Why is the distribution of the number of sexual partnerships power law distributed? - Quora

I'm going to begin my answer with a somewhat detailed discussion of power law distributions, as Googling the quote cited in the question returned an article which hinted at a mechanism called preferential attachment. See: http://books.google.com/books?id=6LvQIIP0TQ8C&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=%22We+find+that+the+cumulative+distribution+of+the+number+of+different+sexual+partners+in+one+year+decays+as+a+scale-free+power+law%22&source=bl&ots=v8cMpVeoAN&sig=H03q18h2Hf06j8jhRUn5yhCr2jg&hl=en&ei=ga8eTfX9LY-8sQPl2JmMCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22We%20find%20that%20the%20cumulative%20distribution%20of%20the%20number%20of%20different%20sexual%20partners%20in%20one%20year%20decays%20as%20a%20scale-free%20power%20law%22&f=false Skip past to the "Sexual Relations" half if you are disinterested my discussion of power laws. Power Laws and Preferential Attachment: Power law relationships are notable because they are scale-invariant. An exponential or Gaussian di

I'm going to begin my answer with a somewhat detailed discussion of power law distributions, as Googling the quote cited in the question returned an article which hinted at a mechanism called preferential attachment. See: http://books.google.com/books?id=6LvQIIP0TQ8C&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=%22We+find+that+the+cumulative+distribution+of+the+number+of+different+sexual+partners+in+one+year+decays+as+a+scale-free+power+law%22&source=bl&ots=v8cMpVeoAN&sig=H03q18h2Hf06j8jhRUn5yhCr2jg&hl=en&ei=ga8eTfX9LY-8sQPl2JmMCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22We%20find%20that