Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Lifestyle, Sex and Relationships
Joe Harker
You there, do you think you're having enough sex compared to the average Tom, Dick or Harriet?
Comparison may be the thief of joy but the world of sex is a place where a lot of people are worried they don't measure up somehow.
There's anxiety over dimensions, proportions, positions, inhibitions and frequency but fortunately, there's been a lot of discussion on the subject to allay your fears.
There's lots of popular stuff going on behind closed doors and also plenty of misconceptions which are giving people the wrong idea about how they measure up.
Advert
One of the main areas people worry about is how often they're having sex, as there's not really an optimal number but people like to know where they stand in the rat race.
If someone said the average person had sex 54 times a year would you reckon that's a lot or not very much?
Remember, we are talking about an average here, so there's going to be a varied range in the frequency of getting freaky.
Posting a video about the unexpectedly large number, Daniel Schaal (@thatschaalfolks) said to the camera: "The average person has sex 54 times a year or so, looks like the next few days are gonna be pretty crazy for me."
Advert
Many commenters found the stats hilarious, with a fair few saying the same thing.
"I'm the reason it's not 100 times a year lol," one person who clearly understood their part in fashioning this average number said.
Another wrote: "I'm bringing down the average so you guys feel better about yourselves," and a third responded: "Well someone here must be doing it 54 extra times to make up for me."
If you're wondering where this figure of 54 bonking sessions a year comes from, the statistics hail from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour (that's an actual thing, we didn't just make them up) and a 2017 study that said the average person has sex near enough once a week.
Advert
It turns out that we live in less sexy times than we used to, as the investigation stated people were having sex less frequently than when a similar study was done in the 90s.
Another study that was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science said this amount of intercourse was actually the perfect amount for happiness.
It was conducted over 40 years and looked into the personal lives of more than 30,000 Americans, and found that any more than once a week didn't really improve happiness - although those that had sex less than once a week did report being less fulfilled.
It's nice to have a general idea of what you ought to be aiming for, isn't it?