Prometheus 6

It's not mathematically impossible for women to be less promiscuous than men. You just need a small pool of promiscuous women sleeping with a larger pool of promiscuous men. If five promiscuous girls at your high school slept with twenty promiscous guys, out of a population of 100 guys and 100 girls, then 5% of the girls would be promiscuous, and 20% of the guys would be promiscuous. Sometimes, I really wonder what a PhD is worth.

Without working out the details, I'd say you're right. And actually, I think men lie about how many and women lie about how few. Social benefits and all...

You just need a small pool of promiscuous women sleeping with a larger pool of promiscuous men. If five promiscuous girls at your high school slept with twenty promiscous guys, out of a population of 100 guys and 100 girls, then 5% of the girls would be promiscuous, and 20% of the guys would be promiscuous.

Yes, but that's not the question. Under the scenario described, the median number of partners for men and women is the same, 0. The average is also the same, 1.481. Notice that no one mentioned the population of "promiscuous ones" in the population. The question is, where do "the extra partners" of the men come from? Unless one believes that the disparity is supplied by a disparity in gay behavior, which I doubt.

(Explanation: One possibility is that the men have sex with other men. This, however, would be an explanation if about 28% of male sexual relationships were homosexual [7-4=3; 3/2=1.5; 1.5/7 = 28%] AND IFF 0% of female sexual relationships were. If we grant SOME lesbian relationships, then that figure must be >28%.)

P6: Without working out the details, I'd say you're right. And actually, I think men lie about how many and women lie about how few.

These two sentences contradict each other.  "I think men lie..." while certainly correct, is logically incompatible with Solar Soul's objection that it IS mathematically possible for men to have 1.75x as many partners as women.

These two sentences contradict each other.  "I think men lie..." while certainly correct, is logically incompatible with Solar Soul's objection that it IS mathematically possible for men to have 1.75x as many partners as women.

Solor Soul says men are, indeed, more promiscuous than women, and I say even then they exaggerate their conquests.

They are still contradictory.

P6: Solor Soul says men are, indeed, more promiscuous than women

In what sense? Not by average, since (mathematically) the average number of partners must be the same. Solar Soul's example of the high school pre-supposes that anyone with multiple sexual partners is "promiscuous," and since there could be 20 cases of 5-partner men and 5 cases of 20-partner women, the inference is that the higher population of multi- (or some-)partner men indicates that men are "more promiscuous."

So what? That's a bizarre or exceptionally folksy usage of statistics. Aside from prostitution (which is not large enough to explain the discrepancy; see below), why would one expect as a matter of course for there to be a tiny number of EXTREMELY prolix women, and a much larger number of moderately prolific men?

I would argue that the double social standard which you cited detracts from any "good faith" explanation of the disparity (i.e., sincere efforts to give an accurate estimate, prostitutes not included in the survey, sexual adventures in other countries...). If you're comparing two heterogeneous sets (men and women), then you use averages, not modes. Solar Soul is comparing modes.

Here's a "meta-study" (i.e., study of studies).

"Estimating Number of Lifetime Sexual Partners" Journal of Sex Research (1999)

Researchers have attempted to account for these discrepant partner reports in two ways. Good-faith explanations have assumed that respondents answer survey questions as accurately as they can and that the discrepancy reflects biased sampling (e.g., undersampling or failing to sample prostitutes or young female partners; Morris, 1993; Wiederman, 1997). In contrast, bad-faith explanations assume that respondents are "telling themselves and others enormous lies" (Lewontin, 1995, p. 29), with men deliberately inflating their reports and/or women deliberately underreporting. At present, good-faith accounts are considered unlikely because the assumptions required to eliminate the discrepancy seem highly implausible (Laumann et al., 1994; Morris, 1993; Wiederman, 1997).(1) Thus, a consensus has emerged that "intentional misreports are the main source of the discrepancies" (Smith, 1992, p. 210; see also Einon, 1994; Laumann et al., 1994; Lewontin, 1995; Tourangeau & Smith, 1996; but see Wiederman, 1997). If correct, this conclusion has far-reaching implications as it undermines the credibility of self-report data in general, and in so doing suggests that "all scientific sociology ... is in deep trouble" (Lewontin, 1995, p. 24).

[...]

This study demonstrates that people use a variety of strategies when reporting their number of lifetime sexual partners, that some strategies (e.g., rough approximations) are associated with relatively large reports, others (e.g., enumeration) are associated with relatively small reports, and that men are more likely to use the former whereas women are more likely to use the latter. In sharp contrast to the lifetime data, past-year SP reports produced by men were in close agreement with those produced by women, and there was no relationship between strategy type and sex of respondent. These past-year data argue against a bad-faith interpretation of the lifetime discrepancy as it seems unlikely that participants would deliberately distort their answers to one set of questions but not the other. Thus, we conclude that men and women produce discrepant lifetime reports, not because they intentionally misrepresent their experiences as is commonly assumed, but because they tend to use different estimation strategies. These findings allow us to trace the sex difference in the magnitude of lifetime partner reports to a difference in the way in which men and women produce their reports.

