2000/10/10 by Devon D. Brewer, John J. Potterat, Sharon B. Garrett +5 · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Health Professions · Psychology · #Sex work and related issues #Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology #Sexual behavior #Undersampling #Psychology #Demography #Sampling bias #Social psychology #Sociology #Statistics #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1073/pnas.210392097
openalex publication_date 2000/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
One of the most reliable and perplexing findings from surveys of sexual behavior is that men report substantially more sexual partners than women do. We use data from national sex surveys and studies of prostitutes and their clients in the United States to examine sampling bias as an explanation for this disparity. We find that prostitute women are underrepresented in the national surveys. Once their undersampling and very high numbers of sexual partners are factored in, the discrepancy disappears. Prostitution's role in the discrepancy is not readily apparent because men are reluctant to acknowledge that their reported partners include prostitutes.