Reading Callie Byrne's article, "Men and Women and their Sexual Peaks," forced me to admit that I needed to add a bit of class and culture to my writing style. I was fascinated when she started with a warm, domestic scene at a house-warming party. I haven't held or attended such a thing in years, so I figured I'd have to settle for setting the mood in another way. I think I've come up with just the thing.
I'm sitting nude at the computer reading her article when I empty my coffee cup. I start to yell at my girlfriend to get me a refill and remember she's already left for work. I get up and scratch my ass as I walk into the kitchen. Men can definitely multi-task, as evidenced by the fact that I'm pouring my coffee with one hand, picking my nose with the other, and mentally cussing out my woman because she made me clip my fingernails last night. That one big glob of greenish snot is just too far up there for a blunt finger. Oh, well, back to work, so I carry my coffee cup back into my office. As I pass where the dogs are lying I rip off a really good fart and chuckle at the way they look at me. I sit down – ouch! – that left nut just isn't in the right place. I reach down, rearrange things for a couple of minutes until I'm comfortable, and prepare myself to write an article that will show women how sensitive and caring we men can be. And here it is...
"Research shows that eating eggs cause heart disease!" "Research shows that it's okay to eat one egg per week." "Research shows that eggs do not cause heart disease, eat up to five per week."
"Research shows that wine causes cancer!" "Research shows that you can have up to three glasses of red wine per week with no medical problems." "Research shows that it can actually be good for you to have a glass of red wine each day."
We've all heard strings of claims like this. Invariably they get changed after some period of time. Why did they make the first statement? It may be because some rat in a laboratory developed cancer after being fed red wine. Further studies find that the rat's father had died of cancer. Yet another study shows that the rat's entire family died of cancer. Hmm, what does that tell you about scientific studies?
First let me make sure you understand that I am not arguing about anything Callie wrote in her article. My argument is with people who conduct studies and then try and convince the general public that the experts have the ultimate answer in some area. When the average person reads such a study (s)he may think that (s)he doesn't fit into a neatly defined niche and, therefore, is abnormal or psychotic. My goal is to make people aware that "scientific" studies are just that. They are studies conducted in a controlled environment and their results represent the answers received from some sample population.
Statisticians expect and even admit that their results will have errors and even have built-in constants for their formulae that take those errors into account. People who conduct many of these studies, however, are more interested in publishing their results so they can show their family and friends that they are "published." They never take into consideration that there are some people that will read their study and consider themselves to be abnormal. If you're that type person – DON”T DO THAT! If you read the results of a study and find that you are different from the people studied, just chuckle, shrug, and say, "They should have asked me."
The results of any study are directly related to the structure of the questions as much as the people questioned. As an example, the question, "How often do you have sex?" is not a valid study question. How would you answer that? How I'd answer it depends on whether I'm with a woman at the time or not. It also depends on what they mean by “have sex.” If the questioner means any type of sex, I have that every day. Me and my right hand are really great friends and I've admitted right here on O&C that I take care of myself every day – sometimes two or three times if I'm working on something sexy.
When I was with my second wife, I would have answered eight times a year, because she usually only broke down and gave me some about every six to eight weeks. That, of course, is only in regards to sexual intercourse. (Blowjobs would be another matter because she only did that once in eighteen years.) The other nights, after she went to sleep, I usually took care of myself, so again, if you included masturbation in the count, I got it three hundred or so times a year.
My last wife and I were together just shy of twelve years, and during that time, we had sex close to thirty-six hundred times. That was when I was between forty-five and fifty-six and she was five years younger. And, no, it's not weird that I have such a count; as a writer I keep track of all kinds of strange things and once considered writing an article on the frequency of sex in our relationship.
One of the most important factors in evaluating the validity of any study is to know something about the people involved in the study. Certainly one of the most famous, significant, and controversial sexual studies ever conducted was the Kinsey report, published in 1948. From the time it was released up until today it has had detractors showing why the study was not representative of the American public. One of the most telling problems was that the men and women involved in the study were almost all white, middle-class, college-educated Americans under age 35. In addition, 25% were, or had been, prison inmates, and 5% were said to be male prostitutes. From a sampling of this population, Kinsey extrapolated data for the American population up through its fifties.
