If you suspect everyone else is having more sex than you, you’re probably wrong – here’s what the data and experts actually say about how often people are really doing it
Men’s sex lives is a touchy (pardon the pun) subject. Whether you’re having loads of it, or not as much as you like, it’s hard to know what’s normal.
With this in mind, Men’s Fitness went on a mission to find out exactly what’s going on behind closed doors. We surveyed our audience on how much sex they’re really having and spoke to a sex therapist on the stigma around the quantity of sex. Here’s what we found out.
Why do we feel like we should be having more sex?
“Simply speaking, sex is lots of fun,” says London based psychosexual and relationship therapist, Bjorn Ventris. He helps individuals and couples with issues around their physical and emotional intimacy on everything from sexual dysfunction, to mismatched libido, to separation.
“There’s lots of pleasure available and it can be a form of self expression – and for many people and in a relationship, it can really be the glue that helps people feel connected.” But despite its obvious pros, there’s also a lot of shame, stigma and stereotypes around sex and how often we’re getting it.
“I think people are always very concerned about whether they’re normal or not – but everyone is different,” says Ventris. “Pressure to have sex comes from expectations – whether that’s their own, their partners or they’re trying to live up to something.”
Ventris thinks our ideas about sex often come from the media. “We’re shown in culture people having lots of sex and it being really easy for them. There are ideas of masculinity in the media, and pornography’s a big part of that. What you see is a very particular expression of male sexuality and that can create pressure.”
“Men are told that we should want to have sex at any point, at any time with anyone, and that we should have an erection straight away,” he says. “That might be true for a lot of people, but it’s also not true for a lot of people – and that’s fine!”
Sex therapist and intimacy coach Leigh Noren agrees that these pressured expectations can have a surprisingly damaging effect on libido. “There’s so many psychological and societal factors that impact libido negatively that we don’t think about,” she says. “Unrealistic sexual expectations are one of those things we don’t normally talk about, but they massively can impact your libido negatively if you feel like you’re not living up to the way you’re meant to be sexually as a man.”
According to Noren, many men tie their sexual confidence to wider ideas about success and masculinity. “I’ve had a lot of clients who don’t feel manly enough if they have low libido, maybe because they’re unemployed or they’re struggling in life and they feel like they’re not kind of living up to that ideal of what a man should be,” she explains.
And it’s not just men who suffer from these portrayals, says Ventris. “Women get sold this idea as well, so if a man they’re with doesn’t want to have sex all the time, then they can ask the question – is that about me? So all of these stereotypes are really unhelpful,” he explains.
How much sex are we actually having?
When it comes down to the numbers, the NATSAL (National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles) survey reports that the amount we’re having sex has declined since the nineties, with people having claimed to have had sex five times in the last month in 1990, four times in 2001 and three times in 2012.
Findings from surveys taken during Covid-19 also suggested the pandemic had enormously impacted the amount we’re getting active, with one in 30 women reporting a new partner in the first four months of lockdown and one in 10 men.
On our Men’s Fitness survey of 100 readers, we asked people’s gender, age, relationship status, sexuality, and sexual activity. In the survey (of which 72% of participants were men and almost 70% of those were married), 36% reported they had sex ‘a few times a week’, 18% reported ‘about once a week’, 12.5% ‘reported ‘around once a month’, while 14% of people said ‘hardly ever’.
In the findings, only 4% of men reported having sex every day, and 5% said they had sex around a ‘few times’ a year’. This is higher than the average for all genders (shown on the chart below). It is also worth pointing out that the survey requires honesty from participants, which cannot be wholly relied upon!
Of the respondents who were gay, bi-sexual or queer, 30% reported ‘hardly ever’ having sex, while 20% said they had sex a few times a year. 10% of respondents answered ‘once a week’, 10% said ‘a few times a week’ and 10% ticked ‘a few times a year’. 20% of those respondents were in a long distance relationship or living with a partner, while 30% were married and 30% were single.
Overall, women seemed to be having slightly less sex, but perhaps because 51% were single, while only 30% were in a relationship. Of these findings, 21% said they had sex ‘a few times a week’, 15% said they had sex ‘about once a week’. Meanwhile, 15% said ‘once a month’, 15% said ‘hardly ever’ or ‘a few times a year’, and 17% said ‘once every few months’.
No normal
In short, there is no ‘normal’ when it comes to the quantity of sexual activity. As we have established, how often we’re getting ‘down to it’ is hugely affected by things like age, relationship status, sexuality, health, lifestyle and so much more.
When talking about quantity though, it’s important to consider what our definition of sex actually means. “I think people assume intercourse, but that’s quite a narrow definition,” says Ventris. What about everything from kissing, or even texting?”
“It’s also about quantity versus quality,” he says. “What about the quality of sex? Often couples are having regular sex but it’s not great, or maybe it’s OK for one partner, but not for both.”
“I think people get caught up in sex being very goal-oriented,” he says. “The best sex is kind of play, it’s a sense of fun and possibility and seeing what happens rather than just doing what works.”
Why might we experience a dip in libido?
There are countless reasons why someone’s sex drive might dip, and not all of them are physical. Stress, sleep, relationship dynamics, confidence and mental health can all play a part in how much desire we experience from day to day.
“General stress has a huge impact on our desire levels,” says Noren. “It’s not strange, right? Anxiety is meant to propel you towards other things other than sex.” She explains that even everyday pressures such as work emails, financial worries or family responsibilities can keep the body in a heightened state of stress that makes intimacy feel less appealing.
Sleep deprivation can also have a surprisingly strong impact. “Especially if you’re thinking about something that for most people is physically an exertion, like sex, you’re not necessarily in the mood to do that,” says Noren. In other words, if you’re exhausted, your libido often takes a back seat.
She also points out that timing and routine can matter more than couples realise. “When you’re in a relationship, it’s very uncommon to always want sex at the same time,” she explains. “Maybe they always want to go in the morning and you want to go at nighttime and that can be really difficult to sync up to lifestyle timeline.”
And sometimes, the issue isn’t frequency at all, but enjoyment. “The only kind of sex worth wanting is sex worth having,” says Noren. “Sometimes it is about lifestyle or relationships, and other times it’s actually about the sex itself that you’ve been having up until now and what that does with your libido too.”
So, rather than focusing purely on how often you’re having sex, it may be more useful to look at the bigger picture: your stress levels, sleep quality, emotional connection, confidence and whether the sex is actually enjoyable in the first place.
