual partners than women, when in fact the average should be about the same.

In Natsal, men reported an average of 14 lifetime partners, whereas women reported

only seven. We looked into this and found that this gap could be explained by

three main factors, which together account for about two-thirds of the

difference. Firstly, individuals who reported very high numbers of partners

skewed the average, and this effect was stronger for men than it was for women.

Men in the top end reported an average of a 110 partners,

whereas for women it was only 50. Excluding these men and women reduced

the overall average, closing the gender gap. Secondly, men were more likely to

estimate rather than count their total. For example, among those reporting around

five to nine partners, 24% percent of men estimated compared with

only 15% of women. Finally, differences in sexual attitudes had an

impact on reporting. Women were generally more conservative than men. They were

less likely to view one-night stands as 'okay', and they were more likely to view

sex outside marriage as 'always wrong'. Adjusting for these attitudes narrowed

the gap even further. Research relies on accurate reporting, so is this a problem?

Well the good news is that the gender gap has been closing over time as survey

methods improve and as attitudes to sex relax. The other good news is that the

gender gap is much smaller for shorter time periods and it's these periods, that

are crucial for doing things like measuring the transmission of STIs.