Fake lie-detector reveals women's sex lies

July 14, 2003 6:46 PM

Fake lie-detector reveals women's sex lies - "Women are more likely than men to lie about their sex lives, reveals a new study ... Women who thought their responses might be read said they had had an average of 2.6 sexual partners, compared with 3.4 partners for those who thought their answers were anonymous. But those who thought they would be caught out by the polygraph reported an average of 4.4 partners." I'm guessing a similar study done on men would reveal that as the likelihood of getting caught in a lie increases, the number of partners claimed would decrease...
posted by RylandDotNet (25 comments total)

Actually, they did test men in this study as well, and found little change. In fact, there was a slight (but not statistically significant) increase when hooked up to the lie detector.
posted by maciej at 7:44 PM on July 14, 2003

Fisher and Alexander surveyed over 200 unmarried, heterosexual college students aged 18 to 25.

Well then, these conclusions must certainly apply to all women!
posted by goethean at 7:57 PM on July 14, 2003

Barrage of posts declaring survey results to be a sad reflection on the oppressively puritanical expectations enforced by our society's patriarchal gendercidal penisocracy in 5....4....3....
posted by dhoyt at 8:11 PM on July 14, 2003

Chris Rock was right all along.
posted by Space Coyote at 8:17 PM on July 14, 2003

The average number means nothing what's important is the median. For example if %90 of the population has 5 sexual partners or less over a lifetime and the other %10 has 6 to 5000, it will skew the average to a much higher number. This is in fact how it really is a few people have a huge number of partners they are called "super nodes". The same thing can be seen in networks like the internet which is how Google is designed. So what we need is a Google to find the super-node sex partners.
posted by stbalbach at 8:21 PM on July 14, 2003

2.6 partners? 4.4? Does having a .6 partner mean I got to second base?

Serious though, people lie. Men lie and women lie. It's just what people do. What may be more interesting are the motivations individuals have for inflating or deflating the number os sexual partners they have had. Culturally I think it is more accepted to be a amorous man (a stud) then a woman (a slut.) I'd assume that men would inflate the number of sexual contacts just as women would deflate them. Does this describe anything about the genders? No. It only shows the influence of culture on our ideas of gender, what is acceptable behavior and what is not.
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:29 PM on July 14, 2003

Question: what is the average number of sexual contacts for people 18 to 25? 25 to lifetime?
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:31 PM on July 14, 2003

people are such whores.
posted by angry modem at 8:33 PM on July 14, 2003

Men overestimate the number of sex partners they have had in their lives.

I'm googling for answers to my query, if I find anything I post it here tomorrow. Right now I'm supposed to go out and drink beer with .6 of a sex partner.
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:41 PM on July 14, 2003

Reminds me of an old rule of thumb: when asking the question "how many sexual partners have you had?" multiply a woman's answer by 3, and divide a man's answer by 3.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 9:39 PM on July 14, 2003

Someone has too say it...

Q: Did you ever derail a train... with your penis?

A: Yes... But it was for charity.
posted by drezdn at 9:41 PM on July 14, 2003

Reminds me of an old rule of thumb: when asking the question "how many sexual partners have you had?" multiply a woman's answer by 3, and divide a man's answer by 3.

Does anyone else think the math doesn't make sense here?
posted by namespan at 9:57 PM on July 14, 2003

Yay space-coyote! You beat me to the Chris Rock reference... 'cause you know you have to give women the 5-dick-curve.

So this basically saying that college chicks are all sluts. Interesting...

(Shhh... let me interpret this the way I want.)
posted by ruwan at 10:21 PM on July 14, 2003

"Q: Did you ever derail a train... with your penis?

A: Yes... But it was for charity."

How 'bout:

"Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?"

"Not right now."

"A girl's gotta have her standards."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:45 PM on July 14, 2003

I meant... Have you ever...taken a train and eaten it piece by piece *after* you just derailed it with your penis?
posted by drezdn at 11:07 PM on July 14, 2003

I have a horrible feeling that I may be the 0.4%, especially after a few sherries.
posted by ciderwoman at 3:48 AM on July 15, 2003

Reminds me of an old rule of thumb: when asking the question "how many sexual partners have you had?" multiply a woman's answer by 3, and divide a man's answer by 3.

And try not to superglue yourself to... yourself.
posted by RylandDotNet at 5:19 AM on July 15, 2003

Are any of the 3.4 women free for a beer?
posted by jonmc at 6:01 AM on July 15, 2003

In his best Billy Dee (circa '83) impersonation, he leans over and says "Baby, be my whole number" !?
posted by shoepal at 7:06 AM on July 15, 2003

OK, I'm going to come out and say it: Does anyone else think that the accepted lifetime partner count (11 for men/9 for women) is absurdly low? And this particular study was performed with college-age people? I never met anyone in college who'd had only 2 or 3 partners.

(Perhaps this is because I was on my back most of the time. ::rimshot::)
posted by cowboy_sally at 7:41 AM on July 15, 2003

sally: I guess it depends on the crowd you hang with. Unless the D&D kids got the bright idea to just start having sex with each other I think that it's a fairly high number actually. Then again, among the bar crowd that would be about right.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:55 AM on July 15, 2003

this kinda disturbed me...because american pop culture encourages everybody to be a "supernode", so to speak...just think of "the real cancun"...not representative by any means, but PRESENTED as representative.

so, having said that, how the hell are 18-25 year olds only at 4 partners? i mean, sure, the crowd i hang around with (young-to-mid-20-floridian-parents) married their high school sweethearts, so they're trending towards 1 or 2... but none of them went to college, and none of them had extended periods of being single.

and i consider myself kind of an elitist when it comes to relationships (read that as: i find it hard to get a date), but i've still had a few MULTIPLES of that amount...and that was BEFORE i got married.

thus: americans are sluts.
posted by taumeson at 9:04 AM on July 15, 2003

Taumeson, a few multiples of 1 or 2 or a few multiples of 11?
posted by pjgulliver at 9:14 AM on July 15, 2003

taumeson: I managed to get through 4 years of college and uni, and a couple of years after that without my counter getting past 0.00.

This and this should provide sufficient explanation as to why, though.

Hey, you did ask.
posted by Freaky at 7:00 PM on July 15, 2003

accepted lifetime partner count (11 for men/9 for women)

**Suddenly feels inadequate**
posted by jonmc at 12:46 PM on July 22, 2003