Who Tells The Truth About Sex, Men Or Women?

If the men were telling the truth about how often they engaged in coitus and how often they used condoms, then they had to buy 1.6 billion condoms per year. If the women were telling the truth about how often they had sex and how often they used condoms, then Americans would be buying about 970,000,000 condoms per year.

Which group was telling the truth? It turns out, neither men nor women were honest with their answers to survey questions. Sales of condoms in the US are about 600,000,000 per year. That's nearly 2/3 less than men's answers suggested and 1/3 less than what women's answers suggested. At least when asked about intercourse with barrier protection, both men and women lied about how much protected sex they have.

• In the General Social Survey, single men report using an average of 29 condoms per year. If that were true, then single men would have to be traveling to foreign countries, because they would be using more condoms than all of America's married couples combined.
• A little over 10% of women aged 19 to 44 reported that they were not pregnant, not using contraception, and sexually active. If these women were having sex as often as reported, it would be reasonable to expect 10% of these women to get pregnant in any given month. However, fewer than 1% (1 in 113, to be precise) of women in this age group get pregnant in any given month.
• Married men under 65 report that, on average, they have sex about once a week. Their wives report just a little less. There are no ways to check on the veracity of what married people who are past reproductive age report to researchers, but it seems likely that these statements are exaggerated, too.

Data from online searches also suggests that Americans exaggerate their sex lives. What can Google search data tell us about the real state of Americans' sex lives? In a recent month:

• Over 3 times as many people searched for information about 'sexless" marriages as searched for information about "unhappy" marriages.
• There were about twice as many searches for "my boyfriend won't have sex with me" as for "my girlfriend wont' have sex with me."
• About 5% of American men are homosexual, and about half of them are in the closet. The more religious the state (Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana, for example), the more likely a gay man is in the closet, based on porn and same-sex dating searches. Research into the frequency of lesbian relationships is not yet available.

See Also: Why Don't We Have Libido-Boosting Drugs For Women?

Looking at these and other search data, Stephens-Davidowitz concludes that Americans have sex, typically, about 30 times a year, about half as often as they say they do. The problem, he speculates, is that people spend more time worrying about sex, seeking information about sex, and covering up their desires about sex than actually having it. Men waste time finding information about how to make their penises larger (it's possible, but it's difficult and painful), while women surprisingly often search for information on penis reduction. Women, surprisingly to older Americans, do searches for "big butts" on men, and, not surprisingly, breast enhancement.

It is better to be happy with what you have and actually to use it. Doing is better than Googling when it comes to sex.