Last month, as we were compiling the results of our annual sex survey, a strange piece of data jumped out at us — people with college degrees get laid way less than people without them. They have less partners, too. According to our research, uneducated school-of-lifers have an average of three more sexual partners in their lifetime as compared with the ivied boners of academia.
That finding actually isn't too far off from research conducted by real scientists with names like Lauren F. Friedman.
In an article for Psychology Today, Friedman takes a gander at why smarter people seem to have less sex. Citing a 2011 National Survey of Family Growth statistic, she reveals that “men with college degrees are half as likely to have had four or more partners in the last year as men with a high school education alone.”
It gets worse. According to a 2007 article entitled "Intercourse and Intelligence," 80 percent of U.S. males and 75 percent of U.S. women have boned by the age of 19. Compare that to 56 percent of Princeton undergraduates, 59 percent of Harvard undergraduates and 51 percent of MIT undergraduates. Things don't get much better for MIT brainiacs: only 65 percent of MIT graduates have lost ther virginity by the time they get their diploma in the mail.
Well, what the fuck? Are smart people too busy inventing mosquito drones and new titanium alloys for children's orthodontics to get fucked up on apple McCormick's and accidentally put it in someone's butt?
Friedman thinks that the key might be found in the unique decision-making strategies high IQ types use. Apparently, people with “high executive functioning" — aka good judgment and impulse control — also have what Friedman calls “slow life history strategy.”
"Life history strategy" refers to how people go about making big life decisions like when to get married and have kids. Research has shown that dumb people are more naturally attracted to the idea of fucking people and producing spawn, while the more intelligent souls amongst us concentrate more on the decisions that help them refine their skills and advance their careers.
Perhaps this is why Carolyn Halpern, who teaches at the UNC School of Public Health, says there is a “a high concentration of teen virgins at the top of the intelligence scale.” For these teen virgins, their life history strategy involves things like getting into college, obtaining a degree, and probably inventing teleportation. Relationships, particularly fleeting ones like those of a sexual nature, are secondary. That, and smart kids are … smart. They think through the consequences of sex more than someone who, say, didn't stay in school long enough to receive adequate and encompassing sexuality education. They might hold back because they're more aware of STDs and the unwanted side effects of teen pregnancy, or they might posses the superhuman foresight to know that having sex with someone often changes your relationship with them irreparably, for better or for worse.
Plus, big, fat-brained geniuses are far too busy curing prostate cancer and inventing invisible aircraft to worry about sex. For them, sex must seem boring and trivial in comparison. And maybe they're right — would you rather get eaten out for eight minutes by a one-time Tinder conquest or work on finding a cure for ALS, provided you had that sort of mental capacity?
The true accomplishment would be doing both at once. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever you want.
Another theory centers around how people with higher IQs are more prone to social anxiety. Although Smarty McSmart Face might feel at home calculating algorithms for an intergalactic black hole satellite, he/she/they might feel a little less so in a crowded bar, surrounded by total fucking idiots who have no idea what quantum theory is. They might feel more isolated in crowds where they're anything but, and be unsure how to "talk Santana-smooth" to hotties. Meanwhile, because they're not tasked with saving the world, stupid people have spent their entire lives keg standing and fraternizing. This can make them naturally talented in social situations where they might meet a potential partner. It's a matter of intelligence vs. social intelligence. That, and discussing the inconceivably trite topic of football scores or what Marsha said at the party, can make geniuses feel even more isolated.
One big-ass caveat here: having less sex doesn't mean you have a lower libido — actually, several surveys have found a positive correlation between high intelligence and high libido. But, being horny doesn't mean you're having sex. Smart people have actually been found to buy more sex toys and engage in acts like BDSM and polyamory, two things that are sexual, but don't necessarily involve penetrative, typical sex.
So, does all this mean that if you're not getting laid, you're pretty fuckin' smart?
We don't know. We had sex last night so we're probably too dumb to make that assessment. But for now, let's settle on YAAAASSS.
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