Sex and Demographic Variables

No Sex, Please.. We're College Graduates (John Student, American Demographics, Feb 1998)

"Like wealth, sex is not distributed equally across the population. The GSS shows that about 15 percent of adults engage in half of all sexual activity, and that 42 percent of adults engage in 85 percent of all sex. Sex appears to be distributed more unequally than money, because 20 percent of Americans possess half of the wealth. But sex is more equitably shared than wine, 85 percent ofwhich is consumed by 15 percent of the public.

Part of the reason for this inequity is that about 1 in 5 US adults says he or she did not engage in any sex the previous year. Only 1 in 20 Americans has sex three or more times a week, so that this group claims about 30 percent of all sexual activity. Perhaps these are also the people who tell us about their sex lives on TV talk shows...

Men do report more sexual frequency than women, but not because men are more driven or boastful about their prowess. It’s because of demographics. Widows and older women without partners dominate the 20 percent who are inactive...

Are people more sexually active if they have more free time?

No. People who report having the least free time are married, have children at home, and work long hours. Each of these groups also reports having more sex. Indeed, people who work more than 60 hours a week are about 10 percent more sexually active than other workers, and even those who have preschool-aged children report having more sex than average.

One might think that these higher rates happen simply because the busiest Americans are still young enough to have energy left over at night. Indeed, the greater sexual frequency reported by parents returns to normal levels after their answers are controlled for differences in age, gender, and other factors. But even after the controls, Americans with the longest work hours report higher sexual frequency...

Sexual frequency peaks among those with some college education, then decreases among four-year college graduates and declines even further among those with professional degrees.

Americans who have attended graduate school may have money and smarts, but they report being the least sexually active educational group in the population. This pattern is true for both men and women, and it persists after age, work hours, and other factors are statistically controlled. It’s possible that more-educated respondents are more honest. than others in reporting sexual activity, or they are more demanding in their definition of what counts as sex. Whatever the reason, however, sex is different from most other activities because its reported frequency declines with increasing education...

For some reason, watching PBS seems more positively related with increased sexual behavior than watching regular prime-time drama...

One of the most sexually active groups in the US. is people who have a strong preference for jazz music. Even after controlling for age and race, jazz enthusiasts are 30 percent more sexually active than the average person. Liking other types of music, such as rock or rap, seems to be unrelated to sexual activity...

People who own guns also have higher-than-average sexual frequency.

Perhaps sexual activity is highest among people who are most likely to seek adventure. The most sexually active people are more likely to report having been threatened by guns or knives in their lives. They are also likely to report frequent contact with friends rather than relatives, and they are more likely to go out to bars. Smoking is associated with about a 10 percent increase in sexual activity, and drinking is associated with about a 20 percent increase. Those who both smoke and drink report almost twice as much sexual activity as those who do neither...

The more sex a person has, the more likely he or she is to report having a happy life and a happy marriage. This connection is stronger among women than men, again contrary to popular stereotypes. A second and more important predictor of sexual frequency is the feeling that one’s life is exciting rather than routine or dull. And being excited by life is most strongly associated with being happier. It seems that increased sexual activity is one of the many benefits of having a positive attitude.

Still, sex doesn’t solve all your problems. A high frequency of sex is not associated with greater satisfaction with job or family, for example. And people who report a high degree of satisfaction with their city or community are actually less likely than average to report having more sex. Perhaps sex is one of the psychological tactics people use to escape from a less—than—satisfying community.

A similarly surprising connection is lack of conf‌idence in the presidency. Conf‌idence in most social institutions has nothing to do with sexual activity, but somehow, lack of conf‌idence in the nation’s chief executive is associated with having more sex. The pattern was more apparent in the years when George Bush was president than it is during Bill Clinton’s presidency, however.

One disturbing connection is that the most sexually active Americans are also more likely than average to say they do not regard other people as fair or trustworthy. In other words, some Americans who have more sex may be attempting to compensate for a general attitude of suspicion or mistrust. Sex is universally cited as Americans’ favorite activity. But the General Social Survey hints that for a few Americans, a robust sex life goes along with a pessimistic view of other people."


The link for women is probably the other way round - women with happy lives and happy marriages want to have more sex