When it comes to sex, men are eternal optimists and romantic at heart

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By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 16 July 2005

Men say they are as romantic as women but expect to sleep with more partners, according to the biggest online survey of sexual attitudes and gender differences. The results of a survey of 250,000 men and women who completed a detailed psychological questionnaire reveal that many male and female stereotypes are deep-seated and biological.

Men tend to have bigger sex drives than women and are more "sexually optimistic". When men were asked how many partners they expect to have over the next five years they averaged 3.4 compared to the female average of 1.9.

While women performed consistently better than men at psychological tests involving verbal fluency and locating objects, men tended to do better at "spatial awareness" tasks. Yet the gender differences are not completely distinct. Scientists found that about a fifth of men have typically "female" brains and an equal proportion of women have a mental approach typical of men.

Professor John Manning of the University of Central Lancashire said that the on-line survey was unprecedented because it involved people from about 170 countries and six ethnic groups. The survey was carried out for a television series called The Secrets of the Sexes, which begins on BBC1 tomorrow night.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article299458.ece