In Brazil, my native country, names are entirely up to the parents; all kinds of strange spellings abound, too. There have been even some specific trends, such as giving a child some combination of the names of the parents, a bit like Brangelina, I guess. So my grandfather's name, Anclotinato, was a combination of his parents' names -- An from Antonio, Clot from Clotilde, plus 'nato' being Latin for 'born'. He much preferred to use his family name. But it's not difficult to find others like Laurilda (Lauro + Hilda), Guigela (Guilherme + Angela), Denário (Denise + Mário) and Robildo (Roberta + Hilda, with the final vowel changed to "o" because it was a boy, not a girl), to mention just those I met at school.

Mostly they did OK -- they just came up with better versions of their own names for themselves (Robildo became Robby, Guigela became Gel) or normal nicknames. I don't think it caused traumas.

But some other names looked so exaggerated that I cannot resist thinking that at least these should be outlawed. I can't imagine it was good growing up with them. From a list I saw in a Brazilian newspaper a few weeks ago, here are some that I thought wouldn't be difficult for non-Portuguese speakers to appreciate:

Females: Paleozoica da Silva, Maria Bastarda, Ana Nana Ananias, Venezuela Boliviana da Silva, Ovariana Falopio, Lasagna Olivia, Panaceia Aires, Coronaria Ventricula, Medula Ossea (Portuguese for 'Bone Marrow'), Angela Sioux Comanche Apache.

Males: Vinyl Diesel, Obtuso José, Tigre Felino, Gentleman Welcome da Silva, Osteoporoso Narcotico, Antonio da Vasectomia, Clítoris Andrade, Atelier da Arte Batista, Croissant de Lisboa, Satan Belzebu de Deus, Sensodyne Samsung.

OK, there's a lot of aggressive emotion going on in this thread. I'll limit myself to a few points that I think highlight the essentials.

1. Kate indeed has jumped to conclusions in assuming a pharma-funded study is biased. The peer review process and the desire of scientific journals to keep their reputations does go against that, and, though Canukistan Bob's remarks about problems in the process being true (I'm currently reviewing two papers for two different journals in my area, and I regularly read several other journals; I am aware of all the problems), it still is the best method I know to allow a free and well-informed discussion of facts, results, opinions, and ideas. Bias from funders would have to run really deep -- involving at least the journal itself and the reviewers, and possibly many more, since any specialist is free to criticize the studies. (And that, assuming that the funding for the whole research came from a big pharma industry -- it would seem that only one of the researchers actually had a relation with them. Or is that wrong? I haven't read the original paper.)

2. Kate should indeed have read the paper, and not relied solely on Graham. I understand the demands of time, bloggers probably have to produce a lot of material, etc. etc. etc.; but to make such important claims -- obvious bias in the interest of big pharma, etc. -- without having read what actually was said does not strike me as fair play. (In case she did read the paper, why rely on Graham's take on it so much?) Besides, papers and results stand or fall depending on their scientific merits (how well they fit the facts, what problems there are with the methodology, etc.), not on who funded them.

3. Is a phone survey a bad idea? Well, yes, mostly because of several of the reasons that were mentioned above (in short: people can lie, for a plethora of reasons). Also, this study would actually measure the women's opinions about themselves, not necessarily their deviation from some average of female libido. But if such studies are seen as a first assessment of the problem, there is no big problem. Of course, more detailed studies are necessary -- Canuckistan Bob has suggested some of the possible parameters of variance, and others could be added that need to be accounted for -- and it may be that future studies will show that the results of the first one are actually flawed. But, as far as I could see, the study did not purport to be 'the last word' on the issue, or to have 'proved' anything. Laumann's speculations are indeed speculations, especially because the study is not

4. What if it were true? Kate seems to assume that this would be an argument against women wanting sex as much as men. This is not necessarily so: there are lots of reasons why women, especially married women, might feel a drop in their sexual appetites (as a married man, I can testify that both my wife's and my sexual appetites have decreased significantly after the birth of our first daughter; too little time left... the appetites seem to come back after a couple of days when our daughter spends a few weeks' vacation time with her grandparents, as is the case right now :-). Which indeed brings up the point of whether or not men experience such decreases, especially with age. In fact, Kate is right in saying that it would be good to see a similar study done on men (it wasn't the goal of the authors of the original study, so I won't fault them for that, but I certainly agree that I'd like to see a study on men, too).

5. But let us assume, in the worst(?)-case scenario, that women do really in average want less sex than men (statiscally speaking, with a good bell-shaped curve showing that there are lots and lots of exceptions, etc.). Is this in itself bad, or sexist? Are the stastistical differences between men and women in, for instance, height (men are usually taller) or longevity (women usually live longer), also sexist or bad? Aren't they simply facts in need of an explanation, preferably without political agendas behind them?