People lie about sex for two basic reasons: to protect a partner’s feelings or to make our love lives sound more interesting than they actually are.
How many of the following 10 common sex fibs are you guilty of?
Our sex is just as exciting as it was in the beginning
Sex can get better the longer you’re together in that it’s more intimate, loving and caring.
But more exciting? That’s highly unusual.
Passion, lust and excitement need novelty to ignite. No matter how many new things you try, it’s still the same body you’re having sex with all those years in – and your brain and body know it.
Ironically, it’s the couples who have the best relationships that suffer the most from a lack of desire.
Desire and love need very different things to keep them going, says Belgium psychotherapist Esther Perel. Love thrives on closeness, emotional security and predictability while lust feeds on uncertainty and ‘forbidden’ things.
Most couples accept that sex moves from erotically charged to intimate and loving in return for having a great relationship.
So while you can say ‘Our sex is just as good as it was in the beginning – albeit in a different way’, most people are simply protecting their partner’s feelings by saying it’s just as exciting.
Yes honey, I had an orgasm when you did
The whole ‘coming together’ myth has been around forever and refuses to budge, despite evidence that consistently tells us simultaneous orgasm is rare.
There are several reasons why.
Firstly, most women take much longer to orgasm than men do, so he’s often done before we’ve even got to the halfway point.
Secondly, we’re talking split second timing given that both his and her orgasms generally last under a minute.
We have sex all the time
The official (YouGov) figure for sexually active Brits is that we have sex around once a week. Obviously, this figure alters depending on age and stage. Eighteen to 19-year-olds have it 1.8 times a week (more than any other age group), then the figure steadily declines with age. Having said that, if you’re 60 and just met, chances are you’ll be shagging frequently and happily away as well. The couple who’ve been together 20 years with three young kids? Not so much.
Our sexual frequency average was the lowest it’s ever been last year. Why? Blame Netflix. In the good old days, couples had nothing much to do at 10pm at night (the time when lots of couples have sex). Now there are box sets to binge on and social media to scrutinise.
That’s still a far cry from the 2.5 times a week figure that’s still bandied about – and one hell of a lot lower than couples who claim to be doing it every day.
Believable at the start perhaps but not when you’re a few years in.
Of course I don’t talk about our sex problems to anyone else
In a recent US survey, 63 per cent of people said they’d confided in a third party about a problem in a long-term relationship while 73 per cent said someone else confided in them.
Around 37.7 per cent of the problems discussed were about sex and 50.8 about sexual infidelity.
Sure you’ve never talked about sex to your best friend?
I’ve never faked an orgasm
If it’s a man saying this, there’s a very strong chance it’s true (though men do fake orgasm, it’s far less frequent).
If it’s a woman, it’s almost definitely a lie.
Men orgasm 90 per cent of the time during intercourse while women orgasm just 25 per cent of time, according to most research.
Statistics vary wildly on how often women pretend to orgasm when they haven’t but a plausible figure is around 80 per cent of women have faked orgasm at some point while 60 per cent fake on a regular basis.
Why do women continue to fake, when there are justifiable, biological reasons why orgasm is more difficult for us?
According to a study of women aged between 18 and 31, there are four main reasons: not wanting to hurt our partner’s feelings, fear of admitting to being less than sexually ‘perfect’, to tip ourselves over the edge and to end sex.
I’ve never watched porn
In 2017, Pornhub got 28.5 billion visits. That jumped to 33.5 billion visits in 2018 and 42 billion site visits in 2019.
The largest consumer group is men between the age of 35 and 49. One third of all internet porn users are women.
And you’ve never even watched it once? Just to see what all the fuss is about?
I don’t masturbate
Around 91 per cent of men masturbate and 78 per cent of women do as well. They’re the current US figures.
Not surprisingly, age (again) plays a role: we masturbate more when we’re younger. (Though, interestingly, women masturbate at higher levels during the year before menopause than during the years they’re menstruating. Midlife wanderlust is a thing, as I talk about in my book Great Sex Starts at 50.)
I don’t even own a vibrator, let alone use one
Fifty-two per cent of females use a vibrator regularly and one study found almost half the population (48 per cent) own one.
That’s a good thing because research indicates women who use sex toys have higher libidos and orgasm more easily.
More than 40 per cent of women in the same study had used a vibrator during sex with a partner.
I only ever think about having sex with you
Given 96 per cent of British men and 90 per cent of British women fantasise (The British Sexual Fantasy Research Project of 19,000 people) and most of these fantasies revolve around someone other than a current lover, it’s fairly safe to assume anyone saying this is telling porkies.
That’s not to say they don’t fantasise about sex with you though.
In another study, half the respondents said they fantasised about sex with their current partner – a statistic backed up by previous research.
Of course I’m having more sex than you are! I’m single and you’re married
People in long-term relationships often look at their single friends with envy, imagining them having loads of lovely, lusty sex.
The reality is single people have far less sex than married people do, even those who’ve been together for a long time.
A study by The Kinsey Institute looked at the sex habits of single people and couples and singles fared the worst – having sex an average of 49 times a year. Married couples had exactly double that: they had sex 98 times a year.
