People lie about sex for two basic reasons: to protect a partner’s feelings or to make our sex lives sound more interesting than they actually are.
Below is why they do that
Our sex is just as exciting as it was in the beginning
Sex can get better the longer you’re together in that it’s more intimate, loving and caring.
But more exciting? That’s highly unusual. Passion, lust and excitement need novelty to ignite.
No matter how many new things you try, it’s still the same body you’re having sex with all those years in - and your brain and body know it.
Ironically, it’s the couples who have the best relationships that suffer the most from a lack of desire.
Desire and love need very different things to keep them going, says US psychotherapist Ester Perel.
Love thrives on closeness, emotional security and predictability while lust feeds on uncertainty and ‘forbidden’ things.
Most couples accept that sex moves from erotically charged to intimate and loving in return for having a great relationship.
So while you can say ‘Our sex is just as good as it was in the beginning – albeit in a different way’, most people are simply protecting their partner’s feelings by saying it’s just as exciting.
Yes honey, I had an orgasm when you did
The whole ‘coming together’ myth has been around forever and refuses to budge, despite evidence that consistently tells us simultaneous orgasm is rare.
There are several reasons why. Firstly, most women take much longer to orgasm than men do, so he’s often done before we’ve even got to the halfway point.
Secondly, we’re talking split second timing given that both his and her orgasms generally last under a minute.
We have sex all the time
A recent large, reputable study, the 2012 National Survey of Attitudes and Lifestyles, found the average married couple have sex less than once a week.
That’s a far cry from the 2.5 times a week figure that’s bandied about – and one hell of a lot lower than couples who claim to be doing it every day.
Believable at the start perhaps but not when you’re a few years in.
Of course I don’t talk about our sex problems to anyone else
In a recent US survey, 63 per cent of people said they’d confided in a third party about a problem in a long-term relationship while 73 per cent said someone else confided in them.
Around 37.7 per cent of the problems discussed were about sex and 50.8 about sexual infidelity.
I’ve never faked an orgasm
If it’s a man saying this, there’s a very strong chance it’s true (though men do fake orgasm, it’s far less frequent).
If it’s a woman, it’s almost definitely a lie.
Men orgasm 90 per cent of the time during intercourse while women orgasm just 25 per cent of time, according to most research.
Statistics vary wildly on how often women pretend to orgasm when they haven’t but a plausible figure is around 80 per cent of women have faked orgasm at some point while 60 per cent fake on a regular basis.
Why do women continue to fake, when there are justifiable, biological reasons why orgasm is more difficult for us?
According to a recent study of women aged between 18 and 31, there are four main reasons: not wanting to hurt our partner’s feelings, fear of admitting to being less than sexually ‘perfect’, to tip ourselves over the edge and to end sex.
I never watch porn
Various studies have confirmed what most of us always suspected: between 95 and 98 per cent of men have watched porn.
But they aren’t the only ones.
Fifty-five per cent of women watch some kind of erotica once a month, 40 per cent watch porn weekly and 96 per cent have watched it with a partner at some point.
I don’t masturbate
This depends on who is making the claim.
Research in the 1950’s by Kinsey reported that 92 per cent of men masturbate compared to 58 per cent of women.
More recent research 2010 by Debbie Herbenick in 2010 from Indiana University suggests men aren’t quite as solo sex obsessed as previously thought.
I don’t even own a vibrator, let alone use one
Fifty-two per cent of females use a vibrator regularly and around 80 per cent of women in the UK own a vibrator.
That’s a good thing because research indicates women who use sex toys have higher libidos and orgasm more easily.
There’s less reason to have to lie about this one because younger men, at least, are far less threatened than older men.
More than 40 per cent of women in the same study had used a vibrator during sex with a partner.
I only ever think about having sex with you
Given 96 per cent of British men and 90 per cent of British women fantasise (The British Sexual Fantasy Research Project of 19,000 people) and most of these fantasies revolve around someone other than a current lover, it’s fairly safe to assume anyone saying this is telling porkies.
That’s not to say they don’t fantasise about sex with you though.
In another study, half the respondents said they fantasised about sex with their current partner – a statistic backed up by previous research.
Of course I’m having more sex than you are, I’m single and you’re married
People in long-term relationships often look at their single friends with envy, imagining them having loads of lovely, lusty sex.
The reality is single people have far less sex than married people do, even those who’ve been together for a long time.
Research from a study of nearly 6000 people aged 14 to 94 found 61 per cent of singles hadn’t had sex in the past year compared to 18 per cent of married people.
Only five per cent of singles aged between 25 and 59 had sex two or three times a week compared to 25 per cent of married people.
<<Print>>