How often do Brits have sex?
From The Times
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Statistics from Sex & The Psyche by Brett Karh
What are the secrets of the British bedroom? Psychotherapist Brett Kahr has teamed up with the polling organisation YouGov to conduct the biggest ever survey of our sex lives. Here, in an extract from his new book, he reveals how often people have sex
and who they have it with.
The British Sexual Fantasy Research Project can claim to be more highly statistically representative of the British population at large; and, to the best of my knowledge, at the time of writing, this study constitutes the
largest published survey on the psychology of adult male and adult female sexual fantasies. There were 13,553 respondents to a questionnaire administered by YouGov, the polling organisation.
Just over 90% of the country defines itself as
heterosexual, and 3% defines itself as homosexual, less than a third of the figure usually reported for homosexuality. Of course, if one includes the self-defined “bisexual” individuals, as well as that small but still marked percentage of
people who would regard themselves as “undecided”, then we have a somewhat higher percentage for whom homosexuality may be a serious option: 8% rather than 3%.
Many people will be quite keen to know the answer to some critical questions:
“How often do other people do it? And am I getting enough by comparison? Just what is the national average?”
Contrary to what one might imagine, a very large percentage of British adults admitted having no sex at all at the
present time. As many as 18% of contemporary Britons do not currently engage in sexual behaviour with a partner, which translates to approximately 8.1 million people. This figure combines the 2% of celibate Britons who have never had sexual relations
with a partner with the 16% who have had sexual experience or experiences in the past but now live without regular sex. This cluster of 18% of behaviourally sexless Britons may well have fantasies and desires, may well masturbate or use pornography; but
these individuals do not engage in genital sex with another human being. In fact, British women have much less sex than British men: some 21% of women, as compared with 15% of men, have no sex, an amalgamation of those who have never had sex and those
who have had sexual relations in the past but do not do so at present.
For the rest of the population who do have sex, frequency of sexual contact ranges from less than once each year to two or more times a day, seven days of the week.
As
many as 32% of British adults could be classified as low sexual frequency (less than once a month) practitioners, 44% as medium sexual frequency (between once monthly and twice weekly) practitioners and only 19% as high sexual frequency (three times a
week or more) practitioners.
Most Britons have sex once or twice weekly, and most would be characterised as moderate indulgers in sexual activity with another person.
In terms of heterosexual behaviour, the British Sexual Fantasy Research
Project data reveals that the average British heterosexual male will have had actual sexual contact, defined as “oral sex”, “vaginal sex”, “anal sex” or any combination thereof, with an average of 15.64 women during
his lifetime. The typical British heterosexual female will have will have had comparable sexual contact with an average of 14.56 men during her lifetime.
In fact, approximately 1.8 million British adults will have had sexual contact with more
than 100 partners during their lifetime. Although nearly two million adults will have had intimate genital contact with over 100 other people, the vast majority of Britons have only one sexual partner in any given calendar year, with men averaging 1.18
partners per year, and women somewhat more loyal at an average of 0.7 partners per year.