From a neat blog posting summarizing some research on sex and intelligence:
By the age of 19, 80% of US males and 75% of women have lost their virginity, and 87% of college students have had sex. But this number appears to be much lower at elite (i.e. more intelligent) colleges. According to the article, only 56% of Princeton undergraduates have had intercourse. At Harvard 59% of the undergraduates are non-virgins, and at MIT, only a slight majority, 51%, have had intercourse. Further, only 65% of MIT graduate students have had sex.
The bar chart of results from a Wellesley college survey is amusing, with the percentage of students who are virgins ranging from 0% for the Art students, up to 83% for the Mathematics students.
The only mystery is why the figure for Computer Science students is only half that for Mathematics. My guess is that it’s because Wellesley is a female-only college, and female computer scientists can basically get on the Internet and find any number of desperate male computer scientists to hook up with.
Also:
…another revealing finding from the Counterpoint survey was that while 95% of US men and 70% of women masturbate, this number is only 68% of men and 20% of women at MIT!
So the hypothesis is that smarter people have a lower sex drive. Obviously there are going to be exceptions, however.
Tagged: education, Harvard, intelligence, mathematics, MIT, science, sex, virginity, Wellesley college
3 Responses to “Smarter people get less sex”
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July 31st, 2007 at 04:15 -0600
Maybe intelligent people are also more likely to be devout Christians. In the USA, at least.
It would be interesting to see similar figures for various European countries.
It would also be interesting to see how the MIT figures changed if installing Gentoo were considered masturbation.
July 31st, 2007 at 09:21 -0600
I suspect the issue is in normalized behavior. When you lose the academic-based extracurricular activities (math team, chess team), you get left with sports and sex to talk about. And gossip, which is largely: sex, but the kind other people are having. The more education you’re getting/giving yourself, the more other things you have to talk about, and the more competition there is for your time.
Actually, when Newsweek first covered this story in 2000, it was the first time I’d written a letter to a major news source to point out their ass-hatted response to a study. Sadly, too many computer changes = I don’t still have the letter, but I got myself worked up enough to say that anyone who was surprised that the top IQ students weren’t getting laid deserved to get shot by Harris and Klebold.
July 31st, 2007 at 09:23 -0600
*chuckles* Another interpretation is that “smart teens don’t tell researchers about their sex lives”