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You wrote in Scanner:
"'Among girls, fifty percent reported having sex without condoms, compared with forty-two percent of boys. Girls should be given lessons on condom use, the report suggested.' — Rather suspicious math, isn't it?"
What's suspicious?
For simple numbers, suppose each girl
having sex has two partners, each boy
has one partner, and that half the boys
always use condoms, the other half never.
The chance that a girl's partners _both_ use
condoms (assuming she has no control) is
only 1/4, so you'd expect 75% of girls to
suggest having unprotected sex sometimes.
If girls have more than partners, the
number goes up.
So: if boys control condom use, and are
regular in their habits (use or don't use),
we should expect numbers like those reported
unless the girls are strictly monogamous.
It's more of an empowerment issue than
a statistical suspicion one.
Speaking as a mathematician tasked to teach
statistics to PhD students...
--TP
10/22 |
rather suspicious math- not at all. it just means that guys who dont wear condoms get laid more often. in other words the article seems to be saying if you want more sex leave the jacket at home.
--RR
10/18 |
That 50% of the teenage girls reported sex without condoms compared to 42% of the boys mathematically hints that the girls who don't use condoms sleep with more of the boys who don't use condoms than the girls who do use condoms sleep with the boys who do use condoms. Which is scary in itself. Or, the survey screwed up and counted lesbians, who don't use condoms in sex all that often. Statistics are fun.
--JCF
10/18 |
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