[imagesource:nimagens]

Do single people have better sex lives? The answer to that question definitely depends on your marital status, and if you’re married, it’s almost guaranteed that you would think the single bros and babes are getting it on way more than you and your spouse of twenty years.

But is this really true?

There’s no ‘right’ amount of sex. Whether in the context of a relationship or not, people’s needs and preferences vary massively, but it’s still easy to wonder whether other people are doing it more often than we are.

Asking your dinner guests how many times they bonk in a week is however frowned upon in most spaces, so for the answer to this, we will likely have to turn to science again.

A study was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that showed a definite change in the sex lives of adults, namely, they were having less of it.

Adults had sex about nine fewer times per year in the early 2010s compared to the late 1990s. The researchers found that sexual frequency decreased among those in relationships (married or giving together), but not among single people.

Now this does not mean the singletons are living it up, merely that partnered people were doing it less to such an extent that it eventually matched up with the single peeps. So, kind of a bummer all around.

According to the research, married people were doing the deed 55 times per year on average, compared with 59 times per year for unmarried people. More recent data though, such as by the Center for Researching and Understanding Sexual Health (CRUSH) in 2021, showed that both groups now get the same amount of nookie.

Overall, the majority of participants in the research were having sex at least once per month, with fewer than 6 percent engaging once a day.

Amongst the married people, 35 percent reported sex one to three times per month, and 36 percent one to three times per week. These were very similar to the stats for single people, at 36 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

However, people who described themselves as actively “dating” were more sexually active, with 44 percent reporting having sex one to three times per week. This is probably the best advert for Tinder you could ever find.

Two major factors that emerged from the data were age and sexuality. Those aged between 25 and 34 were having the most sex, and bisexual and homosexual people were also getting on it more frequently than their straight counterparts.

So to put this all in perspective, being single won’t guarantee that you will get more love hugs. The idea many people have to this effect has more to do with how we miss our carefree days before kids, work, and all the associated non-sexy stuff.

As an interesting side note, it was found that divorced people tend to have more sex on average than both married and single people. Make with that info what you will…

When we were young, we could prioritise sex and fun much more than adults are free to do now. So, perhaps the most telling part of this research is that more sex doesn’t always equate to better sex. Older peeps are having less sex, but on average, its better sex.

Practice makes perfect.

[source:ifls]