Both men and women use their sexual behavior to keep up with cultural perceptions of male and female sexuality, a new study suggests. Men exaggerate the number of partners they have in order to get closer to the image of the “real man” – one with many ex-boyfriends and a lot of experience. Women, on the other hand, claim to have less experience than they actually do. According to Terry Fisher, a psychologist at Ohio State University, people go to great lengths to conform to stereotypes about sexuality. In this respect, they are different from other stereotypes. Researchers have found that men have a hard time admitting to some “feminine activities” such as writing poetry. Here, women are more open and admit that they sometimes resort to more masculine behavior such as telling dirty jokes. NEWS_MORE_BOX Researchers surveyed 293 college students about 124 different activities and measured how often they did them, categorizing them from never to very often. Interestingly, some of the participants are connected to a polygraph, a lie detector. In general, participants exhibited typical male and typical female behavior, regardless of whether they were tethered to the detector or not. Men, however, allow themselves to exaggerate the number of their partners when they are not connected to the detector. Women, in turn, reported fewer partners when they were not tied to the polygraph. The researchers found that gender stereotypes are perhaps the only ones that people actively strive to conform to. The research was published in the journal Sex Roles.