Hey! I'd like to find some information of the number of sexual partners people have, differentiated between gender and age and possibly for multiple countries with different cultures. It would be fascinating. I have a hypothesis that I think men will have more of an uneven distribution with there being more of those men with no partners and those with lots of partners (U-Curve), and in women I'd expect a more even distribution (normal distribution). Also it would be fascinating to look at how those distributions change with age, I'd expect them to even out a bit.

Also it would be interesting to study cultural differences in promiscuity too.

So, anyone got a few studies I could peruse? Preferably from European countries, America is ok too.

Thank you!

I'm having a little browse around out of curiosity, but I would raise two general points that might be of relevance to your supposition:

(i) Data for this question is extremely unreliable. Men and women both consistently lie about number of partners, even when answering a survey anonymously. This leads to literally impossible discrepancies between the mean number of partners for (heterosexual) men and women in pretty well every large scale study.
(ii) Prostitution and sex work is more common among women, and there will be a significant number of people working in such jobs who have a number of partners that is very far from the mean (representing one of the uprights in your U-curve).

I'll continue having a little look and share any good studies I find here, if I find any that seem relevant.

dochmbi wrote:. I have a hypothesis that I think men will have more of an uneven distribution with there being more of those men with no partners and those with lots of partners (U-Curve), and in women I'd expect a more even distribution (normal distribution).

I suspect you will find the distribution curve to be uneven for both sexes, once you eliminate for factors such as sex work.

I have one in every port.

Not having much success.

This article mentions two wide scale US data sets, but I can't get to the actual data. The studies have pages on the CDC website, but there's an enormous amount of stuff there and no obvious data links:
https://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2012/6/8 ... umber.html

The best success I've had (but haven't had time to look through in detail) is googling image results for "distribution of number of sexual partners", which produces a number of charts that are ostensibly very, very similar in shape between the sexes.

ETA: Some pages with shit articles (well one in particular) but quite good charts:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/01/gss_sf.html
https://totalsororitymove.com/is-my-num ... rs-normal/
https://contexts.org/blog/who-has-how-m ... -partners/

Thommo wrote:Not having much success.

Tee hee...

Thommo wrote:The best success I've had (but haven't had time to look through in detail) is googling image results ...

Poor Mr Thommonus.

Thousands.

Wait, are you talking about physical partners?

laklak wrote:Thousands.

Wait, are you talking about physical partners?

How physical?

Thommo wrote:Not having much success.

This article mentions two wide scale US data sets, but I can't get to the actual data. The studies have pages on the CDC website, but there's an enormous amount of stuff there and no obvious data links:
https://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2012/6/8 ... umber.html

The best success I've had (but haven't had time to look through in detail) is googling image results for "distribution of number of sexual partners", which produces a number of charts that are ostensibly very, very similar in shape between the sexes.

ETA: Some pages with shit articles (well one in particular) but quite good charts:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/01/gss_sf.html
https://totalsororitymove.com/is-my-num ... rs-normal/
https://contexts.org/blog/who-has-how-m ... -partners/

Hey Thommo! Thanks for trying, I appreciate the help! I'll check out those charts you posted. Yeah it makes sense that people would lie... there being a double standard whereby getting laid lots is awesome for men and embarrassing for women, evolutionary basis and all that.

The thing that made me suspect these uneven distributions is that it shows up so often in the animal world, where a lot of times a few males get all the females. Also you hear a lot about nerdy basement dweller virgins and of sporty sociable guys who get laid a lot.. Could just be a cultural bias we have, our culture being a bit obsessed with sex and linking it heavily to social status.

Yeah, it's an interesting supposition, I can see what you mean. Sorry I couldn't be helpful.

I think historically there are statistics of significantly higher rates of men who have 0 children compared to women (I say that, but I'm a bit concerned that sociological factors might overlook deaths in first child birth, which are hugely common in humans historically). You might try looking for data on that as well, if it seems relevant to your interest. And you may have more success there.

Fallible wrote:Poor Mr Thommonus.

That's what he gets for trying to help someone...

Scot Dutchy wrote:

laklak wrote:Thousands.

Wait, are you talking about physical partners?

How physical?

LIke there's somebody else involved.

So I hear they are distributing sexual partners somewhere? Do I bring a shopping list? Is there a bulk discount?

ETA: Asking for a friend.

Thommo wrote:Yeah, it's an interesting supposition, I can see what you mean. Sorry I couldn't be helpful.

I think historically there are statistics of significantly higher rates of men who have 0 children compared to women (I say that, but I'm a bit concerned that sociological factors might overlook deaths in first child birth, which are hugely common in humans historically). You might try looking for data on that as well, if it seems relevant to your interest. And you may have more success there.

Yeah, I'll take a look at it. Thanks. I'm just generally quite interested in sexual selection in humans, as sexual selection is such a central aspect in the lives of animals and is responsible for so much of their behavior and social organization. I'd be especially curious to hear what percentage of young men would say they specifically adopted a more healthy and active (physically and socially) lifestyle in order to have better access to women. To what extent does sexual desire drive men to self-improve, to what extent does it function as a "call to adventure"?

There appears to me to be an inaccurate tacit implication in your posts here dochmbi: that human males have sex with as many different females as we can.

Yeah, that's not really true, KIR. You need to add "and not get caught by the wife" to it.