November 27, 2001

9:07 AM

The United States - "Sexual Superpower"- according to a study done by condom maker SSL International, folks in the US are having more sex (an average of 124 times per year), with more partners (an average of 14.3 partners), and starting to have sex younger (average age of 16) than any country in the world.
posted by tpl1212 (40 comments total)

Well, fuck me! We're #1.
posted by mischief at 9:12 AM on November 27, 2001

Or, at least, that's what the people who were willing to talk about it bragged that they were doing.

Maybe this means we have more sex. Maybe it just means we're big talkers. (Or maybe it means that culture jamming is more prevalent here and people like to play games with the heads of nosey pollsters.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:15 AM on November 27, 2001

The first thing I thought when I was SSL was why do condom makers need secure socket layer? Has the federal goverment finally decided to allow us to export 128 bit protection now?

I guess that's proof that geeks (at least this geek) still just don't get sex that doesn't involve some sort of device driver.
posted by willnot at 9:21 AM on November 27, 2001

Men appeared to be more sexually active than women, claiming a frequency of 102 times a year against 91. Men also claimed an average 10.7 partners, versus 4.6 for women.

Men brag more about sex is about the only thing of any truth that survey tells me.
posted by Markb at 9:27 AM on November 27, 2001

MarkB, I agree. My girlfriend insists that she's only had 5 partners, which I find suspicious because she's a filthy filthy tramp.
posted by Samsonov14 at 9:31 AM on November 27, 2001

markb, actually you learn in psychology classes that men do tend to overreport their sexual encounters, while women tend to underreport them. it evens out fairly well, probably.
posted by moz at 9:34 AM on November 27, 2001

Willnot -

$ sex.sh
grep;
touch;
unzip;
finger;
mount /dev/girl -t wet;
fsck;
fsck;
fsck;
fsck;
yes;
yes;
yes;
umount /dev/girl;
zip;
sleep;
posted by SpecialK at 9:35 AM on November 27, 2001

On the other hand, in a recent CDC Survey 90% of those surveyed reported having one or no sexual partners in the previous year.

I think I trust the CDC a bit more on this one.
posted by jaek at 9:35 AM on November 27, 2001

Jaek, they obviously didn't interview a few of my friends, who throw the average off in such a way that makes the SSL stats realistic. :)
posted by SpecialK at 9:42 AM on November 27, 2001

Let's see, they interviewed 20,000 people out of 28 countries. And we're supposed to assume that this is a representative sample...?
posted by LabTroglodyte at 9:49 AM on November 27, 2001

Yea! We're number 1.....no wonder the fundies hate us.
We rule! It becomes the world's only super powre to be the best in quantity if not quality. Take that, Frenchie!
posted by Postroad at 9:50 AM on November 27, 2001

"Men appeared to be more sexually active than women, claiming a frequency of 102 times a year against 91."

Now wait a minute, maybe my math is off, but doesn't this just mean that men have sex with men more than women with women?... Or maybe they're counting masturbation.
posted by whatnotever at 9:52 AM on November 27, 2001

In Spain, plugs are called male plugs (enchufe macho) and sockets are called female plugs (enchufe hembra). Thus what a condom gives you is a secure socket layer.
posted by Zootoon at 10:04 AM on November 27, 2001

Or fewer men have more sex with more women.
posted by SpecialK at 10:04 AM on November 27, 2001

Super power? We're not compensating for anything with big-sounding names here, are we?
posted by holycola at 10:13 AM on November 27, 2001

I'm not trying to open a can of worms here, but the gender discrepancy of sexual frequency might be explained, at least partially, by a higher sexual frequency for gay men as opposed to lesbians (or a different proportion on gay men to gay women in the population).
posted by pjdoland at 10:15 AM on November 27, 2001

Forget the bald eagle, our national symbol should now be the condom. Or something like that.
posted by tpl1212 at 10:16 AM on November 27, 2001

i guess someone had sex 258 times last year, to even out with me. that fucker.
posted by sugarfish at 10:24 AM on November 27, 2001

An average of 14 different partners a year? Really? What happens if you take Bill Clinton and George Clooney out of the sample pool?
posted by victors at 10:31 AM on November 27, 2001

It's a much cleaner pool?
posted by ebarker at 10:56 AM on November 27, 2001

sugarfish: get married! Married people do it more than 258 times a year. More like 258 years a time, actually. Always there, always wanted, always considered something trivial, but not. Like drinking water vs. the value of water when you're dying of thirst.
*cue Bunnyfire; crowd disperses while husband and Christian values extolled*
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:04 AM on November 27, 2001

Would be interesting to cross-compare this with a study on international tendencies to exaggerate.

