PORTLAND, Ore. – Extra pounds don’t weigh down a woman’s sex life, Hawaiian and Oregon researchers have found.

On average, overweight and obese women have the same number of male sexual partners during their lifetime and during a 12-month period as do healthy-weight women.

All groups report having sex for the first time at the same average age, about 17. In fact, women who are overweight and obese were more likely than normal-weight women to report ever having sex with a man.

Researchers came to those conclusions using a survey of 7,600 women from the National Center for Health Statistics. Once they weeded out pregnant women and those who didn’t report their weight, researchers had about 6,700 women left to study.

“Physicians and others can come in with a preconceived notion about sexual activity based on body weight,” says Bliss Kaneshiro, the study’s lead author. “This tells us we should really be treating women of all body weights equally.”

As for anyone without a medical degree who’s assumed chubby girls sit home alone on Saturday nights (and worse, told jokes at their expense) – you can stop.

Kaneshiro’s findings contrast with research by others that looked at men’s sexual behavior. Men of normal weight reported 10 more lifetime partners than obese men.

Uh, 10? Really?

That could be because obese men may struggle to attract partners, while obese women don’t. Or men might feel compelled to maintain a rocking bod to snag the ladies, while women are confident they can get some lovin’ even if they’re a little soft in the middle, Kaneshiro supposes.

Or – and stop me if you’ve heard this one before – men just might be prone to exaggerate their sexual conquests while women downplay theirs.