I recently came across the observation that women with PhDs are twice as likely to be interested in a one-night stand than women with just Bachelor’s degrees. Granted, I have not done any rigorous fact-checking, but I was fascinated by the question and consider it a good thought experiment. Why would smarter women be more promiscuous?* This flies in the face of many stereotypes, such as the dry professor. Perhaps the new stereotype for female PhDs should be a cougar? Is Leslie Winkle ringing a bell?

The more I thought about this question, the more I stumbled upon the issue of experimental design. Did they ask women who had JUST gotten their degrees (thus comparing the actions/intentions of twenty-somethings vs thirty- or forty-somethings); or did they ask women of a certain age who had either a Bachelor’s or a PhD? Is there a steady increase in the likelihood to express interest in a one-night stand from Bachelor’s, to Master’s, to Doctorate? Did the data vary according to the area of study? Were the inquiries based on the ACT of having one-night stands, or on INTENTION? (This matters because anyone who has taken a psychology course can tell you that intentions are often far removed from actions.) Why didn’t they ask men, too?

Is the statement the result of a carefully thought-out experiment or an “interesting sex fact” from a cheap site online that has no incentive to offer tried-and-tested facts? An admittedly shallow internet search for papers or articles suggesting this did not yield anything. But this does not make our little thought experiment any less useful or interesting.

The toughest complication is the timing of the experiment in regards to the women’s ages. The results of an experiment analyzing women of the same age with a difference in education will very probably differ vastly from one based on women who had JUST received either degree and were thus of different ages.

Suppose the experiment was done on women of different ages who had JUST earned either degree. The first idea that comes to mind is that women with PhDs are more likely to have obtained them in a city. Having lived in an urban setting for the time necessary to earn a PhD, one would assume that the more liberal environment would, at least in theory, “loosen” up the “morals” of a more conservative woman, and “affirm” the “morals” of a less conservative one.

One could also reason that part of the differences stem from variations in priorities and differences in social structure. Women who have just gotten a Bachelor’s degree are probably either nurturing or recovering from the first love of their life (which would presumably make them less likely to have casual sex and more likely to want to settle down); a woman who has just received a PhD may be reaping the benefits of a divorce or coming to terms with the realization that she may be unable or reluctant to get married. (Not that PhDs are all incompetent in marriage.) Also, younger women are more likely to have circles of friends which are more tight-knit (regardless of whether they live the dorm life characteristic of Rice or not), whereas an older woman’s friends may be scattered across the globe and may not be indulging in such a rapid-paced social life. This also leads to the deduction that women with Bachelor’s degrees, should they want to have a one-night stand, fear the label of whore from their friends and their gossipy, Facebook-obsessed cronies; whereas women with PhDs may not have so many people around to judge them. It also helps to remember that younger people tend to define themselves more in terms of their friends.

Another possibility involves the commonly-noted observation that women’s sexual confidence  tends to grow with age, as a result, in part, of the likelihood that they have probably had more sex than their younger counterparts and therefore feel more comfortable with their bodies and with the idea of asking for sex. Quite simply, they could be wanting more sex because they are better at it.

A study at UT Austin, featured in a recent issue of Elle Magazine, found a correlation between fertility and sex drive in women: as the former decreases, the latter increases. This is thought to be the a hormonal sign to the woman’s body that menopause is coming and it is BABY-MAKING TIME, STAT! To oversimplify, PhDs are older women in the grips of their hormonal urges, which leads them to seek one-night-stands.

A much-touted statistic is that there are far fewer female PhDs than male, leading to the deduction that being surrounded by males at work makes a one-night stand more appealing. This is unlikely, however, as most workplaces (such as the average office) are dominated by men, anyway. Nevertheless, considering the high ratio of males to females leads to an interesting psychological point. If we make the safe assumption that the earning a PhD by a woman requires a significant degree of extra commitment (as compared to a man, and in terms of family-related choices, etc) one could deduce that women with PhDs are more liberal, sexually “emancipated”, less attached to more traditional societal roles – and perhaps more confident in themselves.

The above arguments more or less fall apart if we consider women of the same age. Ultimately, until I (or you) can find a paper discussing this, no one will know the truth.

One-night stands rarely have much to do with truth, anyway.

*NOTE: Yes, I know higher education has nothing to do with higher intelligence. But when I mentioned this to several people, their first reaction was always “Why would smarter women….”