There are 130 pages of it, most densely packed with statistics and the remainder couched in the kind of language that only the most erudite and obsessive of researchers could find remotely arousing. But the most comprehensive national survey of Americans’ sex lives for nearly two decades — arguably the most revealing since Alfred Kinsey’s two now-celebrated reports some 60-odd years ago — throws up some fairly intriguing findings. And, as always with this kind of behavioral thing, if it’s happening in the US, it’s more than likely happening in other countries too.
More than we ever used to, for example, we fancy a bit of this and a bit of that (or at least, we’re prepared to own up to it). Not that we indulge in all 41 possible combinations of sex acts enumerated by the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, published on Tuesday in a special issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, every time we have sex. But we do seem to be getting considerably more adventurous: of the five basic acts identified by the study (penile-vaginal intercourse or PVI, solo masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral sex and anal sex), more than 6 percent of men aged 25 to 29 claimed to have indulged in each and every one the last time they slept with someone.
Well that, you may object, doesn’t prove much. There will always be a small proportion of sexual acrobats (or men who think they are). But how to account for the 16 percent of women aged 18 to 24 who reckoned they used four of the five techniques the last time they had sex, or the 8 percent of women aged 50 to 59 who said the same thing?
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
“The findings demonstrate the enormous variability that occurs in the sexual repertoire,” concludes Debby Herbenick of Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion, a leading author of the study of 5,865 US residents aged between 14 and 94. So while “vaginal intercourse was still the most common sexual behavior” among adult men and women, more of them than ever before reported experiencing what the researchers romantically refer to as “sexual events” that did not feature any actual intercourse at all.
Herbenick puts this down mainly to “evolving and varying definitions of what it means to have ‘had sex.’” In other words, behavior that was once considered mere foreplay, a kind of precursor or accessory to the main event — the starter, if you like — is increasingly becoming the main course. (And it is worth pointing out that the statistics above refer only to the respondents’ last sexual experience, not necessarily to what they get up to when they are really setting out to have a good time).
Half a century ago, the writer Somerset Maugham opined that there is “hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.” He may, finally, be right. The study doesn’t delve much into the reasons why sexual behavior is evolving in this way. (Indeed, it may have ended up with some even more evolved behaviors — and probably a far larger number of sex act combinations — had it chosen to ask its respondents about their use of sex toys and pornography, which it didn’t.) The missionary position may not quite have died a death, but it’s certainly no longer the beginning and end of what we now consider as sex.
Oral sex, for example, has become positively banal. Some 88 percent of men aged 30 to 39 have performed oral sex on a woman, 69 percent of them in the last year. Likewise, nearly 20 percent of boys aged 16 to 17. More than half of all women surveyed said they had received oral sex from a male partner in the previous year, while 12 percent of women aged 14 to 15, 23 percent aged 16 to 17 and well over half of those aged 18 to 49 said they had given a male partner oral sex.
Masturbation, likewise, is universal. Between 28 percent and 69 percent of men in each age group reported having masturbated alone during the past month; and solo masturbation emerged as the most common sex act among 14 to 24 year-old men and the over-50s. Among women, more than half aged 18 to 49 said they had masturbated alone in the previous 90 days, pretty much regardless of whether or not they were in a relationship. Nearly a quarter of all women said they had engaged in mutual masturbation with a male partner in the previous month.
More surprisingly, perhaps, the reported rate of anal sex has also increased dramatically, effectively doubling since the National Health and Social Life Survey was carried out by researchers from the University of Chicago in 1988. That study suggested around 12 percent of American women in the 25 to 29 age group had experienced anal sex in the last year; that figure has now risen to 21 percent (and also applies to the 30 to 39 age group). Some 20 percent of American 18- to 19-year-old girls have had anal sex at least once in their life, the new study shows, rising to more than 45 percent among 25- to 29-year-olds.
Same-sex activity also appears to be on the rise, or at least less taboo (rather than through face-to-face interviews, the new survey was carried out online, a method believed to encourage more open and honest responses). While only about 7 percent of men and women identified themselves as “other than heterosexual,” far more said they had engaged in some form of sexual activity with a member of the same sex. Nearly 15 percent of women in their 30s, for example, reported having performed oral sex on another woman at least once in their lifetime, while 13 percent of men over 40 said they had done the same to another man and 50 percent of men aged 50 to 59 said they had received it.
While we may be doing more stuff, though, we are not necessarily talking about it. According to Jocelyn Elders, the former US surgeon general, American society continues to view sex “primarily in negative terms”; she has used the report’s evidence to argue for a more “open, frank conversation” in American society.
