ArticleJournal of sex research2019
Why Do Men Report More Opposite-Sex Sexual Partners Than Women? Analysis of the Gender Discrepancy in a British National Probability Survey.
Article in Journal of sex research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 79 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Population-level impact of switching to 1-dose human papillomavirus vaccination in high-income countries: examining uncertainties using mathematical modeling.Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs · 2024Article
- Maltreatment and Parent-Child Attachment as Predictors of Dating Violence and Risky Sexual Behaviour Among High-Risk Teens.Journal of child & adolescent trauma · 2024Article
- Young adults' desired life tradeoffs: love first, sex last.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Self-Rated Masculinity and Femininity and Reported Number of Lifetime Sexual Partners Among Cisgender Heterosexual and LGBQ Men and Women.Archives of sexual behavior · 2024Article
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- Sex Differences in Attention and Attitude Toward Infant and Sexual Images.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- Self-perceived Mate Value is Predicted by Biological and self-reported Indices of Health in Young Adults.Adaptive human behavior and physiology · 2023Article
- Concordance of self-reported sexual intercourse frequency between members of mixed-sex couples attempting conception.The Canadian journal of human sexuality · 2022Article
- Oral-Genital Contact and the Meaning of "Had Sex": The Role of Social Desirability.Archives of sexual behavior · 2022Article
- Understanding Sexual Health Indicators During Adolescence: A Study to Consider Time Since Sexual Debut When Exploring Multiple Sexual Partners.Archives of sexual behavior · 2022Article
- Salivary Testosterone and Sexual Function and Behavior in Men and Women: Findings from the Third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3).Journal of sex research · 2022Article
- Italians Do It … Less. COVID-19 Lockdown Impact on Sexual Activity: Evidence From a Large Representative Sample of Italian Adults.Journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- [The German health and sexuality survey (GeSiD)-a brief introduction to the study].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2021Review
- Analysis of Sexual Inhibition and Satisfaction from a Gender Perspective among University Students.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Comparison of two simulators for individual based models in HIV epidemiology in a population with HSV 2 in Yaoundé (Cameroon).Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Article
- Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Infection Among a Population of Blood Donors in the Kpandai District of Northern Ghana: A Five-Year Retrospective Study from 2014 to 2018.Journal of community health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In a closed population and defined time period, the mean number of opposite-sex partners reported by men and women should be equal. However, in all surveys, men report more partners. This inconsistency is pivotal to debate about the reliability of self-reported sexual behavior. We used data from the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3), a probability sample survey of the British population, to investigate the extent to which survey sampling, accounting strategies (e.g., estimating versus counting), and (mis)reporting due to social norms might explain the inconsistency. Men reported a mean of 14.14 lifetime partners; women reported 7.12. The gender gap of 7.02 reduced to 5.47 after capping the lifetime partner number at the 99th percentile. In addition, adjusting for counting versus estimation reduced the gender gap to 3.24, and further adjusting for sexual attitudes narrowed it to 2.63. Together, these may account for almost two-thirds of the gender disparity. Sampling explanations (e.g., non-U.K.-resident partners included in counts; sex workers underrepresented) had modest effects. The findings underscore the need for survey methods that facilitate candid reporting and suggest that approaches to encourage counting rather than estimating may be helpful. This study is novel in interrogating a range of potential explanations within the same nationally representative data set.
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