
“0.5% of women stated they were virgins and reported virgin births” (2013) - bookofjoe
https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7102#alternate
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DoreenMichele
_Conclusions Around 0.5% of women consistently affirmed their status as
virgins and did not use assisted reproductive technology, yet reported virgin
births. Even with numerous enhancements and safeguards to optimize reporting
accuracy, researchers may still face challenges in the collection and analysis
of self reported data on potentially sensitive topics._

Years ago, I was acquainted with a public defender that told me they had a
client swearing they were not the daddy of the child in question and providing
supporting evidence of this statement by asserting "Because my dad never
fathered any children."

I think the above _conclusion_ statement is an incredibly delicate way of
saying "Wow, US sex ed has some serious deficiencies, especially in some
communities where religious values actively incentivize certain inaccurate
claims or fudging a bit about some details."

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Eliezer
"What an unusually low Lizardman's Constant!" is my first reaction here.

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rjplatte
It's also possible to become pregnant through non-penetrative sex, which may
be the case for these women.

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buckminster
Exactly. Someone who has taken a virginity pledge is more likely to have an
"everything but penetration" sex life. This is the group most likely to have
pregnancy without penetration. I'm really surprised the article didn't address
this.

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tokai
The article does address it. Just in an polite way, with a lot of jargon.

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BrandoElFollito
I honestly did not saw that anywhere (I did not review every word do it may
have hid somewhere).

Anyway, it is supposed to be a scientific article and not a Sunday church
sermon so they should use all the words. The fact that they do not lowers the
value of the article to nil.

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xkcd-sucks
I can't find a link to the ethnography right now, but the Trobriand Island
culture doesn't consider sex to be a cause of pregnancy. The reasons:

\- People 'too ugly to fuck' get pregnant anyway

\- People get pregnant who say they haven't had sex

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singularity2001
I also remember their proof: "I was fishing for 10 months therefore my wife
cannot possibly have become pregnant by having sex"

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dsfyu404ed
0.5% of women didn't understand the question.

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sudosteph
TLDR: A survey asked respondents over time both "have you ever been pregnant"
and "have you had vaginal intercourse" and some percentage, especially of
young people said "yes" to pregnant and "no" to having had intercourse which
is confusing.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any legitimate follow up to validate that
"having been pregnant" translated to actually giving birth (which to be fair,
it often doesn't in the case of miscarriage or abortion), so it's imposisble
to validate, but I'm especially skeptical given that when they asked the sex
of these "virgins" children, and 60% of the respondents claimed to give birth
to a boy. Which seems unrealistic by the odds.

Anyhow, I remember taking "health" surveys in middle school, and I can say
honestly, that many kids lie on those in the most absurd ways possible,
especially after they tell them it's confidential. I sure did because I was
immature and thought it would be hilarious if the survey taker thought 13
year-olds were doing hard drugs daily. I really doubt this is anything more
than that.

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DoreenMichele
_and 60% of the respondents claimed to give birth to a boy. Which seems
unrealistic by the odds._

Actually, that detail isn't so wild. More boys are born than girls to begin
with and 60 percent isn't crazy out of line, statistically speaking. I would
be with you if 100 percent claimed it was a boy or even, say, 90 percent. But
60 percent is not actually some wildly out of line statistic.

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sudosteph
Yeah, I looked it up and the average in developed countries seems to be 51%ish
give birth to boys. I briefly tried to find if there was a correlation between
younger mother age and likelihood of having a boy, and couldn't find any good
info to support a difference. But with a sample size of 45 virgins, I agree
it's within the margin of error, it's just weird.

My personal theory was that it corresponded with societal preferences for male
children. Ie, if someone was lying, they just say the gender of the child that
they would prefer, and more people prefer male children. But then I researched
how strong societal preference really is towards male children, and the
studies seems inconclusive, so doesn't seem like a theory worth floating
legitimately.

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DoreenMichele
My recollection is that if the first born is male, a married couple is
statistically less likely to divorce. So first born females are more likely to
be only children or at least not have any full-blooded siblings.

I've had conversations with my sons about this. Men seem to want one girl and
one boy. Women tend to care less about the gender of their children. My oldest
son has suggested this likely reflects a desire to pass on both genes. The way
that happens is impacted by the gender of the offspring for men, but not for
women.

That's all I know about gender preference in offspring and seems irrelevant to
the problem space in question.

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tropo
This is the scary thing about sharing swimming pools.

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wahern
Gene pools?

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cypherpunks01
What do DNA tests of these children typically reveal?

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izzydata
I'm not sure that is really the point. It sounds like they are trying to
understand why it is being reported. It is already well understood to be
impossible. Perhaps they were unconscious? I don't know.

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legulere
It’s not completely impossible.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Mammals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Mammals)

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izzydata
If I'm reading this right the only theoretical basis of this would result in a
female offspring? Interesting.

