There’s a widespread myth that men think about sex every seven seconds, which translates to 8,000 thoughts in 16 waking hours. But a new study busts that theory.
Researchers asked college-age participants to click a handheld tally counter whenever they had a sexual thought. The data showed that the men had 19 such thoughts on average, while women had 10. But there was a lot of variation.
The myth
The idea that men think about sex all the time is widely circulated as a piece of conventional wisdom. It is also a bit of a myth. A common estimate is that men have a sexual thought every seven seconds, but the actual number is much lower.
In a study published in the Journal of Sex Research, Ohio State University psychology professor Terri Fisher and her team surveyed a sample group of participants to find out how often they thought about sex, food, and sleep. The participants were given a clicker to press each time one of those thoughts came to mind, and they were asked to record them daily. The researchers found that men, on average, thought about sex 19 times a day, while women did so 10 times a day.
But the real surprise was that the frequency of those thoughts wasn’t related to the participants’ biological sex, but rather their level of comfort with their sexuality. It turns out that people who feel more confident in their bodies and abilities are more likely to have frequent sex thoughts.
It might be tempting to believe that the “every seven seconds” part of this statistic isn’t really accurate, but it would be hard to prove that because it’s not possible to track your brain waves with any accuracy. What’s more, the fact is that men aren’t always thinking about sex, even when they feel comfortable enough to have those thoughts.
The reality
It’s widely accepted as a piece of folk wisdom that men think about sex every seven seconds. That’s a lot of thoughts about nookie, and it seems like it’s pretty excessive. However, it’s not really clear how much truth there is to the thought. There’s no perfect technology that taps into someone’s sexy brain waves, and so it’s hard to nail down the exact number of times men think about sex.
But there is one study that does give some insight into the matter. Researchers from Ohio State University surveyed college-age participants to find out how often they thought about various things. They gave 120 male and 163 female students handheld tally counters to click each time a particular thought crossed their mind. They also asked the students to track thoughts and cravings about food and sleep.
The results showed that men think about sex a lot more than women do. On average, the men tallied 19 thoughts about sex a day while the women tallied 10. This is still far fewer than the “every seven seconds” myth suggests, but it’s a pretty significant difference. Interestingly, the study also found that when the subjects thought about sex, it was usually around midnight, which is kind of an awkward time to be wanting nookie. The study also found that the frequency of sexual thoughts is linked to a person’s libido and their comfort with their own sexuality.
Overthinking it
Many of us have heard the popular myth that men think about sex every seven seconds. However, this figure is simply not true. It would mean that men are thinking about sex 5,700 times a day (if they were awake 16 hours).
The truth is, there is great variation in the frequency of sexual thoughts for each person. Some men will have more sexual thoughts than others, while some women will have fewer. It also depends on how horny the individual is and how comfortable they are with their own libido.
A recent study from Ohio State University, led by Dr. Terri Fisher, sought to debunk the myth by analyzing the thoughts of college-age participants. The researchers gave the students a handheld clicker and asked them to record each time they had a thought about sex, food or sleep. They found that the average man had 19 sexy thoughts a day, while women had 10 on average. The participants with higher levels of erotophilia, however, had more sexual thoughts than the average male.
While there is a lot of variation in how often people have sexual thoughts, it is important to remember that they are perfectly normal. It is important not to be ashamed of these feelings and to talk about them with your partner or friend if they become a problem.
Avoiding it
A study conducted by a team from Ohio State University asked 283 college students to click a tally counter every time they had a thought about sex, food and sleep over the course of a week. They found that men on average had a sexual thought 19 times a day, while women thought about getting naughty between the sheets nearly 10 times per day.
Of course, these figures are wildly variable and don’t tell the whole story. The truth is that sex is the most frequent trigger for horny thoughts, but it’s also true that thinking about sex doesn’t necessarily make you horny. And while it’s impossible to avoid all triggers, there are some things that you can do to stop your randy thoughts from ruining your day.
One of the most effective ways to reduce your sexy thoughts is by replacing them with unsexy ones. You can do this by thinking about your grandma, spreadsheets or baseball – anything that will distract you from the urges.
You can also try to understand the categories of your triggers, and see if there are any patterns or situations that cause you to think about sex more than others. For example, some people are more turned on by visual triggers than others, or are more prone to sexual thoughts when they’re tired or stressed.
See Also:
