Social Question

Charles's avatar

How often do you and your husband or wife make love?

Asked by Charles (4826points) December 31st, 2011

I was wondering what the average is.

What age are you and how often?

I’ll start. Me 50, she 41, probably an average of 2*pi – 1 times per week averaged over a year or about 280 times per year.

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71 Answers

Earthflag's avatar

WHOA that’s a lot. I just imagined my parents… :/
I’m not married yet, but if I were, probably everyday. Morning once, night twice.

comity's avatar

Six times a day, on week-ends 7 and on holidays 8. At 75 and 76 years of age whadda ya think and what’s it to ya? ; )

cookieman's avatar

With a little girl who magically ends up sleeping on the sofa in our room most nights…not as often as I’d like. :^(

Furthermore, my wife’s new job is very stressful and tiring. She’s usually in the door at 7PM and asleep on the couch by 8:30PM.

:: sigh ::

tan253's avatar

hmm wow that is a lot I think!
I’m in my 30’s and yeah it’s personal question but an interesting one – probably on average 5 times a week – there was a period when it was 1 a month – but we went to therapy ;)

SavoirFaire's avatar

Normal times: once a day.
High stress times: two or three times a week.

She is in her mid-twenties, I am in my late-twenties.

RealEyesRealizeRealLies's avatar

With them? Or with the secret squeeze?

FutureMemory's avatar

I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to discuss this topic with anyone other than their spouse. Is nothing sacred anymore? Sheesh.

RealEyesRealizeRealLies's avatar

maybe it’s student research?

comity's avatar

@FutureMemory I’m with you, but maybe it’s because I’m from a different generation!

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

Sometimes every day, sometimes only 2–3 times per week. It depends on what’s going on in our lives and if our kids are sick or something…

digitalimpression's avatar

I’m going to need an extended Mayan calendar for this.

RealEyesRealizeRealLies's avatar

I notice many are claiming that sexual frequency is lessened as stress rises. Shouldn’t that be the other way around? Maybe it’s difficult to go through the entire making love ritual during stressful times, but isn’t that when two trusting people are supposed to get on with the lustful meat slapping boom boom f-me sessions? Don’t know about you… but a little loveless banging can go a long long way to lowering stress.

rebbel's avatar

My bragging answer is: fourteen times a week (that is a slow week).
Non-bragging: thirteen times a week.

gailcalled's avatar

” average of 2*pi – 1 times per week averaged over a year or about 280 times per year.”

What does 2*pi mean? How do you extrapolate from that to 280 times a year?

That would mean 5.4 x per week?

john65pennington's avatar

This is too personal a question to ask or answer on Fluther.

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

I dunno, I think we’ve seen questions far more personal than this. I’d rather answer this one than one like, “What color is your poop?” :D

cookieman's avatar

Turquoise

oh…I’m sorry. that was almost pavlovian.

auntydeb's avatar

Mind your own business.
Or, not often enough, frankly.

6rant6's avatar

I love the people objecting to the question on the grounds that it’s too personal… but are obviously reading it.

Actually, I came to Fluther on the basis of a similar question. I was trying to get an idea of how people dealt with different levels of… whatever that is…

So the frequency that others enjoy placed in context of relationships, is (or was) valuable information to me.

And I’m with @auntydeb Not literally of course. But in the sense that I don’t want to talk about it, but would want to if I could brag.

comity's avatar

@6rant6 I think people are just curious as to how others on Fluther would respond to something that they find to be a bit much!!

6rant6's avatar

@comity To each his own. Isn’t that the idea?

Seems counterproductive to the community for people to answer questions with “I don’t like this question,” whether their stated reason be it’s boring, or it’s divisive or it’s too personal.

Bottom line: just because some people wouldn’t want to participate in a discussion is not a reason to think it isn’t genuinely helpful to others. Or to discourage it.

comity's avatar

@6rant6 Got it! Probably everyone over 65 can’t appreciate it ; )

gailcalled's avatar

Why would the answer to this question generate bragging rights? Is more better? Is daily better than bi-weekly? Who decides?

If your schedule suits you, your partner and your bodies, this is for you.

6rant6's avatar

@gailcalled More is better. Anyone want to back me up on this?

gailcalled's avatar

Speak for yourself, Grant. Would there come a point, even for you, when more is too much?

