It's time to take a simple self-assessment test, which the International Sexuality Description Project—a team of more than 100 scientists—has administered in 48 different countries.* The test will take less than a minute, and will measure what psychologists call your “sociosexuality"—or, what I call, promiscuity.  The higher the number, the more promiscuous you are.  You should try to honestly answer the seven questions.  And unless your sexual behavior runs toward exhibitionism, you might want to make sure that you're alone and are prepared to clear your browser history when you're finished. 

I find this test interesting because if you can measure a quality like promiscuity, then you can make comparisons. (If you want to understand how your promiscuity was calculated, go to the end of this post.) And once you can make comparisons, you can start to think about what lies behind the differences in behavior.  Have you ever wondered in which countries people are the most promiscuous, or even if promiscuity varies at all?  The International Sexuality Description Project turned up a great deal of variety in promiscuity between nations. The world average of all individuals surveyed using the promiscuity test you just took was 35. The United States is just above that at an average of 37. My country Canada is just below at 34.5. Finland though is far ahead of the pack with an average of 50.5. Other countries are far below, like Bangladesh and Taiwan, with an average just under 20.

Countries from Most to Least Promiscuous (based on Table 3 in Schmitt):

Country	Score	Country	Score	Country	Score
1. Finland	50.5	17. Switzerland	39.13	33. Belgium	32.82
2. New Zealand	47.69	18. Fiji	38.58	34. Congo, D.R.	32.43
3. Slovenia	46.26	19. Brazil	37.93	35. Greece	32.38
4. Lithuania	46.1	20. Czech Rep.	37.52	36. Ukraine	32.27
5. Austria	45.73	21. Australia	37.29	37. Romania	32.1
6. Latvia	43.93	22. United States	37.05	38. Malta	31.27
7. Croatia	42.98	23. France	36.67	39. Slovakia	29.55
8. Israel	40.95	24. Turkey	36.06	40. Lebanon	28.57
9. Bolivia	40.9	25. Mexico	35.69	41. Botswana	27.02
10. Argentina	40.74	26. Peru	34.59	42. Ethiopia	26.55
11. United Kingdom	40.17	27. Portugal	34.59	43. Japan	24.1
12. Estonia	39.95	28. Canada	34.52	44. Hong Kong	22.9
13. Germany	39.68	29. Italy	34.37	45. Zimbabwe	22.66
14. Netherlands	39.34	30. Poland	34.21	46. South Korea	22.21
15. Morocco	39.31	31. Serbia	34.21	47. Bangladesh	19.67
16. Philippines	39.31	32. Spain	33.72	48. Taiwan	19.22

As an economist, I can’t help but wonder if some of the variation in promiscuity between nations has to do with income.  I decided to see, although this is not an empirical test, whether there is a correlation between promiscuity and income.

Using GDP per capita**, I ranked the 48 countries in the survey by income per capital and found that the average promiscuity measure for the ten poorest countries was 32 while the average measure for the top 10 was 39. While there are notable exceptions of rich countries with low promiscuity (Belgium) and poor countries with high promiscuity (Bolivia), it appears that the richer countries are more promiscuous on average than poorer countries.

So why might there be a correlation between wealth and "sociosexuality"? It might simply be the case that promiscuity is a luxury that is affordable to more people in richer nations. After all, in poor living conditions, you might have other things to occupy you than seeking multiple sexual partners.

I don’t think that is the right approach, though. Within all nations there are both rich and poor individuals. If the argument held that promiscuity was the result of high incomes, we would expect high-income individuals to be more promiscuous than low-income individuals within the same country. I am not sure that is actually the case. I think that the relationship between national income and promiscuity is much more complex.