College kids lie about sexual activity

People lie about sex. That’s not surprising, but what is interesting is that they will lie about sex to match gender expectations, but only about sex. People don’t distort the truth about other gender-related behaviors in order to meet an expectation.

Men will admit to writing poetry, but not to having few sex partners

A new study found that men were willing to acknowledge participating in girlie things like writing poetry and women didn’t hesitate to admit they tell dirty jokes and use foul language. But when you get to the topic of sex, everyone starts to lie.

What we believe men and women are sexually is what we become

Men want to be perceived as masculine, having lots of partners and loads of diverse experience. Women, on the other hand, want to be seen as feminine, demure, selective – all qualities leading to less sexual experience. “There is something unique about sexuality that led people to care more about matching the stereotypes for their gender,” said Terri Fisher, author of the study and psychology professor at The Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus. “Sexuality seemed to be the one area where people felt some concern if they didn’t meet the stereotypes of a typical man or a typical woman.”

To get the info, researchers lied about the lie detector

Very cleverly, researchers administered a questionnaire to college age students with and without a lie detector machine. The lie detector really didn’t work, but the students didn’t know that. Men reported loads of sexual partners when they took the questionnaire but backed off and reported fewer when they thought they were hooked up to a lie detector. And women did the opposite. “Men and women had different answers about their sexual behavior when they thought they had to be truthful,” Fisher pointed out.

Source: Ohio State University, MedicalNewsToday