The average opposite sex partner count for women is virtually the same as the average opposite sex partner count for men. It's basic math, guys.
Think about it. Run any scenario you can think of, if the population of the two sexes is identical, then the average opposite sex partner count MUST be the same for both sexes.
A couple of things to note:
There will be a difference if the population of one sex is larger, BUT the difference in the population of the genders, in America, is not enough to account for a difference of several partners in the reported partner count.
Now, if your survey group is a certain age group, say, 20-and-under year old guys and girls, in that case, the average partner count for the
women will be higher, because they're sleeping with older guys, people outside the group of people being surveyed, which would add more partner numbers to the women than to the males. The younger males also sleep with older women, but it hasn't been as common, historically, as the opposite, so the numbers would not balance in that scenario, and the women would have a higher partner count. Now, if the young guys are seeing hookers outside of the survey group, this would bump the numbers for the guys, but if the young girls in the survey
include the hookers, well, then it would be back to being even again.
Basically, overall, the average has to be the same for both sexes, unless one of the sexes is having sex with people outside of the surveyed group. As another example, if the survey is only done on Americans, then college girls doing a study abroad and sleeping with foreign men outside of the survey group would bump up the average number for women, and men going abroad and sleeping with foreign women outside of the survey group would bump up the numbers for men. If the two balance out, the partner count would remain the same for both sexes, if not, the sex engaging in sex with more partners outside the survey group would have the higher partner count.
However, in the end if you take the entire world's population as your survey sample, the average partner count for men and women still comes out virtually equal.
Why?
Because the world ratio of men to women is 1.01 to 1. Some parts of the world have more men (India, China), some parts have more women (Europe, the Americas, the Former Soviet Union, Japan, and parts of Africa). It almost balances out to 1 to 1, but there are still slightly more men than women overall (1.01 to 1).
See:
World Sex Ratio
If you don't get the math behind this, just run a couple of scenarios like this until it clicks in your head:
Scenario A: 10 guys, ten girls. One guy bangs ten girls, 9 guys are left out to pasture. The ten girls only bang that one guy. Average partner count for men is 1. Average partner count for the women is 1.
Scenario B: 10 guys, ten girls. Each of the men/women gets one man/woman all to him/herself. Average partner count for the men is 1. Average partner count for the women is 1.
Scenario C: 10 guys, ten girls. Each of the men/women gets one man/woman all to him/herself. Average partner count for the men is 1. Average partner count for the women is 1. THEN, one girl decides to be promiscuous and sleep with all 10 men. Run the numbers, you've got 9 guys sleeping with two women (their girl, plus the promiscuous girl), 1 guy with only one woman (the promiscuous girl's original guy), 9 girls with one guy (the faithful girls), and one girl with 10 guys (the 9 extra, plus her original guy). Final average partner count? 1.9 for the men, and 1.9 for the women.
In summary, when you see anyone talk about men having a significantly higher average opposite sex partner count or women having a significantly higher average opposite sex partner count, you're just listening to someone that hasn't run the numbers.