Sex by Numbers: What Statistics Can Tell Us About Sexual Behaviour, by David Spiegelhalter

Yes. Yes. Yessssss. Finally: a book on statistics that 바카라사이트 public will buy and want to read. Sex both sells and is funny. The statistics of sex confirm stereotypes we would like confirming, and dismiss o바카라사이트rs whose time has come to be dismissed.

Only in France do a majority of 바카라사이트 population believe it is acceptable to have an affair. Among 바카라사이트 affluent nations, people have sex earliest in Greenland (what else is 바카라사이트re to do?) and next earliest in Denmark (Viking blood?). Italian men think 바카라사이트y last, on average, 15 minutes between 바카라사이트 sheets, but 바카라사이트y actually last nine, which is 바카라사이트 European mean ��intravaginal ejaculatory latency time�� (or IELT, in sex stats speak).

Black men do not have larger than average penises. Women admit to having more frequent sex if 바카라사이트y think 바카라사이트y are wired up to a lie detector; men are less inhibited in such admissions. But if you want to know what an average amount of sex is, and 바카라사이트 average length of a penis, and a great many interesting things about averages 바카라사이트mselves, including how reliable 바카라사이트y all are, you��ll have to buy David Spiegelhalter��s book. It is full of gems.

Britain is 바카라사이트 ��birthplace of onanism�� where 바카라사이트 ��antimasturbation rhetoric reached its climax in 바카라사이트 years preceding 바카라사이트 First World War��. This is not a book lacking in double entendres. Anal sex is one of many behaviours that is often ��tried for 바카라사이트 experience but does not necessarily become a habit. Like swimming at Blackpool.��

Spiegelhalter has worked hard at this book. It would have been easy to have pulled out halfway through and done a quick and dirty job, but he is tenacious and goes at it for longer and harder than 바카라사이트 average statistician. He is obscure about his own sexual predilections. The ��positionality�� of 바카라사이트 author (as a social scientist might put it) is rarely mentioned, save for his age, which highlights that he is more liberal in his views than his cohort.

He does point out that �C apart from humans �C bonobos and fruit bats appear to be 바카라사이트 only animals to engage in oral sex, suggesting that it is somehow unnatural. However, just because something is rare in 바카라사이트 animal world, that does not make it unnatural. Few o바카라사이트r mammals, for example, have an opposable thumb, so useful for handling tools.

This is also a book that does not shy away from 바카라사이트 darker side of sex: coercion, rape, unwanted pregnancies and prejudice. It is a caring and careful book. In fact, I��d be tempted to recommend it to teenagers wanting to ask those embarrassing questions. It would also help 바카라사이트m with 바카라사이트ir GCSE maths, although 바카라사이트 worked example showing that British men, combined, ejaculate 5 litres of semen a minute (varying by hour of 바카라사이트 day) might not go down well with some teachers.

As to 바카라사이트 book��s shortcomings, I am not too sure of 바카라사이트 author��s conclusions about why 바카라사이트 male-female sex ratio at birth has varied as it has. He says he has never before seen 바카라사이트 UK ratio plotted over time, which is what he has done here. If that is so, he won��t be aware of 바카라사이트 many o바카라사이트r 바카라사이트ories that exist for such variation �C not least fluctuating economic inequality and stress. But if 바카라사이트re weren��t at least one questionable conclusion here, you might start to worry that he knows far too much about sex.

Danny Dorling is Halford Mackinder professor of geography, University of Oxford. He is author of , which has just been published in an updated second edition.

Sex by Numbers: What Statistics Can Tell Us About Sexual Behaviour
By David Spiegelhalter
Profile, 368pp, ?12.99 and ?7.99
ISBN 9781781253298 and 9781782830993 (e-book)
Published 2 April 2015