Savanta Survey Signals Students' Sex Struggles

Nearly half of male university students, 45%, are confident they could label the "nubis" on a diagram of the female reproductive system.

The "nubis" doesn't exist.

This highlights at least one shortcoming in the applications of polling - people aren't great at assessing their own capabilities. To an extent, this holds for future behaviour too, and is a similar mechanism as to why hypothetical polls can often fall short. In the very least, it does cast doubt on the credentials of the 72% of men who are confident they could label the clitoral glans.

This is just one finding from a poll conducted by Savanta for Sophia Smith Galer ahead of the publication of her book Losing It. Broadly speaking, the poll points to inadequacies in the provision of sex education. Around a quarter of respondents feel school left no gaps in their sexual relations, 23% say it did and these were remedied by university yet a plurality, 38%, say neither university nor school was able to offer complete sex education.

The poll also points to one understated consequence of the pandemic. 39% of students say they had their first sexual experiences later than they would have wanted, of this group 59% attribute it primarily to the pandemic. Just 11% say it wasn't relevant.

There is a slight gender split on the extent to which universities should intervene on misogyny. More male university students think their university is doing too much to tackle misogyny (26%) than say their universities are doing too little (18%) - 36% say the current level is about enough. 32% of female students say more action is needed, compared to 29% who suggest the balance is about right. Read more on Sophia's Twitter.