How Often Should People Have Sex?
What Are the Benefits of Having Sex?
Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Sex?
What Is a Healthy Amount of Sex for Couples?
What Is a Healthy Amount of Sex for Single Adults?
What If the Sex Between You and Your Partner Is Lacking?
You and Your Partner Aren’t Having Enough Sex?
What to Do If Your Sex Drive is Higher Than Your Partner’s
How to Improve Sex Life?
If you're like most adults, your answer is a firm, "no way!" Growing up, you may have learned a lot about healthy eating habits or how to keep your house from falling around you, but a family rarely teaches their children what a healthy sexual relationship looks like. But if you can't talk to anyone about sex, how are you supposed to figure out if your sex life is every day or healthy? What is considered a healthy sex life?
What Is a “Normal” Sexual Relationship?
There is a vast range when trying to determine an average sex life. If you feel fulfilled by your sex life, and your partner — if you have one — is also fulfilled, feel free to throw statistics out the window. Sex should be about making you feel connected to your partner. If you start trying to meet a sexual quota, you can be assured that the intimacy will suffer as a result.
Believe it or not, the average frequency of sex has declined in recent years. Today, the average person has sex approximately 52 times in a year, or about once a week. That’s about nine times less per year than in the 1990s.
How Often Should People Have Sex?
There’s often a gap between how often people do things and how often they should do something. For example, the average American eats about 3,400 mg of sodium daily, while health guidelines recommend keeping that number below 2,300 mg (whoops!). Sure, people are having sex about once a week — but is that how often they should be having sex?
What Are the Benefits of Having Sex?
First, let’s talk about why sex is great. It feels good, of course — or it should — but that’s not the reason experts recommend a healthy sex life. Sex is perfect for you.
Read: What Are The Benefits of Orgasms On Your Health?
On the medical side, active sex life can improve your immune system, lower your blood pressure and even improve bladder control in women. The release of hormones post-orgasm makes you feel good, but it can also relieve headaches and menstrual cramps and improve your sleep quality.
On the emotional side of things, sex can make you feel connected to your partner in a new and beautiful way. Good sex can also help you work through body image issues, boost your confidence and decrease depression or anxiety.
Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Sex?
Considering sex is a seeming panacea for many modern ailments, it’d be easy to think that you should be having sex all the time. In truth, that’s neither necessary nor recommended. Too much sex comes with its own set of problems, including chafed skin and an increased risk of bladder infections. And if you’re having frequent sex with multiple partners, you also open yourself up to threats of STIs or unplanned pregnancies.
Sex can also become an addiction. There’s no official tipping point where this happens. Like many addictions, sex addiction is mainly defined by its effect on your life. Signs that sex may have become problematic for you, or your partner, include:
- Having sex to avoid arguments or difficult conversations
- Having sex so often that you’re chafed or sore
- Having sex so frequently that it interferes with your ability to work or maintain friendships
- Feeling like you need to cheat on your partner because you can’t fulfill your sexual impulses
If any of these statements ring true, it may be time to talk to a sex counselor. But if you and your partner are satisfied and comfortable with the frequency of your sex, you can probably relax.
Read: 5 Reasons Why You Should Try A Double Penetration Orgasm
What Is a Healthy Amount of Sex for Couples?
If you’re having sex the average amount for Americans — about once a week — then you’re in luck. Studies suggest that having sex once a week is about to keep the relationship alive between partners.
Having sex more often than once a week doesn’t seem to improve overall happiness (though it certainly helps at the moment!), but, statistically, couples having sex less than once a week may be less happy overall.
What Is a Healthy Amount of Sex for Single Adults?
When you’re single, determining the healthy amount of sex for you is an even bigger struggle than it is for couples. Averages for single adults vary even more wildly than for couples, with some singletons having sex multiple times a week and some choosing to go years between encounters. Either can be healthy as long as you’re sexually fulfilled and being safe about how you have sex.
What If the Sex Between You and Your Partner Is Lacking?
So, what happens if you and your partner aren’t having sex once a week? What if it’s been weeks or months since you’ve been intimate?
