Are you getting enough bedroom action? Lady Friday’s got the lowdown on what’s normal and what ain’t.
Most frequent question I’m asked? Hands down, it’s this: ‘How many times a month do normal couples have sex?’
Answering this is a bit like calculating the average attractiveness of Hugh Jackman on a daily basis – virtually impossible and kind of silly. Sex is not on the food pyramid. There isn’t a certain quota of meat and two veg (so to speak) to be filled each month. Sorry.
Every couple’s different – but if you’re really concerned that you’re lying far outside the curve, read on.
Durex, kind souls that they are, survey sexually active couples every year, as does the Kinsey Institute, named for Alfred Kinsey (or Liam Neeson in the film Kinsey, to the rest of us).
So what’s normal? It depends – on where you live, your age, and your marital status.
The French and the British, according to Durex, have the most sex, with a nationwide average of 2.7 and 2.3 times per week, respectively. We Australians, alas, come in a solid 16th, at less than twice a week – though we’re number one in the world for sex outside. Guess it’s that balmy Aussie weather.
The good news? Being married is infinitely better for your sex life than being single. All those doubts about marriage equalling bed death can be dismissed right now. A third of married couples report having sex 2-3 times per week, and 7% report having more than that!
Going by Marital Sex Statistics at About.com, though, if you’re living with somebody with no ring on your finger, you get the best deal. You can look forward to an average of 146 times per year. Compare that to what happens if you’re single: it’s an average of 49 times! This is probably why Maxxx Black does such good business.
If you’re between 35 and 45, though, you’re in luck – you get the highest proportion of sexual action of all the age groups. Guess the Sex & The City girls were onto something after all.
Want something more global, ladies? Worldwide, the norm for sexual activity is between 100 and 120 times per year (it changes from year to year). That’s between 3 and 4 times a week. Everybody really is doing it.
And in the past year, 90% of sexually active men and 86% of women have had sex – so if you’re feeling like you’re the only one on earth who isn’t, you’re wrong, but not by much.
Getting past all this numbers business, ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’ are very relative – and only you know when you’ve reached either point. But if your partner stubbornly insists that six times a week or once every six months is ‘perfectly normal’, print out this page and prove ‘em wrong!
Lady Friday xx
Taking pillow talk out of the bedroom, every Friday…
Image courtesy of Indiareport.com