If you're comparing two heterogeneous sets

Which, of course, is the problem.

Relax, James. 

james is right, and i don't think he's tripping here.

The trip is taking the topic seriously.

How is this

some strategies...are associated with relatively large reports, others...are associated with relatively small reports, and that men are more likely to use the former whereas women are more likely to use the latter.

Any different that this

I think men lie about how many and women lie about how few.

Well, I done argued exactly the same point in May:

"What is mostly overlooked is the fact that the main target of the Plantation Overseer Negresses actually are Black women and not necessarily Black men.

An example of the Plantation Overseer Negresses’ sly attack on Black women is the notion that many Black men, as do white men, cheat on their women.

http://assaultonblacksanity.blogspot.com/2007/05/recruiting-black-women-fo-kkk.html

And, think about it, in the same proportion. That’s because it takes at least two to cheat.

There are more women than men. Therefore the same number of each would represent a higher percentage of men than women.

Statistics are like war plans. They rarely survive contact with reality.

The rest is raising waves where there's no wind in this context. Hope you don't mind that I choose not to address it.

i saw it as taking the methodology seriously rather than the topic. doesn't matter what we're talking about if we're using bad math to arrive at our conclusions. this has consequences for other conversations.

Yeah, but so does applying serious methodology to stupid subjects. The methodology lends credibility to absurdities.

Maybe it's me. My answers to absurd questions is always either an explanation of why it's absurd or a tit-for-tat stupidity (like the title of the post).

What's the stupid subject?

Given the significance of sex in human experience, and the personal narratives we have about it, I hope you don't mean that.

Now, P6, I know you think I took this too seriously, and you'll probably laugh that I wrote two blog posts about this (both WAY too long, I admit that at least); but here it is , anyway.  I really learned a lot.  It took a shocking length of time, but it was really illuminating.

What's the stupid subject?

Given the significance of sex in human experience, and the personal narratives we have about it, I hope you don't mean that.

I'm afraid I do. And having read your post I have a question.

How is this

The difference is that men use different methods ("strategies") of answering the question than women do, since women actually enumerate and men estimate.

any different than this?

...Some strategies...are associated with relatively large reports, others...are associated with relatively small reports, and that men are more likely to use the former whereas women are more likely to use the latter.

Are you just establishing that your answer is "men lie about how many"?

Are you just establishing that your answer is "men lie about how many"?

No, and if I were, then I'd have wasted a lot of time reading reports and gathering information. Actually, there's evidence to suggest both men and women underreport, although in different ways and for different reasons.

No, because (a) men and women give nearly identical answers when querried about sexual activities over the previous twelve months, and (b) no, because the discrepancy arises in different conceptions of what constitutes a sexual partner, and how one remembers them. A person can give you a wrong answer about some matters without necessarily lying.

As I think about it--and perhaps this is dangerous--it seems to me that people have competing but logically coherent notions of what it means to tell the truth about their own lives. For example, if I believe so-and-so has utterly whacked notions of morality, AND has power over me, I have a very different standard of truth for that person, that I do for you (in private emails, I mean). I have a consequentialist bias for telling the truth; you (P6) can accurately assess the moral turpitude of my deeds, and act without hypocrisy, whereas others I could mention, I can trust to ABUSE such information.

Others have what John Rawls called a perfection principle, which might be construed as normativizing hypocrisy: it's absurdly high standards, impossible to live up to, that we must preserve; making cruel, willfully "unfair" (unrealistic and unbalanced) moral judgments serve to enforce the ultimate goal of society to make people improve. I'm afraid I've expressed this other POV very harshly, because I admit I have never really gotten over my culture shock at it, but in its milder form, a middle-aged woman might lie about her past experiences because she thinks she serves a moral purpose in so doing.

Sorry (again) about the wordiness; usually I am most so when I'm only just learning about the subject.

I am not sure how I would define a stupid subject, but it seems to me that for once the NYT performed a service by pointing out how those MSNBC "stories" are usually reactionary, unsubstantiated, lying blather.  Since I use MSN Hotmail, I'm constantly seeing links to those stories every time I dash off an email. 

Also, I think sex is a fascinating subject, especially the personal politics of it.  Stumbling across the sexology publications section of the Kinsey Institute was really exciting.  Just because the subject is discussed in an insipid way doesn't mean the conversation need remain so.

If the resolution of a question makes no earthly impact on anyone's behavior, it is stupid to pursue it at length.

The best advice I ever heard (read, actually) about honesty is to ask yourself three questions of everything you say.

1. Is it true?
2. Is it kind?
3. Is it necessary?

If you can say yes to two out of three of those questions, you're okay.

Simple. Brilliant. And it's a heuristic I actually use. 

See why I said you don't discuss absurdities? I didn't know the study was asking about median values but I knew the damn thing was just silly.

And I read at Republic of T that Ezra Klein agreed with the article too.