Recently, the guide-to-everything-manly website AskMen.com held a survey to poll its readers about their attitudes on dating and sex, and the editors have now released their results for The Great Male Survey 2009 Edition and The Great Female Survey 2009 Edition.  Males and females were asked the same (or very similar) questions about certain topics, and the results were published.

Now, I don’t know what what validity of this survey is – after all, they had pre-set answers for each of the questions, and those answers may not have covered every possibility.  Also, they may have only had 2 women and 20,000 men respond.  But regardless of the methods they used, the results were a little surprising.  Some things that I would have expected from both men and women weren’t necessarily the case, while other aspects were no surprise.

Go ahead and check out the results if you’re interested.  Here are some of the things that I found really interesting:

• One-third of women said they didn’t believe in “soul mates”.  Even though the majority of them said they do believe in them, the most popular response was that they think “there is no such thing as a soul mate.”
• More men than women said they believed in marriage.
• In the survey, the writers phrased the prenup question in terms of trust when creating the survey for women, but didn’t mention trust in the survey for men.
• When the survey asked both men and women if they would dump their partners if they became fat, 48% of men said yes, but only 18% of women said yes.  That just goes to show just how much of a visual creature a man can be.
• The majority of both men and women thought it was a good idea to live together before marriage.
• 47% of men and 55% of women have never lied about their “magic number.”
• A majority of men think sex is crucial in a relationship, but only about one-third of women agree with them.
• When asked if they had ever fantasized about a friend of their significant other, most men said yes, while most women said no.
• 49% of women said they don’t discuss their sex lives with friends.  Really?
  
• Most women have faked an orgasm.  Again, really?  Why is that necessary?
  
• 38% of both men and women have had sex with a coworker.
• For both sexes, it seems like “no more than 5″ is the ideal “magic number.”

Interesting results, definitely.  There were a couple of questions that were as expected, though.  For example, it seems fairly intuitive that, for both men and women, the most important personality trait was “loyalty.”  Nobody wants to have someone that runs around town and cheats on them, or even flirts too often with other men/women.

Overall, it seems that a lot of the stereotypes hold true, but there are some areas where both men and women are exploring new territory.