You should be aware that Kinsey, in the report, stated explicitly that the data did not represent the sexual norms of the American public. The problem at the time came from the fact that the average person, reading the report, thought it did and tried to fit him/herself into one of the published norms.
Then, you have to consider where the people in the study came from. In my area (near Los Angeles) there is currently research groups advertising for people to take part in various studies: insomnia, erectile dysfunction, depression, and more. They offer free medical exams, medication, and reimbursement of $400 to $700 for time and travel. Just what kind of people do you think might respond to such advertisements? The business executive who earns $100k per year or the out-of-work househusband who hasn't been able to find a job in two years?
There is also the question of whether study respondents always tell the truth, and I can tell you from experience that they don't. Some years ago I conducted some surveys of twenty-three of my friends (18 women and 5 men) and wrote a series of articles for O&C. Just last year I ran into one of the women with whom I had spoken and she admitted that she had lied when I questioned her for the original article. The topic was lousy sex and she had never had such an experience. Wanting to be included in my article, she just told me a story that she had recently read and thought was cute.
When commenting on Callie's article, I wrote: "Younger, I lasted oh, maybe ten minutes, had a gallon of sperm to inject into my target of the evening, and was ready to go again ten minutes later." That's true as far as it goes, but I left out a couple of points. I was one of those unfortunate men who had a SERIOUS problem with premature ejaculation when I was younger. I was lucky if I could last five minutes once I entered a woman, usually it was only a minute or two. I remember one girlfriend who actually watched the clock while we were doing it and complimented me the first time I managed to go past the seven-minute mark.
There were, at the time, a number of studies that said that premature ejaculation could be an indication of serious medical and psychological problems. Fortunately, I never listen to other people and found that my problem taught me how to use my hands, fingers, and tongue to ensure a woman got what she needed. If I had been one of those lemmings who blindly followed the masses and believed everything that was written, I'd probably have a really lousy sex life right now.
You also have to consider that the researcher may have a hidden agenda of some sort and holds back certain aspects of the results to sway the opinion of the reader. For instance, one of the results of the Kinsey report was that "37% of males and 13% of females had instances of at least one homosexual experience that resulted in orgasm." Do you think the inclusion of prison inmates and male prostitutes had anything to do with those seemingly high figures? That information was not released until later and, in my opinion, probably had some bearing on the findings.
Suppose someone who doesn't like me conducted a study of my sexual history during a three-month period last year. Further, suppose that she wrote up the results as: "Subject reported nine sexual incidents with one woman during a three month period. Subject states that he was physically inside his partner a total of 32 minutes during those incidents."
By withholding some crucial information from you, she's leading you to believe two things: I'm not getting it very often and I'm still bothered with the premature ejaculation thing. Both suppositions would be wrong as, during that time, I had a more or less steady girlfriend and served as a booty call for the second one mentioned in the study. No, I wasn't cheating, as both of them knew about the other. The second woman stopped by occasionally for a "quickie" on her way to or from work.
Finally, you have to watch out for the extrapolation of data for an entire population. The Kinsey report stated that 92% of the men and 62% of the women admitted to having masturbated. In my informal survey, 16 of my 18 women (88.9%) admitted to masturbating anywhere from "a few times a year" to daily, and they ranged from 19 to 52 years of age. Some were married, some in a committed relationship, and some single. My results don't mean that 88.9% of the American women masturbate – it only means that 16 of my 18 friends do it. (Personally, I believe that a higher percentage of the general population does it and is just too chicken to admit it.)
The point is, I believe you should, probably, ignore any studies you hear because they are pretty much worthless. If you're having sex ten times a week, you're not abnormal – you just have a healthy relationship. If you're only having it once a week – call me.
Originally published April 2008