The question always comes up: what’s the “right” amount of sex?
At nearly every lecture I give, at some point, I get the question: “so how often is normal?” It’s the kind of questions we sex educators hate. Really. The honest truth is that couples vary so widely in their sexual desires and habits that defining the “norm” seems ludicrous.
I have had couples who have sex once a month and when that is good and satisfying that works just fine for both of them. I’ve had couples who really and truly like to have sex a few times a day.
However, people invariably push me to answer and I hate to be one of those namby-pamby “everything is okay and good” type of practitioners. I don’t always find that to be the most helpful approach.
The truth is there really do appear to be some norms. The reality is that, given the hundreds of couples I’ve seen, what seems to be the average amount of sexual activity (in a long term relationship where the sex is going well) seems to be somewhere between 1-3 times a week. So, there it is.
In a book by Laura Berman I saw a paragraph where she suggests (after the disclaimer we all make — see above) that in her experience most couples should have some type of sexual activity at least once every two weeks or things often seem to go awry.
So there you have it. Hopefully you now feel “normal.” The more important question is, are you happy? Does your current level of sexual activity satisfy you and your partner? If not, that is something you should look into because that is something you can do something about!
