WWTBAM Bored

But don't you know that the obvious isn't true until it has been formally studied, quantified and published in a scientific journal, with the study paid for by the national government?

This is the sort of execrable reporting on mediocre science which we have come to know and hate. I could rant for awhile, but instead I will post the link to the abstract on the actual paper.

http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/164/paper/SH07097.htm

The important thing is that the comments on faculty and gender are DESCRIPTIONS, not CONCLUSIONS: they describe the population of subjects whom the authors were able to get to fill out their questionnaire on chlamydia screening: a population mostly female, which was more sexually active than the males who responded. Unfortunately, they are labelled -- at least in the abstract -- as being results, which they are not. The study actually sounds pretty useless, albeit inexpensive, but I don't know much about the politics of administration of health care delivery in Australia (at which level questionnaire data like this is most likely to be useful), and sometimes ministries need to hear obvious points, such as that students don't know much about chlamydia and currently do not have intention of being screened,but wouldn't mind if an MD suggested it. (I would like to know how many students can actually identify a GP as being their own doctor, and had visited in the last year, but it ain't worth $25 to me).

The quoted psychotherapist is NOT an author of this study, but is the author of an out-of-print book "Your Penis: A User's Guide".

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Penis-Users- ... 9838081507

(from the out-of-printness: In the spirit of the journalism being quoted today I might misderive the conclusion (unattended by evidence), that most Australian men don't feel they need a user's guide for their penis).

"Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group compared to the group of females in the sample."

Well, duh. Group sex is always more fun when females outnumber males.