By Taylor Neal
Almost every client I see in my sexology practice has some idea in their minds about how much sex is “normal” to be having when in a relationship, and it is often this magic number that causes us the most anxiety when we’re not meeting it consistently for some reason.
It seems, on average, that most of us expect to be having sex 2-3 times per week if we’re in a relationship, and therefore if we’re having less sex than this in our relationship over a period of time, we start to feel worried or anxious that something must be wrong.
We start to feel like something might be wrong with ourselves, or that our relationship is failing, that we’re past the “honey-moon phase” and we’re doomed to a boring sex life for the rest of our days, that we’re no longer attractive to our partner, and so many other fear-based assumptions that send us spiraling about sex and ultimately bring us further away from good sex, because when we’re stressed about sex, our body often doesn’t function the way we want it to sexually.
As you can imagine, this becomes a vicious cycle; stressing about not having enough sex, forcing ourselves into sex because we feel like we need to have it, sex not going the way we hope it will, wanting less sex, and then stressing about wanting and having less sex, and repeat.
All of this because we have some magic number in our heads of what a healthy sex life should look like. But where did we get this number in the first place?
How Much Sex Is Normal?
When we start to notice ourselves clinging to that magic number for how much sex we’re supposed to be having in our relationship, we really have to stop and ask ourselves, “where did I get this magic number from?”
Often, we’ll have gotten this number from our social circles or the media, or perhaps we’ve done a Google search to find what others are saying. While it is true that there has been research done on this topic, it’s also important to remember that there is truly no such thing as normal when it comes to how much sex we’re having.
As a practicing sexologist who sees clients daily let me assure you, we all feel like we’re not normal when it comes to our sex lives.
If it’s not how much sex we’re having that makes us feel abnormal, then it’s what type of sex we’re having, what we’re fantasizing about or what’s turning us on, what our body looks like, our first sexual experiences, how we masturbate, and literally anything else. So if you think you’re worried about being “not normal” in relation to the amount of sex you’re having, I’d like to remind you that there is no such thing as normal, and because of this, we are all normal when it comes to sex.
There are so many factors that can impact how much sex we’re having, and our desire for sex, whether it be the busy nature of contemporary lives and stress, having children, physical and mental health, conflict in our relationships, and endless other very real barriers to getting in the mood that are part of our everyday lives.
What it ultimately comes down to then, is not what the magic number is in relation to others, but rather, what the magic number is for you.
What’s Your Magic Number?
How much sex feels good for you to be having?
To uncover what is actually the right amount of sex for you, we have to differentiate between what expectations we’ve taken on from external sources, and what expectations are actually coming from our true experience of desire.
Often, we receive societal messaging that is both hyper-sexualized and sex-repressive at the same time, and we interpret this as “everyone is having way more sex than I am.” We land on this assumption because our society is both constantly talking about sex, and simultaneously silencing any real conversations about sex. When we have sexualized messaging all around us, but not very many actual reliable resources, it’s easy to think we must be missing something. If sex is everywhere, everyone must be having tons of sex, we might think, and then if we’re not hitting this arbitrary magic number, we can feel shame around asking our friends, or having real conversations about what’s actually going on for everyone behind closed doors.
If you’re feeling satisfied in your sex life and the stress to be having more sex is coming from external sources, the internet or media, or your social circles, then you can take a deep breath, relax, and celebrate that you’re actually just fine in your sex life, whether you’re having sex once a day, once a week or once a year. If you genuinely feel good about the sexual frequency you’re currently experiencing, there is no reason to force yourself into more sex just for the sake of numbers.
How Often Are Happy Couples Are Having Sex?
You Might be Surprised At The Answer.
The primary reason not to force ourselves toward these magic numbers, is because if we start having more sex just for the sake of having more sex, then often the sex we’re squeezing in won’t actually be that good.
If we’re forcing more sex in to meet our quota, we’ll end up having sex that isn’t rooted in pleasure, but rather in pressure, and this will actually end up deterring us from sex more often than it will make us want more.
And further, if we’re forcing ourselves into sex simply to boost our numbers but coming at it from a place of stress and/or anxiety around our sexual frequency, then often our bodies won’t be able to show up for the sex we’re hoping for and we’ll wind up frustrated with our bodies for not performing the way we want them to.
