Well, me, actually. A young man’s thoughts often turn to sex and now, being an old man, I find my thoughts turning to . . . thoughts of sex, in this instance curiosity about quantity, as in how many sexual experiences does a person enjoy in their lifetime?
First, to definitions, a sex act includes genital contact by the partner, whether or not orgasm occurs.
Hetero, homo, trans or whatever does not matter if the above standard is met. Thus, heavy petting without genital contact does not count but hand jobs do.
And, for our purposes, let’s tally over a 50 year period, from age 18 through age 68, the assumption being pre-18 and post-68 sexual activity would not be statistically significant.
Of course, another question would be who has more sex in a lifetime, men, or women? The sort of research necessary to resolve this matter is beyond the scope of this essay so the figures that we present are meant to be a composite of male and female sexual frolicking.
Does masturbation count?
Only if 2 parties are involved.
As all data must be gathered from the participants themselves, how can we be sure that they aren’t inflating or deflating their sexual actions? I would guess men would be more likely to inflate the number of such encounters, women not so much
Ok, 50 years, let’s break this into decades and let’s assume action in this arena gradually declines over each 10-year span. I’ve arbitrarily decided to use a starting figure of 2.5 “do its” a week but you can easily adjust the figures to arrive at your own conclusion.
No matter what, tote em up. 50 years of sex comes up to a lot of these delightful episodes!
18-28 2.5x/week 130/yearl1,300/decade
28-38 2/week 104 1,040
38-48 1.5/week 78 780
48-58 1/week 52 520
58-68 .5/week 26 260
Total 3,900
So am I doing “IT” enough? Or not enough? How much is enough and how much is too much? Yes my goodness the subject of human sexuality has been studied extensively since it became socially OK to talk openly of such matters following the releasee of the Kinsey Report.
Here’s what the official site has to say about the significance of the studies:
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953) are known collectively as the Kinsey Reports. Together, they sold nearly a million copies and were translated in 13 languages. The Kinsey Reports are associated with a change in public perception of sexuality and considered part of the most successful and influential scientific books of the 20th century.
https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php
And here’s the link to the Widipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports
You’d think this would be a simple research quest but try entering sexual frequency by age and see what happens.
And of course, there’s the question of credibility of the various studies.
ell, here’s what you find at hims.com
In their 20s, people have sex an average of more than 80 times a year, or slightly more than once every five days. By the age of 45, people have sex an average of 60 times per year, or just over once a week. By age 65, most people have sex around 20 times per year, or less than one time every two weeks.Apr 20, 2023
And from Pilot
How often do couples have sex?
There isn't really a right answer for how much sex people should be having. There are a lot of factors that go into sexual frequency and sexual intimacy. But, a 2017 study conducted with 26,000 people from 1989 to 2014 found that the average amount of sex was 54 times per year which is about once a week [2]. Ho
Another study conducted found that 31% of couples have sex a few times per week, 28% of couples have sex a few times per month and 8% of couples have sex once per month. 33% of couples either never have sex or rarely have sex
So, there's a huge spectrum of responses to this question (and no single clear answer either).
The average amount of sex people have in part depends on age group. Data from the Kinsey Institute research team found that American adults in the 18-29 age group have sex 112 times per year. In the 30-39 age group, couples have sex about 86 times per year and over 28% of 45-year-olds have sex once per week.
For men, testosterone levels are highest in their 20s when their sex drive is the highest. Over time, testosterone levels drop, and this can lower their sexual desire and therefore impact your sexual frequency.
In your 30s, testosterone levels drop by about 10%, which can lower your libido and your sex drive tends to drop 1% per year until your 40s [5].
On the flip side, for women in their 30s, their sex drive reaches its peak, which can cause issues in a couple's sex life. On top of that, some men in their 40s begin to experience erectile problems.
For men in their 50s, 60s and 70s, sexual activity drops a lot more because of a bunch of changes happening to their bodies where men experience poorer quality erections, reduced ejaculate volume and lowered sexual functioning in general.
And BedBible.com has great tables and charts and they say on average over the 50 years people have sex 3.9 time per month
So, let’s do the, math
3.9x12x50=2,340 “Do its” during that 50 year span.
I could go on (and on) but the climax to all the above is that men and women will have several thousand sexual experiences in their lifetime. And it’s comforting to learn that many men and women in their 70s and even 80s continue their frolicking albeit at a reduced level.
So, as the song says, “Let’s get it on”!