Is Your Relationship in Trouble if You and Your Partner Aren’t Having Enough Sex?
It’s important to remember that there are many reasons a couple might not be having a lot of sex. Not all of those reasons mean the relationship is on the rocks. Here are just a few reasons a couple might not be having a ton of sex:
- Working conflicting schedules
- Having a new baby in the family
- High levels of stress
- A chronic condition, like arthritis, makes sex uncomfortable for one partner
- Medications, like antidepressants, reduce one partner’s libido
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That being said, sex is a meaningful way to maintain intimacy as a couple, and having more petite sex with no other explanation can be a sign that something isn’t right between you and your partner. Having a conversation with your significant other can help you figure out what’s going on.
Read: Intimate Massage for Better Health and Stronger Orgasms
What to Do If Your Sex Drive is Higher Than Your Partner’s
It’s entirely normal for one partner to have a higher sex drive than another. This is one area where couples are rarely 100% in sync. But knowing that this is normal doesn’t make it any less frustrating. If your sex drive is higher than your partner’s, it can quickly feel rejected or unappreciated.
It’s important to remember that differences in sexual appetites can be just as frustrating for the partner with the lower libido, who may feel inadequate as a partner or like they’re not doing enough in their relationship. Blaming your partner or shaming them for not having a high sex drive isn’t just unfair, but it can be counterproductive. After all, it’s hard to feel ready for sex if you’re ashamed of yourself or your body.
Instead of pressuring your partner to have sex with you, work on figuring out why your partner’s libido is lower than yours. Do you have an exceptionally high libido? Is your partner’s libido especially low — and, if so, is there a medical reason for it, or is it just the way things are?
Sex Toys Can Help your Partner's Low Libido
Give to your partner the sexy lingerie, Starla + Tyro and your date night will get a lot more interesting.
Maybe your partner need the best-in-tech stimulation that alternate between seven high-performing vibration modes and three different intensity levels to take your pleasure to the next level. The Arvos!
Once you’re equipped with facts, you can work on bridging the gap between your sex drive and your partner’s sex drive. One way to do this is for you to masturbate more often.
Relieving your sexual tension can keep you from resenting your partner’s lower libido and help satisfy your body. It’s also a good idea to find ways to ignite the spark between you and your partner to see if you can help naturally improve their libido.
How to Improve Sex Life?
In a committed relationship, sex is all about intimacy. So it’s no surprise that one of the best ways to reignite the spark between you and your partner is to amp up the intimacy both in and out of the bedroom.
- Cuddling your partner, giving gentle touches when you talk to them, and paying them your full attention when they speak to you are all great ways to improve your intimacy and improve your sex life. This article can also help, Guide To Relationship Cuddling.
That being said, couples often have more petite sex when they’ve been together a long time. The stress of day-to-day life management can make you and your partner feel more like business partners than anything else. Boring or uninspiring sex life can make this even worse. Change things up with a date night or an impromptu slow dance in the living room. Trying out new positions when you have sex or adding toys to your intimate play can also go a long way toward spicing up your sex life and improving your relationship with your partner.
QUALITY Sex is Better Than LOTS of Sex
Healthy sex life is all about quality, not quantity. If your sex life is uninspired or mundane, you’re still unlikely to feel satisfied. Instead of worrying about how often you’re having sex, focus on the type of sex you’re having.
Work on learning to communicate with your partner during sex, try out new positions, and explore what feels good to both of you. Instead of comparing yourself to the people around you, work on finding ways to have more fulfilling sex between you and your partner every time.
References
How Often Do the Happiest Couples Have Sex? (It’s Less Often Than You Think). (February 2018). NBC News.
Declines in Sexual Frequency Among American Adults, 1989-2014. (March 2017). Archives of Sexual Behavior.
What is the “Normal” Frequence of Sex? International Society for Sexual Medicine.
10 Surprising Health Benefits of Sex. Web MD.
Is It Actually Possible to Have Too Much Sex? (August 2018). Healthline.