The Web of Human Sexual Contacts

Many ``real-world'' networks are clearly defined while most ``social'' networks are to some extent subjective. Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a soci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2001-06
Main Authors: Liljeros, Fredrik, Edling, Christofer R, Nunes Amaral, Luis A, Stanley, H Eugene, Aberg, Yvonne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Social networks
Webs
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Summary:Many ``real-world'' networks are clearly defined while most ``social'' networks are to some extent subjective. Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a social link. One unambiguous type of connection is sexual contact. Here we analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents \(\alpha \approx 2.4\) for females and males. The scale-free nature of the web of human sexual contacts suggests that strategic interventions aimed at preventing the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases may be the most efficient approach.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.0106507