A recent straw poll in Britain suggests women there are more sexually liberated than they used to be, Reuters reported Wednesday.

According to the survey by ICM for Lloyds Pharmacy of 3,000 British women, those who turned 24 in the first 10 years of millennium had on average 5.65 sexual partners, and about 10 percent of them said they had more than 10 sex partners.

Their mothers' generation, who turned 24 in the 1970s, had on average of 3.72 sex partners. Those who turned 24 between 1960 and 1969 had slept with 1.67 people.

But although women have become more liberated, they have not necessarily become healthier sexually. Despite development in screening and diagnostic technologies, cervical cancer rates among women under 25 have not decreased, according to Reuters. Although incidence of cervical cancer among older women has dropped significantly, it has not followed the same trend among younger women. Having a freer sex life is cited as one of the factors since cervical cancer is linked to promiscuity.