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Comment by smallerize | Hacker News Reader

couples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month

Could someone check the paper and see what was really meant here? I'm guessing people aren't having negative sex.

From the graph on page 40 of the original report, it appears that the couples where men did little of the "core work" (core work being indoor chores like cleaning, cooking, etc.) had sex almost 5 times a month. Couples where men did nearly all of the core work had sex slightly over 3 times a month.

So the article really does mean [amount of sex] - 1.5

Not necessarily. "Almost 5" could be 4.8 and "slightly over 3" could be 3.2, and 4.8 = 3.2 * 1.5.

That ratio is just an interesting coincidence. From page 38 of the report† (page 13 of the PDF), it's plain they are asserting a reduction in frequency from 4.8 times per month to 3.2 times (a delta of 1.6, not 1.5, as in the article):

    To illustrate the substantive size of these
    effects, Figure 1 shows predicted values for
    sexual frequency, varying the share of house-
    hold labor performed by men while setting all
    other variables to their means. As the figure
    shows, shifting from a household in which
    women perform all of the core household
    tasks to one where women perform none of
    the core household tasks is associated with a
    decline in sexual frequency of nearly 1.6
    times per month. Given a mean sexual fre-
    quency in this sample of slightly over five,
    this is a large difference. The figure repre-
    sents two extreme values, but even house-
    holds in which men do 40 percent of core
    household task hours report substantially
    lower sexual frequency than households in
    which women perform all core housework.

†http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Feb13ASRFeature.pdf

This is a common error. Usually authors mean that y = x/1.5 rather than y = x - 1.5*x. I think it comes from taking the phrase "1.5 times more" and replacing more with less to reverse its meaning.

I assumed "times" meant "instances", not multiplication, ie y = x - 1.5

Yeah it said "fewer times" (subtract 1.5 from that actual count), not "times fewer" (-1.5 x).

I cannot tell if your parent post is an arithmetic question or a sex joke...

I read it as y = x - 1.5

The "times" means countable units of sex rather than multiplication.

You might be overthinking this.

MachoMan and GirlyWoman had sex 28 times per month

EgalitarianMan and EqualityWoman had sex 26.5 times per month.

(numbers and names made up.)

And if x < 1.5, it was a subtle joke.

Oh, right!

This is wrong.

According to the original study, the gender stereotype couple would be having sex 39 times a month if the equal couple has sex 26 times. This is for couples at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Yes. If you read the paper you will find out that not only do such couples have more than 1.5 times more sex, the women are more sexually satisfied.

Husband’s share of core housework is very heavily negatively correlated (p < .001) with wives' sexual satisfaction.

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