In a study that will leave many men pretty damn pleased with themselves, the Center for Disease Control stated that the median number of female partners for a man is 7. 7 partners. And this is a number you can believe.
The big issue with these surveys before is that they were held face-to-face, so the interviewees were often compelled to tell the interviewer what they thought they wanted to hear or what they assumed to be "average." This time around, the CDC went with a computerized survey that fostered more of a sense of both privacy and anonymity.
I would figure that, in keeping with gender roles, men would still be inclined to inflate their number, while women kept theirs low. However, with a response of "7" for men (and "4" for women), that number seems incredibly low. So if you have been dying to know how you stack up against the average dude, there you go.
The survey elicited some other interesting stats, such as:
17 percent of men have only one partner during their lifetime.
Only 17 percent of men have had sex with two or more people in the past year.
29 percent of men overall have had more than 15 female partners in their life, but 46 percent of black men claimed to have. (Way to go, black guys!)
(Cue sad tuba music) 4% of Americans (men and women) have never had sex.
