London, Sept 23 : The average British adult has indirectly slept with 2.8 million people, according to a new research.

To reach the conclusion, an online calculator, that allows people to work out how many indirect sexual partners they have had based on the "six degrees of separation" theory, used data collected from more than 6,000 British adults.

The calculator has been dubbed Sex Degrees of Separation by Lloydspharmacy, which developed it to raise awareness of sexually transmitted infections, reports Sky News.

In the research, it was discovered that the average British man claims to have slept with nine people and women say they have had 6.3 partners.

As for how the ‘kinky’ device works: individuals can enter the ages of everyone they have slept with into the calculator, which then works out the average number of sexual partners for people of that age.

The process is then repeated for the next five "generations" of partner, which gives an overall total.

Clare Kerr, head of sexual health at Lloydspharmacy, said: "When we sleep with someone, we are, in effect, not only sleeping with them, but also their previous partners and their partners'' previous partners, and so on.

"It''s important that people understand how exposed they are to STIs and take appropriate precautions including using condoms and getting themselves checked out where appropriate." (ANI)