People lie about sex for two basic reasons: to protect a partner’s feelings or to make our love lives sound more interesting than they actually are.
How many of the following 10 common sex fibs are you guilty of?
Our sex is just as exciting as it was in the beginning
Sex can get better the longer you’re together in that it’s more intimate, loving and caring.
But more exciting? That’s highly unusual.
Passion, lust and excitement need novelty to ignite. No matter how many new things you try, it’s still the same body you’re having sex with all those years in – and your brain and body know it.
Ironically, it’s the couples who have the best relationships that suffer the most from a lack of desire.
Desire and love need very different things to keep them going, says Belgium psychotherapist Esther Perel. Love thrives on closeness, emotional security and predictability while lust feeds on uncertainty and ‘forbidden’ things.
Most couples accept that sex moves from erotically charged to intimate and loving in return for having a great relationship.
So while you can say ‘Our sex is just as good as it was in the beginning – albeit in a different way’, most people are simply protecting their partner’s feelings by saying it’s just as exciting.
Yes honey, I had an orgasm when you did
The whole ‘coming together’ myth has been around forever and refuses to budge, despite evidence that consistently tells us simultaneous orgasm is rare.
There are several reasons why.
Firstly, most women take much longer to orgasm than men do, so he’s often done before we’ve even got to the halfway point.
Secondly, we’re talking split second timing given that both his and her orgasms generally last under a minute.
We have sex all the time
The official (YouGov) figure for sexually active Brits is that we have sex around once a week. Obviously, this figure alters depending on age and stage. Eighteen to 19-year-olds have it 1.8 times a week (more than any other age group), then the figure steadily declines with age. Having said that, if you’re 60 and just met, chances are you’ll be shagging frequently and happily away as well. The couple who’ve been together 20 years with three young kids? Not so much.
Our sexual frequency average was the lowest it’s ever been last year. Why? Blame Netflix. In the good old days, couples had nothing much to do at 10pm at night (the time when lots of couples have sex). Now there are box sets to binge on and social media to scrutinise.
That’s still a far cry from the 2.5 times a week figure that’s still bandied about – and one hell of a lot lower than couples who claim to be doing it every day.
Believable at the start perhaps but not when you’re a few years in.
Of course I don’t talk about our sex problems to anyone else
In a recent US survey, 63 per cent of people said they’d confided in a third party about a problem in a long-term relationship while 73 per cent said someone else confided in them.
Around 37.7 per cent of the problems discussed were about sex and 50.8 about sexual infidelity.
Sure you’ve never talked about sex to your best friend?
I’ve never faked an orgasm
If it’s a man saying this, there’s a very strong chance it’s true (though men do fake orgasm, it’s far less frequent).
If it’s a woman, it’s almost definitely a lie.
Men orgasm 90 per cent of the time during intercourse while women orgasm just 25 per cent of time, according to most research.
Statistics vary wildly on how often women pretend to orgasm when they haven’t but a plausible figure is around 80 per cent of women have faked orgasm at some point while 60 per cent fake on a regular basis.
Why do women continue to fake, when there are justifiable, biological reasons why orgasm is more difficult for us?
According to a study of women aged between 18 and 31, there are four main reasons: not wanting to hurt our partner’s feelings, fear of admitting to being less than sexually ‘perfect’, to tip ourselves over the edge and to end sex.
I’ve never watched porn
In 2017, Pornhub got 28.5 billion visits. That jumped to 33.5 billion visits in 2018 and 42 billion site visits in 2019.
The largest consumer group is men between the age of 35 and 49. One third of all internet porn users are women.
And you’ve never even watched it once? Just to see what all the fuss is about?
I don’t masturbate
Around 91 per cent of men masturbate and 78 per cent of women do as well. They’re the current US figures.
Not surprisingly, age (again) plays a role: we masturbate more when we’re younger. (Though, interestingly, women masturbate at higher levels during the year before menopause than during the years they’re menstruating. Midlife wanderlust is a thing, as I talk about in my book Great Sex Starts at 50.)
I don’t even own a vibrator, let alone use one
Fifty-two per cent of females use a vibrator regularly and one study found almost half the population (48 per cent) own one.
That’s a good thing because research indicates women who use sex toys have higher libidos and orgasm more easily.
More than 40 per cent of women in the same study had used a vibrator during sex with a partner.
I only ever think about having sex with you
Given 96 per cent of British men and 90 per cent of British women fantasise (The British Sexual Fantasy Research Project of 19,000 people) and most of these fantasies revolve around someone other than a current lover, it’s fairly safe to assume anyone saying this is telling porkies.
That’s not to say they don’t fantasise about sex with you though.
In another study, half the respondents said they fantasised about sex with their current partner – a statistic backed up by previous research.
Of course I’m having more sex than you are! I’m single and you’re married
People in long-term relationships often look at their single friends with envy, imagining them having loads of lovely, lusty sex.
The reality is single people have far less sex than married people do, even those who’ve been together for a long time.
A study by The Kinsey Institute looked at the sex habits of single people and couples and singles fared the worst – having sex an average of 49 times a year. Married couples had exactly double that: they had sex 98 times a year.