“We have a sexually dysfunctional society because of our limited views of sexuality and our lack of knowledge and understanding concerning the complexities and joys of humanity,” Elders writes in an introductory paper to the report. “We must revolutionize our conversation ... to a discussion of pleasure.”
Perhaps the most notable consequence of this expanded smorgasbord of sex does, though, appear to be that the whole business has become more pleasurable for women. While men were, on balance, more likely to reach orgasm during vaginal sex, women reported they were far more likely to if their partners adopted more than just one of the five basic techniques — and nearly 90 percent said they did so when they or their partner used all five. (More disturbingly, a startling number of women — almost a third — reported experiencing some form of genital pain during their most recent sexual encounter, against just 5 percent of men.)
Not that this more varied sexual diet and greater degree of female sexual satisfaction has done much to reduce the problem of what researchers call “the orgasm gap”: in other words, the number of women who actually experience orgasm during sex, as opposed to the number of men who think they do. The study reports that 64 percent of women indicated they had reached orgasm in the course of their most recent “sexual event,” whereas a fairly staggering 85 percent of men reported that their partner had done so during their most recent encounter. Some, of course, may have been having sex with other men, but that can hardly account for a 21 percent difference in perception.
There was more reassuring news, though, for those who fear that amid growing concern about teenage sexual development — much of it linked to mobile phone “sexting,” social networking Web sites such as Facebook, and computer-based instant messaging services — very few young American teenagers seem to be having physical sex with anybody apart from themselves. Of the 14- to 16-year-old boys and girls surveyed, only around 10 percent said they were engaging in any kind of sexual activity with a partner — whereas 62 percent of boys, and 40 percent of girls, in the same age group said they had masturbated on their own during the last year.
The highest rate of condom use (the study was funded by the manufacturer of Trojan condoms) was also found to be among 14- to 17-year-olds. Nearly 80 percent of the boys and 69 percent of the girls surveyed said they used a condom the last time they had sex, against 25 percent for all the men in the study, leading the researchers to conclude that condom use had now become “the norm” among teens. Rates of condom use among black and Hispanic males were also considerably higher than among white men, perhaps showing that HIV-AIDS awareness campaigns in these communities, where the disease is proportionately more prevalent, were making progress. “Our findings also show that condoms are used twice as often with casual sexual partners as with relationship partners, a trend that is consistent for both men and women across age groups that span 50 years,” Herbenick said.
Cheering findings, too, for the over-60s: both men and women continue to be both active and adventurous in bed between the ages of 60 and 69, with 38 percent of men and 25 percent of women indicating they had been given oral sex by a partner of the opposite sex at some stage during the previous 12 months. Past 70, 19 percent or men and 8 percent of women reported they were still enjoying regular oral sex as part of their overall sexual activity. Somerset Maugham, one imagines, would be thrilled.
The expert’s view on the “orgasm gap”
By Linda Blair
The Guardian, London
I am not surprised by the results that 85 percent of men said the last person they slept with had an orgasm, but only 64 percent of women said they did. Men can’t hide it when they orgasm — it’s an easy one to verify — but with women, it’s not so easy, at least not with all women.
From what I have heard clinically, there are a couple of things going on here. Many men just assume women have orgasmed and don’t ask. It takes a confident man to ask his partner “How does it feel for you?” or “Can I do anything better?” It is putting a woman’s pleasure and satisfaction before his own.
But there is also the fact that women are still socialized and raised to please. It is easier for a woman to say nothing if it is not working, and then wait for it to be over. The woman may also be thinking ahead, and trying to prevent problems in the future by not saying anything — in case he gets anxious, in which case, neither of them will have any fun.
There is also the slight possibility of some women reporting different kinds of orgasms when they are masturbating compared to when they are having sex — and may only call the feeling they get during masturbation orgasms. But there is violent disagreement among psychologists about this.
If couples are having problems, I always urge them to go for a romantic meal out to talk about sex, where they are under no pressure to actually have any. It makes it easier to be honest and results in interesting information that they can then bring to another session of lovemaking. In the end that’s much better sexually for the couple.
In the West, there is too
much emphasis on results not process. We focus on penetration and orgasm because of our goal-orientated culture. This mind-set does not bring happiness — and that’s why my clinics are always full. In long-term relationships where the initial passion has simmered down, it’s not about the result,
it’s about the pleasure.
This is a large survey, but people always try to please and give the “right” answers, so I am a bit skeptical about whether we can ever get really accurate information about something so personal. When
it’s online, there is no one
there to question it. So I would say read the survey with amusement and then take your partner out to dinner and have a good talk about sex.
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