With a large population of college students, you may think that the best sex is happening in the dorm rooms and apartments of those with casual hookups, those couples who hang out constantly, those couples living together, or maybe those engaged. But, are they really the ones having the best sex? Not according to research.
Over and over again, studies have been published that show that married couples have the best sex. So, what exactly does that mean? By best, it means in terms of both quantity and quality.
Yes, married couples have more sex and better sex than people in any other arrangement. This truth is so shocking that it is getting moved from the research journals to popular resources like the Huffington Post. Its headline blatantly reads Want More and Better Sex? Get Married and Stay Married.
Married couples also enjoy sex more. New York University sociologist Paula England reports that married women are twice as likely to orgasm. According to the Men & Marriage research brief, “On average, the quality of married sex trumps that of unmarried sex. According to the National Health and Social Life Survey, 51 percent of married men reported they were extremely satisfied with their sex lives, compared to 39 percent of cohabiting men and 36 percent of single men. A majority of married men also found sex extremely physically pleasurable, compared to a minority of men in unmarried relationships … Contrary to all the conventional wisdom, married men find sex more emotionally and physically pleasurable than their unmarried peers.”
But, why? What are the underlying reasons? While there are many reasons, there is one fundamental factor. It is what makes marriage different than all the other arrangements – commitment. Sex is more than just a physical experience – it involves and creates emotional, spiritual, and mental intimacy. So when couples know they are committed to each other, that opens them up to being comfortable, trusting, and vulnerable with each other. It leads to more varied experiences because they are willing to try new things and communicate more about their desires. Marriage commitment also gives couples years to work on their sex lives.
So, who’s having the best sex? It’s married couples; but, it can be narrowed down even more. The Wheatley Institution of BYU reports “that women in highly religious relationships (couples who pray together, read scripture at home, and attend church, etc.) were twice as likely as their secular peers to say they were satisfied with their sexual relationship. And the men in these couples were fully four times as likely to report being sexually satisfied as men in relationships with no religious activity.”
So maybe the headline should be changed to Want More and Better Sex? Get Married, Stay Married, and Be Highly Religious.