Men not thinking about sex constantly
9 December 2011
A common belief is that men, unlike women, tend to think about sex pretty much constantly - every 7 seconds, or around 8000 times a day, according to popular folklore.
But a US study has debunked this myth, finding that on average men only think about sex 19 times a day whereas women think about it 10 times a day (Journal of Sex Research 2011, in press).
Psychology researchers gave 283 college students golf tally counters and divided them into 3 groups to record their thoughts about food, sleep or sex over a week.
The young men did think more about sex than did the young women but they also thought more about other "biological urges" - food and sleep - compared with women.
On average, the men thought about food nearly 18 times a day, and their minds turned to sleep nearly 11 times a day, whereas for women it was 15 and 9 times a day respectively.
But there was a huge variation within each gender, with one man thinking about sex 388 times in a day and one woman having 140 sexual thoughts in a day.
Individual comfort with sexual thoughts, or erotophilia, was a bigger predictor than gender, the researchers concluded.
And sex role expectations may have masked the reality that differences in sexual thinking are slight.
Last Reviewed: 05 December 2011
- 1. Fisher TD, Moore ZT, Pittenger MJ. Sex on the brain?: an examination of frequency of sexual cognitions as a function of gender, erotophilia, and social desirability. J Sex Res 2012; 49: 69-77. Epub 2011 Oct 19. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2011.565429. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00224499.2011.565429 (accessed Dec 2011).
