Here's the problem I have with the idea that the survey is poorly designed - these results come up again and again, in different countries by different researchers and in different generations. There's something real behind these numbers. It may be a biological difference in how men and women report (lie) about their behavior, or it may be a biological difference in their sexual behavior. I think you're assuming in your reasoning about the statistics that the distributions are similar between the male and female populations. I'm suggesting that they might have very different distributions. I wouldn't be surprised if both men and women had a bimodal distribution, with a second peak at the high end comprised of people who are unusually promiscuous. But I'm suggesting that the high-end peak for women is exceptionally high and exceptionally sharp, much moreso than for men. Sampling error would then have a greater impact on statistics for the women. I'm suggesting that a higher, sharper peak for women could be explained by the ease with which attractive, dysfunctional women can find male partners. There are probably few opportunities to be a Wilt Chamberlain (a world-class celebrity), but potentially many opportunities to be an A.W., my girlfriend in college who'd had over 200 partners in one year. She's now a middle class mom with a Ph.D. Of course it's true that for every male yes there has to be a female yes. But, if you sample yes answers in the male population more accurately than yes answers in the female population, you end up with a misrepresentation of the network.