Also interesting would be to compate this to people's answers to: "Do you have enough sex?" I bet we are less satisfied with what we get, as usual.
posted by scarabic at 11:09 AM on November 27, 2001

Horray for married horney people, whooo weeeee!!!!
posted by adampsyche at 11:10 AM on November 27, 2001

Is this the post you're referencing, Miguel?
posted by phoenix enflamed at 11:12 AM on November 27, 2001

I should have included Nerve's special issue on married sex for your enjoyment.
posted by phoenix enflamed at 11:21 AM on November 27, 2001

Yep, you heard me-hubby can't plead a headache all the time EITHER.

Yep, phoenix enflamed. The good part, though, is that our esteemed colleague, who does know a thing or two, once you've sparsed accordingly, was lecturing rushmc(All bow!), who probably knows more about sex than the lot of us put together.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:25 AM on November 27, 2001

This only adds more credence to my ongoing campaign to have the United States renamed "Bootyland."
posted by UncleFes at 11:30 AM on November 27, 2001

It's a much cleaner pool?

Different pool -- the one with Clinton/Clooney wanna-bes.
posted by victors at 11:32 AM on November 27, 2001

Wasn't the Roman Empire once the sexual superpower?
posted by mmarcos at 12:26 PM on November 27, 2001

mmarcos:

Only if you count horses. (see Caligula)
posted by phalkin at 1:23 PM on November 27, 2001

I just peeked in here to see if this thread had turned into an orgy yet. No? Ok, will check back in a few.
posted by Hildago at 4:36 PM on November 27, 2001

all you doubters have to remember that this was a survey of the sexual habits of thse who don't spend all their time posting snotty messages to metafilter. Those folks may actually get laid occasionally. At least, that's what I've heard.
posted by jonmc at 5:47 PM on November 27, 2001

Horray for married horney people, whooo weeeee!!!!

Married folks don't have sex. Everyone knows that.
posted by pooldemon at 6:39 PM on November 27, 2001

Of course, Japan has the lowest average fun per year (36). Still, I`ve got, uh, more than thirty to go by dec 31 to keep up with the norm.

I wonder if "having a partner" includes imaginary friends....
posted by chiheisen at 7:14 PM on November 27, 2001

In related news, syphilis is making a comeback in California.
posted by holgate at 8:55 PM on November 27, 2001

I have heard that to get an actual account of how many partners a person truly has is to subtract 3 from the figure a man gives you and to add 3 for a woman....thus the real results would be 7.6 for women and 7.7 for men....the averages now make much more sense!
posted by carolinagrl at 9:50 PM on November 27, 2001

The reason that male averages are higher than female, other than bragging, would be prostitution, as a professor in microeconomics once explained to me (using a statistical argument, of course).

Amazing how his survey was discussed for hours on every morning radio show. I can almost quote the numbers by now.
posted by thijsk at 12:26 AM on November 28, 2001

well if the survey wasn't by durex i'd suspect the vatican state to score highly........
posted by quarsan at 12:36 AM on November 28, 2001

USA! USA! USA!
posted by StOne at 7:49 AM on November 28, 2001

What a load of complete shite.

The people who believe this survey probably believe that "Temptation Island II" is real as well.

Everyone I know is a rabid workaholic. They couldn't possibly have time to fuck 124 times a year (unless you count jerking off in the men's room, which I don't).

Oh, BTW, most men lie about everything, especially how often they get laid (by a sexual partner, not by their own hand).
posted by zeb vance at 6:18 PM on November 29, 2001