Men exaggerate their sexual exploits

A new study on kissing in the microbiology journal Microbiome contains an interesting statistical discrepancy that demonstrates the way men and women lie about sex.

In a study to prove whether people who kiss frequently share their oral bacteria, an interesting statistic came up to prove how some of the people were misreporting their numbers.

The study had an equal number of men and women yet the average number of intimate kisses per day reported by the men was twice the number of those reported by women. This is a statistical impossibility.

Men and women ought to report the same average number of kisses, and you can prove that with math.

The fact that the numbers do not match demonstrates that someone in the study was either exaggerating or downplaying the number of kisses they received, as the authors of the study helpfully point out thus:

“We calculated all the average kiss frequencies and average periods past after the latest kiss. Strikingly, 74% of the men reported higher intimate kiss frequencies than the women of the same couple, resulting in a male average of 10 and a female average of five intimate kisses per day.

“This probably results from male over reporting, as previously noted in an analysis of self-reports on sexual behaviour, including number of partners and frequency of intercourse, in particular among unmarried couples.”

This, as a matter of logic, must be wrong because every time a man has sex with a woman, a woman must be having sex with a man.

The total amount of sex must be equal, and the total number of partners on either side must be equal. So the averages must be equal, too.

But people get confused when talking about the entire population. Some people have more sex partners than others, so it feels reasonable to say that on average men may have more sex partners than women.

Across the population, however, this cannot be true.

Sex researchers have been aware for a long time that the data they often publish is “wrong” because of this problem.

They assume that a double-standard is in effect: men exaggerate and women underreport, because it burnishes men’s reputations to be thought of as a Casanova and because women face criticism for doing the same thing.