6rant6's avatar

@gailcalled If I looked twenty years younger than I am, I would post my picture. If I could run as far and fast as someone twenty years younger than I am, I’d do it with my shirt off. And if I could have sex as often as someone 20… or 30 years younger might aspire to, you bet I’d be bragging about it.

gailcalled's avatar

Again you are making assumptions. Which 20 year old? Do 20-year old males all have the same amount of testosterone? Do they all like having intercourse as often as possible, given an agreeable partner?

So, how much is too much. 6 times a day?

6rant6's avatar

@gailcalled You’re being hyperbolic and reductive. Not interested.

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

Look, if we’re gonna have a cat fight, let’s at least make it interesting. I’ll go make mashed potatoes to throw…

gailcalled's avatar

@6rant6 : You’re right. I am and I am. I find those who link bragging rights lto sex moderately interesting, however.

Facade's avatar

We’re not married, but we live together… Not that often. But whenever we do have sex it’s always amazing. I’d say 5–7 times a month.

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

I think it’s only personal if you think it’s personal and then you don’t have to answer these kinds of questions and move on. As to how often we have sex…I’d say around around 5–7 times a week on a good week…3–5 times on a bad week…by bad week, I mean we’re both exhausted and need sleep. Oh, I’m 27, he’s 31 today.

nikipedia's avatar

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, so if you have sex 5 times in a week, is that a good week or a bad week?

And happy birthday to your partner!

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

@nikipedia LOL, don’t know…guess it’s still good…maybe I should have said 2–4 on a bad week…it’s all good, I think…and yes, thanks! it’s his golden one.

Charles's avatar

I wonder if part B of this question should be, “Does the female ultimately control whether or not you (two) have sex?” For example, as a male, my switch is locked in the ON position. We have some friends who told us once a week was normal for them. I wonder if (actually I know, as he is a healthy guy) he wants it more and she only wants it once a week, therefore once a week it is.

http://www.charlieglickman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Differences-Between-Men-and-Women1.jpg

In fifteen years, I think there are less than a half a dozen times where I didn’t answer the bell due to either having severe flu, or a back strain requiring an emergency room visit. I can’t think of any other times.

Neizvestnaya's avatar

He’s in his 30’s and I’m in my 40’s. I like to have sex more often than he does. We have it a lot less now that we share a house with my mom than when we were in our own apt. I’ll chime in and say stress does interfere with sex. Boo stress, boo!

SavoirFaire's avatar

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies High stress times lower frequency for two reasons. If they are high stress times for me, it means I am swamped with grading/writing to do. Thus there is less time in which to have sex. If they are high stress times for my wife, it means she is working extra hours and late into the night. Thus she is extremely tired and distracted when she gets home.

@city_data_forum My wife is the one who is always on. For what it’s worth, I had an anthropology teacher who did research on the claim that men want sex all the time. He found that it is mostly false. Most men want to be having more sex than they are actually having. This leads them to think that they always want sex, but they are being misled by their circumstances. Put them with a woman who wants sex three times a day and they’ll want a break no matter how much they said in advance that they wouldn’t. Most men also lie about sex, so take the protests to this post with a cup of salt.

wundayatta's avatar

I’m 55. The possibility of having sex from 5 to 10 times a week would be wonderful. I think I masturbate that much, and I would dearly love to be making love with a real person instead of staring at porn. Sex is very important to me as a means of expression and connection with another person. If I had my druthers, I’d pretty much have a life where we could have a nice place available any time we needed it in order to make love.

The reality of my life couldn’t be too much further from the ideal. My wife and I make love between once and three times a month. I think when we were first together, we made love two or three times a week. That’s what she remembers, anyway. I thought we did it more, but maybe it is just the halo the past has.

There was a time when we had sex about three times in a year. I couldn’t take it, and it caused a lot of bad shit to happen. It ended up with me trying to have affairs and confessing to my wife and her getting all worried that there was something really wrong with me, and taking me to get diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

This got us into therapy, and we have been working on that for four years now, and things are much better. It also helps that she no longer works outside the house. She is much happier. I am much happier. But we still don’t have sex nearly as much as I would like. I don’t resent it as much as I used to, though.

I used to worry that I wasn’t getting as much sex as everyone else is. Then I found a website where people actually do talk about this stuff and found there are plenty of people living in sexless marriages. Some were even more sexless than mine.

These experiences have left me convinced that the way my culture treats sex and sexuality is highly dysfunctional. We have all kinds of taboos and rules that don’t work. We are afraid to talk about it. Nothing has changed since the days of my youth which was when the so-called “Sexual revolution” occurred. People are still shy to talk about it. Shame is rampant. Judgment is rampant.

