400 plus words of snark before we get to this "All sarcasm aside". The rest of the article is about 150 words. Why? Where is the editor?

And what do we get in the snark?

A new study, conducted by Loyola Marymount University, has found that 71 percent of (presumably heterosexual) college women overestimate the amount of alcohol their boyfriends and dates would like them to consume. About a quarter assumed men would like them to knock back five or more cocktails on a given night. But, as it turns out, the average guy would rather see his lady friend drink approximately half as much as the women estimated.

Here is the classic Broadsheet writer reporting on the reporting of a study. If you want to know if they are heterosexual read the damn study yourself. How can a news agency as large as salon not have access to medical journals?

According to the study's lead author, Joseph LaBrie, "The message to college girls is: Hey, your perceptions about what you think men want in a date, a friend or a sexual hookup are not very accurate." Uh, thanks, Professor LaBrie. Your revelation has changed the way I think about men, women and alcohol forever.

Oh snap you got him, you go girl. If you read the damn survey which is 6 pages and available for free you would know why they looked into the subject. College age males numbers of heavy drinking is dropping while female rates are raising and they are trying to find out why.

Pardon my sarcasm, but didn't we learn, just a few months ago, that women's binge drinking could be blamed on the excesses of feminism?

Well since that article is about an editorial and this one is an actual study they are worlds apart. It is ironic that Salon bashed Bush for being anti-science yet broadsheet is as anti-science as any religious fundie.

And now we're supposed to believe that ladies are overdoing it at the bar because they're trying to impress their dates with unseemly levels of intoxication? Well, which is it? Are we drinking because we're liberated or because we're oppressed?

Well read the damn study before giving your ignorant ass reply maybe you find out. It answers some of the questions you have. But you go on feeling empowered by your ignorance because you told those nasty male scientist off.

As LaBrie tells it, women drink "in pursuit of intimate relationships and positive attention from their male peers." And here I thought my occasional night at the bar was about relaxing with friends or breaking the tension of a rough day at work when, in reality, I've just been drinking to please my boyfriend. Shows what I know! But, to be fair, maybe LaBrie isn't talking about me. As he kindly allows, "While not all women may be drinking simply to get a guy's attention, this study may help explain why more women are drinking at dangerous levels." See? Not all of us drink to look sexy... but the ones who don't are exceptions that prove the rule.

If you are going to use an idiom at least use it correctly. Again since you have not read the study yourself you have no idea what the study actually showed. It answers most of your questions.

Of course, the study manages to get in a swipe at pop culture, too. Here's a sentence I never thought I'd see in an academic article: "When it comes to drinking college men are not looking for the girl gone wild." Aha. So that's what this is about. LaBrie is just looking out for all those poor co-eds who have been brainwashed by soft porn and the antics of Britney, Lindsay and Amy Winehouse.

That quote does not appear anywhere in the actual survey. That quote according to a live and google search comes from a headline written about the article from the website Physorg. No one at all involved in the study actually said anything about pop culture. This is hack writing in the extreme.

All sarcasm aside, LaBrie's study includes a few fairly offensive assumptions. For one thing, it presumes that women act the way they think men would want them to. I feel compelled to point out that just because a lady believes her date would like her to binge drink doesn't mean she's actually going to do it.

Do you know what else is offensive assumptions evolution to fundamentalists. Just because something is actually happening like say male college students drinking less while female college students drinking more and lets go on to say that the average female gets drunker at the same amount of BAC as an average male does not make it anything other than a fact. Trying to find out why is not offensive what is offensive is believing in an ideology so much that you ignore anything that contradicts it.

And here's a thought: Most college students drink. There is, in fact, a great deal of pressure on campus -- for both sexes -- to get wasted. So when you ask a college girl how much she thinks her date would like her to drink, she may overestimate. I'm willing to bet, though, that if you also asked her how much she thinks her female friends would want her to imbibe on a girls' night out, you'd get a similarly inflated number.

Actually most of what you said is a fact is nothing more than bullshit that is not backed with facts. The number of kids that drink heavily in school is very small. If there is indeed great pressure to get wasted the majority of students don't go along. Actually no, the study shows that females believe it is males that want them to drink more not there female friends.

I want my star for actually doing the job of editor.