When we think about sex we are left with the impression that, the more we do it, the better it is for the relationship, right? Most people would answer positively. Television seems to spread the word of how beneficial sex is, and even coming to a point of declaring that if you have sex daily, it means you will have a happier relationship. So scientists have decided to test out this theory and investigate whether or not there is a correlation between having frequent sex and the happiness of the couple…the finding is that, in fact there is a correlation, but only up to a certain amount of frequency.
With the data of 3 studies encompassing over thirty thousand people, they have come to the conclusion that the people who have sex more often with their partner, experience a greater amount of happiness. However, the catch is that the correlation stops being true if the rate of sex goes over once a week. Now, the fact is that having sex more than once in seven days is not associated with a lesser amount of enjoyment in life, but it simply wasn’t typically correlated with a higher amount of happiness.
The couples who have sex about up to one time a week say that they feel more content with their connection with their significant other and this subsequently makes them happier about their whole life altogether. An interesting thing is that the variation on the amount of happiness of people who have sex once a week in comparison to less than one time a month, was bigger than the variation in health and happiness of people making $50-$75,000 a year as opposed to the ones making $15-25,000 a year. This is on average a difference of FIFTY THOUSAND dollars in annual income…
One of these studies checked if this was true both for people who are in a relationship and for people who are single. The results were consistent only for the people in a committed relationship. For those who were single, having sex more often did not necessarily mean that they would be happier.
A lot of places have been taking about these findings and mostly it has been accurate spoken of. A thing to note though is that this study was correlational, and the gist of it is that the scientists haven’t increased how often couples who participate in the study have sex to see what the results would be. They have only looked at natural sex frequency and how it correlates with happiness. There is no way to come to a conclusion that more frequent sex (up to about one time a week), will make a couple feel happier.
The truth of it is that most likely there is a correlation going to both sides – sex makes people happier, and people who are happier together generally have sex more often. The recent conclusions in this work lead to the finding that more frequent sex isn’t correlated with a higher well being.
A new study by another research team was about making couples double how often they have sex. The finding was that the participants did not report being happier. The researchers seemed to believe that artificially making couples have more sex removed their own desire to do it, and subsequently made it less pleasurable. But it is important to note that the people of this research were already engaging in intercourse around five times a month (once a week) so there is a chance that they had already hit the threshold of how much joy they can get from it. Other works will test people who have sex less than one time per week by increasing their frequency and report the findings.
Of course there is a lot to do when it comes to understanding sex and happiness. The researchers were not in a position to check the quality of the sex in the studies, and of course how good the sex was for each couple is very likely to be a contributing factor to the findings. Having disappointing sex often probably isn’t going to make people happier, but most of the time we tend to believe that our sexual encounters are more enjoyable than not.
In conclusion, if you have sex more than once a week, you will not necessarily feel happier. This is for the average person. After reading about these findings, people have reported feeling reassured and liberated, but some have looked at them with disbelief, stating that once a week is really not enough. The research has been conducted with and has been consistent for males and females from different age groups, in different types of relationships but of course a lot of other factors may influence someone’s best amount of how often a person engages in sex.
For me, this research teaches me that it is vital to have a sexual connection with the person we want to be with, and that it doesn’t have to be a daily thing. Instead, a healthy once a week or more is enough, at least when it comes to how happy we feel about our life. The problem comes when the sex is too infrequent.
