Who's counting?

The myth, the math and the sex.

I was intrigued to see that Kiwi women have more casual sex than any other nationality-and more casual sex than men. This fascinated me as I thought the maths was wrong.

The general consensus seems to be that it is men who are promiscuous by nature-spreading their genes far and wide while women are genetically programmed for monogamy.

One recent US survey concluded that men had a median of seven female sex partners; women four. A British survey said that men had 12.7 and women 6.5. But, bear with me here is the problem. It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners than heterosexual women. Their survey results cannot be correct. What is going on and what is to be believed?

I have toyed with various scenarios to explain this discrepancy. Firstly, the data is self reported, do men exaggerate and women minimise? Are men having a lot of sex with prostitutes when they travel to other countries?

I guess when we have Big Brother checking our sex lives this conundrum will be resolved-until then the surveys are self fulfilling prophecies-except in New Zealand!