Sex in Australia: sexual and emotional satisfaction in regular relationships and preferred frequency of sex among a representative sample of adults.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional survey (graded Level 4 by design analogy)
PubMed 14696708 · doi:10.1111/j.1467-842x.2003.tb00805.x
What was done
Computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted between mid-2001 and mid-2002 with 10,173 men and 9,134 women aged 16-59 years across Australia via modified random-digit dialling (73.1% response rate). Participants in regular relationships rated how physically pleasurable sex was with their partner and how emotionally satisfying the relationship was. All participants reported their actual sexual frequency in the previous four weeks and their ideal preferred frequency.
What was found
In heterosexual relationships, 90.3% of men and 79.1% of women found sex very or extremely pleasurable, and 87.5% of men and 79.2% of women found the relationship emotionally satisfying. Physical pleasure was correlated with emotional satisfaction. One in four respondents had had no sex in the past four weeks, and most had had sex less than twice a week. Most people desired sex more often than they had it, with 24.3% of men versus 8.3% of women reporting they ideally wanted sex daily or more often.
Why it matters
It provides large-scale, population-representative benchmark data on sexual pleasure, emotional satisfaction, and the gap between desired and actual sexual frequency among adults.
Limits
The study is cross-sectional and relies entirely on self-report over telephone interviews, which may introduce recall or social desirability bias. Adults aged 60 and older were excluded, and exact correlation statistics were omitted from the abstract.
Cited by
- partial Inside relationships, women self-report having approximately the amount of sex they want, while men report wanting about twice as much sex as they have.