Mindreading Mishaps
...and what the science of sex differences is really telling us
People aren’t always great at figuring out what’s going on in others’ heads. Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of sex and love. Here are three findings from recent research by Paola Baca and colleagues, cataloguing common mindreading errors in the sexual sphere.
Both sexes overestimate the average person’s desired number of sexual partners. Men overestimate the average man’s desired number more than women do. Men and women overestimate the average woman’s desired number to the same degree.
Both sexes overestimate how willing men and women would be to have sex with someone they’ve known for a given length of time: an hour, an evening, a day, a week, an month, etc. They especially overestimate men’s willingness.
Both sexes overestimate how comfortable the average man is with sex without love. Men slightly overestimate how comfortable the average woman is; women get it about right.
Notice that, in all these cases, men and women do in fact differ on the relevant traits, but that the differences aren’t as large as people think. This has an interesting implication. It suggests that the main lesson of research on sex differences isn’t that the sexes differ when people thought they were the same, but rather that they don’t differ as much as people tend to assume!
You can access the published paper here or request a free copy from the authors here.
For more on this topic, you can preorder my forthcoming book, A Billion Years of Sex Differences, here. Note that paid subscribers to The Nature-Nurture-Nietzsche Newsletter can read exclusive excerpts from the book before the official publication date.
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Steve
This is interesting, but I think both the paper and the summary blur one distinction.
“Comfortable with sex without love” is being treated as part of “sexual desire”, but comfort is not the same thing as desire. It may also capture confidence, anxiety, attachment, guilt, awkwardness or anticipated emotional consequence.
So I’d read that finding less as “men desire casual sex less than people assume” and more as “men may be less uncomplicated about sex without love than people assume.”