Even in the twentieth century, many doctors assumed that women lacked sexual
desire. One study of gynecology textbooks published between 1943 and 1972 found
that most asserted that women did not experience orgasms. One textbook writer
claimed that “sexual pleasure is entirely secondary or even absent” in women; another
described women’s “almost universal frigidity.”
Although today many people agree that women have some degree of sexual desire,
they consider it inappropriate to express openly. Men are expected to express how
“horny” they are; women are not. Men who have a lot of sex are seen as “studs,”
and their status rises among their peers. Women who have a lot of sex are seen as
“sluts,” and their status falls. “Women need a reason to have sex,” commented come-
dian Billy Crystal. “Men just need a place.”
Whether gay or heterosexual, sexual behaviors, desires, and identities are organ-
ized more by the gender of the actor than by the genders of those toward whom he
or she might be erotically inclined. That is to say, on all available measures, gay and
straight men are far more similar to each other than either is to gay or straight women.
Men are socialized to express a “masculine” sexuality, and women are socialized to
express a “feminine” sexuality, regardless of their sexual orientation.
In our culture, the sexual double standard encourages men to pursue sex as an
end in itself, to seek a lot of sex with many different partners, outside of romantic or
emotional commitment. And women are taught to consider sex with one partner and
only in the context of an emotional relationship. As a result we see the highest rates
AMERICAN SEXUAL BEHAVIOR AND IDENTITIES 331For decades, sex
researchers have
noticed a
strange thing: Men and women reported
different numbers of partners. A recent
survey found that men reported a
median number of seven sexual partners
over the course of their lives, while the
median number of partners for women
was four. How can this be? After all, it’s
a mathematical impossibility for men to
average almost twice the number of
partners that women average.
Perhaps one reason is what we might
call the “stud versus slut” effect: Men
might overestimate their numbers to
appear more like a stud; women might
underestimate their numbers to appear
less like a slut. So men might exagger-
ate, and women might minimize.
It might also be that men are picking
partners from outside the surveyed pop-
ulation—for example, going to prosti-
tutes, or having sex in other countries
when they travel—in numbers far
greater than women.
There’s also the problem of retrospec-
tive analysis: People’s memories don’t
tell you what actually happened but
reveal more about what they believe or
want to have happened—or what they
believe should have happened. That is,
asking people about the past tells you
more, sometimes, about the present.
All of these may contribute to the
disparity. But it turns out that this
difference shows up only among some
groups and only when they are asked
some types of questions. For the 90
percent of Americans who have had 20How Many Sex Partners Do
People Have?How do we know
what we know
or fewer lifetime partners, the male–
female ratio is close to 1—that is, they
report the same number of partners. And
if you ask men and women how many
different partners they had in the past
year, the ratio again is close to 1.
The entire discrepancy is a result of
measurement error among the remaining
10 percent—that is, those who have had
more than 20 partners over their life-
time. Four-fifths of these people tend to
report their numbers in round numbers
(25, 50, 100, and so on), and men tend
to round up and women tend to round
down. When you have had that many
partners, most people just don’t keep an
exact tally.
It may simply be that these forces—
normative expectations for studs and
sluts, a “prostitute effect,” or gendered
memory for only those with the most
partners—are in operation only for some
groups and only when they are asked
certain questions.(Source:Morris, 1993.)