It’s an interesting question with answers that may surprise you. What is the average amount of sex married couples are having?
The short answer is, it depends on who you ask.
How often do married couples have intercourse?
There are plenty of different polls out there that lay out different statistics. Here are some of their findings:
- Newsweek magazine found in its poll that married couples have sex about 68.5 times a year, or a little more than once a week on average. The magazine also found that married couples have sex 6.9 times per year more than those who have never been married.
- According to a University of Chicago Study called “The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States,” about 32 percent of married couples have sex two or three times a week, 80 percent of married couples have sex a few times a month or more, and 47 percent say they have sex a few times a month.
- In another study, this time by David Schnarch, PhD, who studied more than 20,000 couples, only 26% of couples are having sex once a week, more likely once or twice a month.
There is No “Normal”
So, how often do married couples make love? As you may have noticed from the large variance of these statistics, it’s easy to see that there is no “normal”. In many studies, researchers and therapists said it really depends on the couple.
Each person’s sex drive is different, each couple’s marriage is different, and their daily lives are different. Since there are so many factors at play, it’s really hard to know what is “normal.” The better question to ask is, what is normal for you and your spouse? Or what would each of you like your “normal” to be?
If both of you are happy with once a week, or once a month, then it really doesn’t matter what other couples are doing. But if one or both of you aren’t happy, then perhaps you can negotiate a new normal. In most couples, one person is almost always going to want sex more, and the other is going to want sex less. It’s how you handle it in order to help both of you that will make the difference.
How Much Sex to Be Happy?
One interesting study actually looked at happiness as it related to the amount of sex. While it may seem as if the more sex the better, there actually was an amount where happiness leveled off. The study was published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and surveyed 30,000 couples in the U.S. for 40 years.
So what is the leveling off amount of sex when related to happiness? Once a week, according to researchers. In general more sex does help increase happiness, but daily isn’t necessary. Anything above once a week didn’t show a significant rise in happiness.
Of course, don’t let that be an excuse not to have more sex; perhaps you and your spouse love having it more or less often. The important thing is to communicate and figure out what works for you both. Sex can be a great stress reliever, and it can bring you closer as a couple. So if you both want more, then go for it!
Low Libido and Other Factors
What if sex isn’t even on your mind? Unfortunately, many people and even both people in a marriage either have no sex drive or something else is inhibiting them. According to Newsweek magazine, 15-20 percent of couples are in a “sexless” marriage, which equates to having sex less than 10 times per year. Other polls show that about 2 percent of couples are having zero sex. Of course, the reasons weren’t always stated—this could be due to a number of factors, of which low libido is just one.
A low sex drive can happen to both genders, though women report it more so. According to USA Today, 20 to 30 percent of men have little or no sex drive, and 30 to 50 percent of women say they have little or no sex drive. Researchers do say that the more sex you have, the more you feel like doing it.
Sex drive is an interesting thing. It seems some people are born with high or low libido, but there are many other factors that can contribute to it. How well your relationship is going can definitely be a factor, but past sexual abuse or other issues with sex over the years can be a factor as well.
How to Improve Our Numbers?
If you are wondering how much sex other people have, then it could be because you aren’t where you want to be sex-wise in your marriage. It happens. We all go through ups and downs. Times of stress, like moving, or a new baby, or illness, can all get in the way temporarily.
But if you and your partner have been on the down side for a while, and there doesn’t seem to be any major reason other than that you both just aren’t having it, talking to a marriage therapist is definitely a good option. A good marriage therapist can help you both get to the root of why sex is an issue, and offer help to bring you together again.
Beyond therapy, there are many great books about sex and marriage you and your spouse could read together to get ideas. If you are both on board and want to reconnect, why not plan a weekend getaway to jump start things?
Quality vs. Quantity
One thing to consider is the quality vs. quantity of sex you and your spouse are having. If both of you love sex when you do have it, then great! There are things you can do to have it more often, if that’s what you both often. Many researchers say to simply schedule it in. It seems robotic, but once you get started it’s anything but robotic. Scheduling it simply means it becomes a higher priority.
If your quality of sex is low, then that could be a reason why the quantity is low as well. In a marriage, sex is the tie that binds. If you experience a dip in your sexual desire, analyse whether that is due to negative feelings about your marriage, your spouse or yourself. Whatever you discover, make sure you spend time doing something constructive about it. Stop the blame game and take accountability for making things better. Also bear in mind that a good marriage therapist can also help you figure out how to improve things on all accounts.
There are lots of statistics out there that seem to tell us what is a “normal” amount of sex for married couples. But really, there is no normal. Each couple is different, so it’s up to you to determine.
Source: Marriage