No one will really talk about it and as a result, our culture can’t change. Why is it bad to masturbate? What is the harm of homosexuality? How are people really hurt by infidelity? What are the harms? Who experiences them?

Shame everywhere. People deny it, but then they won’t answer questions like this one. The shame is there. People will say that it isn’t shame; it’s just about privacy. I don’t buy it. I don’t think people want privacy unless they are doing something they think others will laugh at them for doing. Sex is a ridiculous thing, right? But pretty much everyone does it. Maybe not as often as they would like. Or maybe they have to do it too often. But it would be very nice to know what people are doing and whether they are happy with it or not.

Charles's avatar

@wundayatta, Post of the week for you. Interestingly, your paragraph describing sexless marriages describes my parents. I had never (in all my 50 years) even seen my parents kiss until a couple months ago – when my 89 year old mom and I had to put my 90 year old dad in a board and care.

augustlan's avatar

Not enough. We both have chronic pain issues that make just getting through the day exhausting. :(

auntydeb's avatar

One day, I hope humans can find realistic ways to express something we might know as nature. I believe it might permit individual preference, based on some personal truths, rather than external expectations or shameful judgements. Until then, something that is part of the ordinariness of so many other species lives, still confounds, intrigues and – sadly – corrupts us. The something is the attention we give to sexual activity, rather than any act itself.

cookieman's avatar

^^ What’s funny is, that’s almost exactly what my wife and I recite together before hopping in the sack.

comity's avatar

Too personal as I stated before. I can’t picture talking to someone with the same enthusiasm about politics and philosophy after he goes into details about his sex life. Hopefully, now that Twitter bought Fluther last Tuesday, the questions will be better moderated.

cookieman's avatar

“Twitter bought Fluther”?!?!

kindlyoldladysaywhat?!

cookieman's avatar

Whew! Ya scared me there.

That story is from Dec. 23, 2010. About the Fluther team working for Twitter.

Horseshoes and hand-grenades my dear. Horseshoes and hand-grenades.

comity's avatar

Oops! Then I guess the talk will continue. Have fun. Horseshoes and hand-grenades? How sweet!

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

@comity Really, what is there to politics that is more important than to sex?

wundayatta's avatar

The personal is the political. Just a little abstracted. But it all comes down to interpersonal relationships, and the most personal of interpersonal relationships is the source of all politics.

gailcalled's avatar

@comity: And it is usually a moderately comfortable political climate that allows us the physical and emotional leisure and ease to have a sex life.

Think of the lives of the 12 and 13 year old girls who are married off to older (and often nasty and sadistic men) in Iran.

FutureMemory's avatar

@Simone_De_Beauvoir + @gailcalled That member has flown the coop.

gailcalled's avatar

@FutureMemory: Interesting. I got a PM from her yesterday saying how much she loved this site and how thrilled she was to have found it by accident.

FutureMemory's avatar

@gailcalled She couldn’t take the sex questions. She had a question up in Meta last night that lasted maybe 15 minutes titled “Why so many questions about viagra, hard cocks, etc etc etc lately??”.

link

FutureMemory's avatar

Looks like the title of the question was edited. It originally had “hard cocks” in it :P

cookieman's avatar

Perhaps I offended her by correcting her statement above (re: Twitter).

6rant6's avatar

If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the bedroom.

comity's avatar

Just found another site with a little less sexual intimacy descriptions for this 75 year old. You’re all lovely, young, but I’m looking for talk that’s a little different and more akin to my generation. It’s been fun for awhile, but now it’s time to move on.

gailcalled's avatar

@comity;Although I am very lovely (as everyone will agree) I cannot be called young by anyone but a 90 year old.

I pick and choose; it’s not hard.

Would you reconsider? You bring some gravitas and balance to fluther.

comity's avatar

@gailcalled I think I’m too much of a prude. You have some who talk about their ‘hard cocks’ in detail, and other yuchy stuff Then I lose respect for them, and can’t really talk to them about other things. Another site doesn’t put generalized questions out to all. You pick the topics you want to be fed. Who whudda thought that if I checked out Viagra to see if there were bad reactions, if it worked, there would be such detailed descriptive conversations. It turned me off. So sorry!

gailcalled's avatar

Have you considered how boring “hard cocks” become if you say it more than two or three times? When my kids were little and I wanted to take a group picture, I’d get them lined up and looking dour.

