How much sex should one have?

sex

File photo of two person engaged in sex

By Nehru Odeh 

It is the mostly talked about topic, yet shrouded in secrecy. Still, it is something many are wrapped up in. Religionists problematize it, philosophers discuss it, psychologists harp on it and sex therapists focus so much on it.

Yet sex is something many don’t like to talk about. While some know little or nothing about it, others know so much about it. And it seems the more you know about sex, the more you know you know little about it. This indeed has made many fall victim to fabulous stories about sex.

The questions then are how much sex is good enough? Does sex make you happy or, rather, does happiness make for great sex?

Researchers from the University of Toronto say if you are not having sex constantly that shouldn’t be a cause for concern, even if you’re in a committed relationship. Analyzing data from about 28,000 people in a series of studies, they came out with a finding that may shock you: People who have sex once a week are the happiest.

“On average, people who reported having sex once a week or more also reported the greatest well-being,” says lead study author Amy Muise, Ph.D., to Women’s Health. “For the average person, having sex more frequently than once a week was not associated with greater happiness, but it wasn’t associated with less happiness, either.”

In the study published in the journal Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Muise and her team analyzed survey responses from 25,000 Americans about how often they had sex and how happy they were (most established couples say they also get it on about once a week).

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In a similar sex study earlier this year some researchers asked  half of a pool of 64 couples to double their usual rate of sex to see if it would make them happier. The finding shows that those who were having roughly 40 percent more sex weren’t just less happy, but also felt less energetic, and even reported having bad sex.

Finally, other researchers analyzed survey results collected from more than 2,400 married couples over 14 years. And surprisingly couples who had sex at least once a week were more satisfied with their relationships.

So why is having sex once every seven days associated with so many happy people?

Muise says, “It’s important to maintain a sexual connection with a romantic partner, but it’s also important to have realistic expectations for one’s sex life,” she says.

According to BlackDoctor, the moral, ironically, is:  don’t try to copy what you see in porn movies or what your friends say. The grass isn’t always greener over there, it is greenest where you water it.

“Happiness makes or sex, not the other way around. If you or your partner is overwhelmed at work, dealing with family issues, or generally coping with real-life struggles, your sexual frequency may decline—but that doesn’t mean you’re in a bad relationship; particularly if you start feeling its effects.”

Researchers hope that partners will focus more on intimacy rather than sex or the necessity to have it all the time, because there is more to relationships than it.

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