There is some support for the notion that men exaggerate, or round up, on
estimates of sexual partners whereas women do the reverse. There has been
some interesting study of the differences between those who choose to
respond to sexual surveys (who tend to be more liberal, surprise, surprise).
Almost any recent issue of the Journal of Sex Research would be of interest
here, but let me particularly recommend Michael Widerman's "Volunteer Bias
in Sexuality Research Using Colege Student Participants", JSR, vol.36, pp.
59-66. That whole issue is about sex research methods in fact. Also there
have been several recent articles by June Reinisch and Laura Carpenter about
what constitutes "having sex". As you would expect, having intercourse
produces the highest consensus, but there is not universal consensus on oral
sex. Some of this has to do with language usage, of course, but it reveals
some problems for sex researchers. If you just ask something like "How many
people have you had sex with?", without specifying what "sex" is, one person
will count all sexual encounters, while another may only count vaginal
intercourse. This is probably more detail than some of you wanted to know,
but it helps explain some of the discrepancies that come up in sex research.

Craig Cowden
Northern Virginia Community College-Manassas

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