Then I’d say, “Say ‘penis.’ ” It took the charge out of the word.

comity's avatar

Even Facebook is changing http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/08/02/online-censorship-no-s-x-please-were-facebook/ You have a nude ass talking about hard cocks. Something about that isn’t kosher. Enough said.

wundayatta's avatar

@comity Are you suggesting that censorship is a good thing?

I have found that I have to take care of myself on the internet. If there are things I don’t want to be exposed to (like violence and gore and icky body excrescences), then I avoid it as best I can. Sometimes they trick me and I get exposed to stuff that disturbs me, which is shocking. I’ve survived. I ask a question about it, but mostly people don’t have a problem with violence these days.

I don’t have a problem with sex. But I do with violence. Most people seem to be the other way around. I think sex and love are wonderful things. Violence is abhorrent. A lot of people seem to love depictions of violence. We’re different. What can I say.

You are also different in your own unique way, and I think it works best if you try to take care of your own self. You have to avoid exposure to what bothers you if you can. But trying to get people to protect you—that’s asking too much. We aren’t children any more. We know how to navigate this world and we know how to avoid the things we don’t like, and we know how to find the things we like. I don’t care what website you go to; you’re going to have to do that. You aren’t going to get other people to protect you the way you will protect yourself. Asking for that protection is a kind of whining. I understand the impulse, but whenever I find myself falling prey to it, I chant my little mantra: the world isn’t fair.

If I want change, I have to make it. I’m not going to be able to get people to go along with everything (or even most things) I believe in. But it’s enough to lay out my point of view. It does help people see that there are other ways to look at it. I would hope you would consider looking at these things in a more accepting way. This is very important work because noone talks about it. As a result, people get into a lot of trouble.

comity's avatar

No! I just think your kind of stuff should be better moderated. There are certain limitations in life. And, we all have to adjust to not having everything our way. If we can’t, we just have to move on which is exactly what I’m doing. By the way, I don’t see a bare ass representation on other sites.

retro8's avatar

Perhaps if you had sections: General, Social, Sexual, Just For You, Meta, it would appeal to all. I think that’s what Facebook is attempting.

wundayatta's avatar

@comity What do you mean, “better moderated?” What ideas of mine go against the terms and conditions? I encourage you to inform the moderators if there is anything I say that breaks the rules. (I just love fighting with them).~

And if you think my avatar is merely a “bare ass” than I suggest you take a closer look, and do a bit of research. There is a long and storied history to my avatar and it probably means a lot more than you’ll ever be able to figure out.

I’ll tell you this for free, though. It’s not “bare.” It’s a photoshopped image, and it is a world map (reflective of my global concerns) that has been cleverly superimposed on a topography that appears to remind you of an “ass” (reflective of my personal concerns—and also, I would add, pretty humorous). I can’t help what goes on in your head—but I hope you are aware, at this late stage in your life, that what you see is not necessarily what other people see and that what you think is not necessarily what others think.

You seem like a nice person, but your impulses towards censorship disturb me quite a bit. Like I say, when confronted with things I don’t want to see, I look away. It’s hard to imagine living in this world without developing that skill.

6rant6's avatar

@wundayatta “can’t help what goes on in your head…” Chuckle. “Can’t help it if you fell for my bullshit,” maybe.

wundayatta's avatar

@6rant6 Sigh. I am so misunderstood. Woe is me :-(

But it is not bullshit. I spent days looking for that avatar and thinking about it and trying to find something that was as close to what I meant as I could find. There are many more layers of meaning there than is revealed by a casual glance. At least to me. I know a lot of people who don’t seem to know how to go beyond a casual glance, unfortunately.

6rant6's avatar

@wundayatta My point is that you got the reaction from her that any reasonable person would anticipate. I’m not saying your bad or wrong for it (I like it). I’m just saying that you certainly have made a choice designed to affect what’s going on in her head. To assert your innocence is a tad ingenuous.

And as for looking for layers of meaning in __avatars__… please. Perhaps it’s not that they are shallow so much as that they have lives.

FutureMemory's avatar

Now Gail is talking about hard cocks! Will the madness ever end?

gailcalled's avatar

@FutureMemory: You seem to have forgotten what I say, over and over. Anything is fine as long as you don’t overuse it and bore your audience to death.

Milo called; I am almost finished memorizing the 30,000 new words I need in order to apply to my residency program at Harvard. A big vocabulary makes me more awesome than ever.

cookieman's avatar

Makes you more “gailcalled” than ever.

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