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A new CDC survey finds that one in three men reported having at least 15 sexual partners, while just one in 11 women reported similar behavior. Kathryn Porter, a medical officer at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and a study co-author, said men averaged 6.8 female sexual partners and women reported an average of 3.7 male sexual partners. The survey polled 6,237 Americans ages 20-59 on their sexual and drug-use experiences from 1999 to 2002, the first data CDC has collected on the number of lifetime partners. It found that 4 percent of adults overall, and 11 percent of unmarried adults, reported never having had sex. The survey said that around one in seven adults, or 16 percent, had their sexual debut before age 15, while about 15 percent remained sexually abstinent until age 21. One reason for the disparity could be that men or women may underestimate or overestimate their own sexual activity, said Chester Schmidt, professor of psychiatry at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved in the survey. Other factors could be that women who have extremely high numbers of sexual contacts, such as prostitutes, are unlikely to be reached by surveys, and that men are more likely than women to have had sex outside the country, said Sevgi Aral, associate director for science at CDC's STD division. According to Porter, the survey questionnaire defined sex as oral, anal or vaginal. It was administered in a confidential environment designed to encourage honesty, she added. About one in five adults reported ever having tried street drugs, excluding marijuana. Five percent reported street drug use in the previous year. The study, "Drug Use and Sexual Behaviors Reported by Adults: United States, 1999-2002," was published in CDC's Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics (2007;384). |