Researchers from the University of Indiana just released results after compiling the largest survey in decades of U.S. sexual behavior. Researchers documented sexual experiences and condom use by 5,865 Americans, aged from 14 to 94.
Results are from The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, which was published yesterday in a special edition of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. In fact, there was so much interest in the study that the website that posted it crashed today.
The most shocking revelation in the survey may be its reminder how little attention scientists in this country pay to this crucial dimension of human experience.
The survey is the first comprehensive study of sexual and sexual health-related behaviors undertaken in nearly two decades, and one of only a handful conducted since the pioneering but limited studies Alfred Kinsey published more than half a century ago.
This paucity of research helps explain the "sexually dysfunctional society" former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders bemoans in her introduction to the new study. The voluminous data also should help everyone from parents to legislators make more informed decisions about a component of behavior that now impacts nearly a third of this country's health care expenditures.
What researchers found was both expected and surprising. Broadly, the survey results confirm that humans are sexual beings from cradle to grave and that Americans are sexually active for an ever greater portion of their lives. The results show that oral sex and masturbation are now prevalent across nearly every age cohort from 18 to 92, and that a wide range of practices once considered abhorrent are commonplace among Americans of every age, sexual orientation and relationship status.
Not surprisingly, researchers found a gender gap and a generation gap in the sex lives of Americans.
The survey results should particularly interest doctors studying sexually transmitted infections, which affect one in four women between 14 and 19 years of age, and unintended pregnancies, which account for more than half of all pregnancies in the U.S. Those results indicate both the efficacy of expanded sex education (sexually active teenagers are now more likely to use a condom than their Baby Boomer counterparts) and its limitations (more than 40 percent of such teenage condom users report starting sex without a condom).
"Our main point is that sex is more than just vaginal intercourse. While it does appear to be the most common behavior...many people are being diverse in their sexual lives," said Michael Reece, director of Indiana University's Center for Sexual Health Promotion and a study author.
It will also come as no surprise, that men continue to think they perform better than they really do in the bedroom. Some 85 percent of men said the last woman they slept with had an orgasm during their most recent sexual event. Yet when the researchers asked women the same question, just 64 percent agreed.
To me, this so-called “orgasm gap” means that sadly some women are continuing to “fake it” with their male partners. Apparently, the technique made famous by the movie Harry Met Sally
remains in place.Unfortunately, this behavior is being blamed by the “experts” on men stopping at pleasing themselves, without ensuring that their female partner is also satisfied. To illustrate the point, the study found that men are more likely to orgasm when sex includes vaginal intercourse, while women are more likely to orgasm when they engage in a variety of sex acts (also NO surprise.)
I find that analysis annoying, to say the least, and inappropriately anti-male. I think men are much more apt to try to satisfy their female partners in this day and age, but we women still have problems articulating our needs.
To me, both sexes need to do more than touch – they need to talk. Men need to learn the real, physical signs of orgasm in women so they won’t be fooled, and women need to tell men how they like, and need to be touched and try not to fool them. If women do not know how their individual bodies responds, then they need to do some personal research to find out, then convey that crucial information to their partners.
Extensive research confirms that most women orgasm more easily with a combination of sexual activities, more extensive foreplay and if intercourse is included, stimulation of the clitoris should also be included. A minority of women have been found to orgasm with intercourse only – and that has NOTHING to do with their male partner, but their own anatomy. Other researchers have found that the only nerve centers in the vagina extend only about three inches in, beyond that, there is no sensation.
Some good news from the new survey is that teenagers are much more vigilant about condom use, if they are having sex at all. The survey also found that a majority of teens are not having sex. Of course, all of the findings are based on self-reporting.
Among sexually active teenagers, boys said they used a condom 79 per cent of the time, while girls reported that their partners used one 58 per cent of the time. Again, an interesting gender difference.
• Friends with benefits? Nearly 17 percent of men ages 50 to 59 reported their last sexual experience was with a friend (compared with 13 percent for those 18-24). For women, 16 percent of those aged 18-24 said their last sexual experience was with a friend, compared with nearly 10 percent for those aged 50 to 59.
• Seven percent of women and 8 percent of men identified themselves as something other than heterosexual. Five percent of women identified themselves as lesbian or bisexual and just under 7 percent of men identified themselves as gay or bisexual.
• About 40 percent of men and women ages 25 to 39 say they have vaginal intercourse a few times a month to once a week.
• About 10 percent of women ages 18 to 39 masturbate alone two to three times a week. One in five men age 25 to 29 said they masturbated four or more times per week.
• About a third of young men 16 to 17 reported receiving oral sex from a female. Some 23.5 percent of young women 16 to 17 reported receiving oral sex in the last year from a male partner.
• Four in 10 men age 25 to 59 say they have engaged in anal intercourse in their lifetime; the female percentage was similar for women 20 to 49.
• One-fifth of married men in their 50s, and one third of married men in their 60s, have not had vaginal sex in the past year.
• Forty-three percent of men of all ages said their last sexual event was "extremely" pleasurable. Among women, 29 percent rated their last sexual experience as "extremely" pleasurable. About one in three women compared with 5 percent of men reported experiencing pain the last time they had sex.
