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The devil is definitely in the details. What do people mean when they say "average". In your paper, the "average" has a denominator of all people, whereas I thi

by gleenn 10y ago

The devil is definitely in the details. What do people mean when they say "average". In your paper, the "average" has a denominator of all people, whereas I think some people think the denominator is the number of people of each gender. Imagine a scenario where there was 1 man on earth, and 100 woman. Say that the man slept with half the woman. Now he has slept with 50 women, the male average is 50 partners / 1 male or 50. Half the woman had 1 partner, so 50 woman / 100 total woman slept with 1 man, average 0.5 partners. Easy to show that the average could be swayed one way or another with this average. Cue the mathematicians to show me pedantically why I'm wrong, but it's not about that. It's about the imprecision of English in Buzzfeed articles when using math terms.

Namrog84 10y ago
The difference I believe in this average partner case is that the approximate population is split more evenly than your 1:100 ratio. So if you can show an example with different averages and the same population on both sides. I bet you'd win over more people
pixl97 10y ago
Isn't it actually a sampling problem? Take your 1:50 50:1 ratio, and now only sample 5 people out of the entire group. If those 5 questioned were women which only had one partner you would miss the 'black swan' that had 50. I would think the question comes if your sample size is large enough to encompass all the outliers that can significantly influence the results. For example in Parent comment a few female sex workers could have sex with hundreds of men, but if not questioned they would be missed. The article 'hand waving' the prostitute effect away without further details is disingenuous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
13of40 10y ago
I apologize in advance for this scenario, but: You have a population of 100 males and 100 females. All the guys have sex with one of the girls, so males' average partners is 1. She then gets a particularly bad rug burn and dies of sepsis. Average females' partners is now 0. Now hold on, fella, don't click that down arrow just yet. It might just be that real life works that way. In our modern society, I would guess that it's rare for a woman to have a hundred sexual partners and end up moving on to a long and prosperous life, but the guy who does the same, unfair as it is, might end up being one of those sociopathic CEOs we all read about. If you do the numbers at any given time, in the real world, there might be more slutty guys currently living than women of the same ilk.
zhemao 10y ago
Yes, if the gender ratio is very imbalanced, it wouldn't be impossible for men to have had more partners on average than women. In fact it couldn't be equal, since the total number of partners would have to match. But the ratio of heterosexual men to heterosexual women is close to 1:1 and not 7:4. Therefore the disparity in reported numbers is impossible.

by gleenn 10y ago

Namrog84 10y ago

The difference I believe in this average partner case is that the approximate population is split more evenly than your 1:100 ratio. So if you can show an example with different averages and the same population on both sides. I bet you'd win over more people

pixl97 10y ago

Isn't it actually a sampling problem? Take your 1:50 50:1 ratio, and now only sample 5 people out of the entire group. If those 5 questioned were women which only had one partner you would miss the 'black swan' that had 50. I would think the question comes if your sample size is large enough to encompass all the outliers that can significantly influence the results. For example in Parent comment a few female sex workers could have sex with hundreds of men, but if not questioned they would be missed. The article 'hand waving' the prostitute effect away without further details is disingenuous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

13of40 10y ago

I apologize in advance for this scenario, but: You have a population of 100 males and 100 females. All the guys have sex with one of the girls, so males' average partners is 1. She then gets a particularly bad rug burn and dies of sepsis. Average females' partners is now 0. Now hold on, fella, don't click that down arrow just yet. It might just be that real life works that way. In our modern society, I would guess that it's rare for a woman to have a hundred sexual partners and end up moving on to a long and prosperous life, but the guy who does the same, unfair as it is, might end up being one of those sociopathic CEOs we all read about. If you do the numbers at any given time, in the real world, there might be more slutty guys currently living than women of the same ilk.

zhemao 10y ago

Yes, if the gender ratio is very imbalanced, it wouldn't be impossible for men to have had more partners on average than women. In fact it couldn't be equal, since the total number of partners would have to match. But the ratio of heterosexual men to heterosexual women is close to 1:1 and not 7:4. Therefore the disparity in reported numbers is impossible.