So if you’ve checked in and weighed where this idea of more sex is coming from within yourself, and you’re still finding desire to be having more sex, then the solution isn’t necessarily to focus on upping your sexual frequency first. Rather, the solution lies in focusing on upping your pleasure.
Pleasure, Not Magic Numbers
When we find ourselves wanting more sex, often the first thing we think about is how to reconfigure our schedules to be able to account for more time to have sex.
This is a great solution if your primary barrier is scheduling, I’m a huge advocate for scheduling sex if misaligned schedules with your partner is really what’s keeping you from connecting.
But if you’re finding that your barriers to having sex are coming more from a place of low desire, or lack of energy for sex, then I’d prompt you to consider reorienting your focus from more sex, to focusing more towards how you can create more pleasure in your relationship.
Simply put, if we make intimacy more pleasure-able in general, we’ll find we tend to experience more desire for sex because the sex we’re having is worth wanting.
If we’re forcing more sex without a focus on pleasure, then we probably won’t find ourselves wanting sex when we’re tired, stressed, or just trying to get the kids to bed.
If we’re focused on pleasure rather than sex, we might find ourselves seeking intimacy more often even if it doesn’t look like our traditional understanding of what sex is, because when we’re stressed and/or tired we’ll likely be more interested in things that actually feel good rather than adding another thing (sex) to the To Do List.
If we orient ourselves to pleasure as the priority for intimacy, we might find ourselves being more honest about where we’re at or what we want on any given day. Maybe we’re not interested in sex before bed, but we’d be keen on a massage or some sensual touch. Maybe intimacy that would be pleasure-able could be having a shower together, cuddling rather than scrolling on our phones on opposite ends of the couch, going for a walk, having a tickle fight or a dance party, or even doing low-energy sexual acts that don’t feel so demanding.
Read More: Sex Positions For Low Energy Days
We can also consider the context in which we’re setting our intimacy. If you know you’re more likely to feel sensual or turned on in the morning, or once all the dishes have been done, or when you know no one is going to be home for a while, then these are things you can adopt as part of your pleasure practice.
As Emily Nagoski PhD. says: Context = environmental factors + brain state
So when we’re thinking about how to make sex more pleasure-able, we have to consider everything about the context we’re connecting with our partners, or even ourselves, in.
Environmental factors can be anything from lighting, time of day, scents, music, or other stimuli in the space, how much time you have, whether the door is locked, if the laundry is put away, if the blinds are open or shut. And simultaneously, brain state includes your emotional state, your energy levels, if you’ve got 346 things on your mind, your stress levels, if you’ve gotten in a fight with your partner that day or if you’ve been getting along well, if you’re hungry or thirsty, if you’re bloated or menstruating, and anything else that impacts how we show up to intimacy.
Spending some time reflecting on all of the things that contribute to your context will have a major impact on being honest about what pleasure looks like for you on a particular day, and when we’re honest with ourselves about where we’re at, we can engage in intimacy that feels more aligned with what we truly want rather than forcing ourselves into sex when we’re really not feeling it.
And furthermore, when we’re engaging in things that feel more aligned with what our pleasure looks like on any given day, it’s more likely that desire for sex will follow or build during the time we’re spending focused on our pleasure.
If pleasure looks like massages for you one day, and you enjoy indulging in some sensual touch and massage, there’s a decent chance that you might find yourselves becoming more turned on or open to sex in the process. Maybe snuggling on the couch leads to a steamy make-out sesh, and then who knows where things might go from there.
The idea is that pleasure really is the measure for how we can build our desire for sex, and when the sex we’re having is worth wanting more of, then the odds are in your favour for it becoming more frequent.
And also, even if your numbers for sex don’t increase right away, if we’re focusing more on pleasure we’ll end up feeling more connected to our partners, and more fulfilled by the sex we do have, which will inevitably lead to the fulfilling sex life we really want. That’s what the number is all about, isn’t it?
Taylor Neal (They/She) is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist, writer, yoga and dance instructor and frontline sexual assault response worker, who uses creation and multimedia to gain deeper understandings of authentic human experience. Practically, Taylor combines their background in dance and performance, their passion for the written word, and their curiosity within contemporary visual art and photography, with their studies in Communications, Art History, Feminist Theory and Design for Theatre at Concordia University, and Fashion Design at RMIT University. Their cumulative artistic, somatic, and literary practice comes together as a holistic exploration of identity, movement, sexuality, and how the embodied subject navigates space and the natural world.
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