The following is a commentary from Slate:
The Ass Man Cometh
Experimentation, orgasms, and the rise of anal sex.
By William Saletan
"A new national sex survey is out. Published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, it reveals who's doing what, with whom, and how. It clarifies the prevalence of gay sex, teenage intercourse, and oral gratification. But the big story is the increase in anal sex reported by women—and its possible connection to female orgasms.
Let's start with the foreplay: a few other trends worth noting.
1. What teens are doing. By ages 14-15, 10 percent of boys say they've had vaginal sex. By ages 16-17, the number is up to 30 percent. By ages 18-19, it's above 60 percent. For girls, the trajectory is almost identical. Oral sex follows a similar trend. At ages 14-15, 9 percent of boys say they've performed cunnilingus. By ages 16-17, 20 percent say they've done it, and by ages 18-19, 61 percent say they've done it. Among girls aged 14-15, the number who say they've given a boy oral sex is 13 percent. By ages 16-17, it's 29 percent. By ages 18-19, it's 61 percent. If you're turning 20 and you haven't gone down on somebody, you're in the minority.
2. Oral ubiquity. It's funny to look back at the previous national survey, taken in 1992. In that report, the authors marveled at the mainstreaming of oral sex. Now the whole question of its normality seems silly. By ages 25-29, eight of every nine women have performed fellatio, and half have done it in the past month. For men and cunnilingus, the numbers are only slightly lower. More people think the president is a Muslim than adhere to oral chastity.
3. Reciprocity. Women are getting as good as they're giving. By ages 25-29, 88 percent say they've received oral sex from a man, and 72 percent say they've received it in the last year. (Men confirm this: 86 percent say they've given it, 74 percent in the last year.) That's pretty close to the 91 percent of men aged 25-29 who say they've received oral sex from a woman, and the 77 percent who say they've received it in the past year.
4. Homosexuality. Apparently, a lot of people try gay sex, but only about half stick with it. By ages 18-19, 10 percent of men say they've performed fellatio. That number drops among men in their 20s and 30s. But among men in their 40s and 50s, 13 percent say they've done it, and 14 to 15 percent say they've received it from another man. Meanwhile, 11 percent of men aged 20-24 say they've received anal sex. For unknown reasons, that number declines in the next age bracket up but then steadily rises in succeeding brackets, leveling off at 9 percent among men in their 40s and 50s.
Remember, these are "have you ever" questions. When men aged 20 to 59 are asked whether they've performed fellatio in the past year, the number is more like 6 percent. And only 4 percent say they've received anal sex in that time. But that's a big jump from 1992, when only 2 percent of men admitted to sex with a man in the preceding year.
For women, the gap between trying gay sex and sticking with it is greater. From ages 20 to 49, the number who say they've performed cunnilingus ranges from 10 to 14 percent, but the number who say they've done it in the last year is more like a quarter of that.
5. Anal sex. Here's the big story. In 1992, 16 percent of women aged 18-24 said they'd tried anal sex. Now 20 percent of women aged 18-19 say they've done it, and by ages 20-24, the number is 40 percent. In 1992, the highest percentage of women in any age group who admitted to anal sex was 33. In 2002, it was 35. Now it's 46.
The last time I looked at the anal sex data, I figured that most women who reported having done it meant they'd tried it just once. I was wrong. If you push these women beyond the "have you ever" question, the numbers stay surprisingly high, and they're getting higher. In 1992, the percentage of women in their 20s and 30s who said they'd had anal sex in the past year was around 10 percent. Now that number has doubled to more than 20 percent, and one-third of these women say they've done it in the last month. Among all women surveyed, the number who reported anal sex in their most recent sexual encounter was 3 to 4 percent.
That's a lot of butt sex. And remember, this is what women are reporting. If anything, they're probably understating the truth.
So what's with all the buggery? Is it brutality? Coercion? A porn-inspired male fantasy at women's expense?
Apparently not. Check out the orgasm data. Among women who had vaginal sex in their last encounter, the percentage who said they reached orgasm was 65. Among those who received oral sex, it was 81. But among those who had anal sex, it was 94. Anal sex outscored cunnilingus.
No way, you say.
Way...
What could explain this? Taboo thrill? Clitoral migration? Some new kind of vegetable oil?
Here's my guess. Look carefully at (the data.) Only 6 percent of women who had anal sex in their last encounter did so in isolation. Eighty-six percent also had vaginal sex. Seventy-two percent also received oral sex. Thirty-one percent also had partnered masturbation. And the more sex acts a woman engaged in during the encounter, the more likely she was to report orgasm. These other activities are what gave the women their orgasms. The anal sex just came along for the ride.
So why did the inclusion of anal sex bump the orgasm figure up to 94 percent? It didn't. The causality runs the other way. Women who were getting what they wanted were more likely to indulge their partners' wishes. It wasn't the anal sex that caused the orgasms. It was the orgasms that caused the anal sex.
If anal sex is a trailing indicator of women's sexual satisfaction, then by all means, let's toast the new findings. Here's to you, Ladies. Bottoms up."
— The Curator
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