Study finds sex declines from the 12-month mark
So often people complain about the type and amount of sex they are having in their relationship with a correlation appearing between the length of the relationship and the amount of sex had.
As a society, we have nearly added an element of humour to this decrease in sex, especially when it happens between a husband a wife, with a continuance of jokes to be had about a husband asking for it and his wife denying him.
With all these jokes and complaints around us, is there a certain point in a relationship when the sex is at its best? A study from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour looked at the sex lives of 2,814 straight people in relationships and found that the ‘sweet spot’ for sex in a relationship was between six and twelve months. Participants reported a higher satisfaction with their sex life in the second half of the first year of their relationship, than in the first six months.
There could be some solid reasons for this discovery. Firstly, as exciting as the first six months of a relationships can be, it’s also a time of exploring and getting to know each other. Often it takes time to know how your partner’s body works and have the security to relax and let go. But at the six-month mark where more learning about each other has taken place, the relationship is still new enough that each person wants to be making a good impression on the other putting the maxim effort into sex. Sexual competition to previous partner or other sexual temptation might be motivating that effort and a lack of security in the relationship might see both people continue to entice with sex, ensuring the other person is satisfied.
Sex might be in a sweet spot, but at the same time it might be due to a lack of security in the relationship. Is this still a good thing? The question I have is what is this so called satisfaction based on? Is it the frequency of how much sex is had? When a relationship goes past that 12 month mark, where you get to know someone and have a little more security, in my opinion that is really where the sex can flourish due to an increase in real and close intimacy. Is it that sexual satisfaction is on the decline after 12 months or that our limited ideas of what sexual satisfaction can be getting in the way of really enjoying what our bodies and minds can do?
