SA's singles have the least satisfactory sex lives: survey
Wait, what?! asks Paige Nick. Here's what else she found intriguing about the results of the 2017 Sunday Times Lifestyle Sex Survey
Image: 123RF/fotobyjuliet
Are you having tons of wild and crazy sex? Yes, no, maybe, while doing handstands, or all of the above? No, don't tell me, I'll tell you.
The recent Sunday Times Lifestyle Sex Survey* has had a good rummage around in the drawers of South Africans of all races, colours and genders, to see what we've been getting up to in the boom-chicka-wa-wa department.
I have the results right here, so I could tell you how often you masturbate, who you're really thinking about while you have sex, or how many of you like anal. But while I was poring through the results, something else grabbed me by the short and curlies.
I expect to see that 35% of you masturbate every week, or that the good old vibrator is the most popular sex toy, with only 5.4% of you citing butt plugs. And I expect that women are better equipped to deal with a sexual drought than men, none of this is really news. It's the responses I didn't expect that are more interesting.
Did you know that in South Africa, those between 41 and 50 have more sex than any other age group? Closely followed by 50- to 65-year-olds.
It's unexpected news, I was having way more sex in my 20s and 30s than I am now. I want to know who in our age range is bringing up the statistics. Is it all those AfrikaBurners? I checked out this demographic in the queue at Woolies yesterday, and again at the post office and Dis-Chem, it really doesn't look like any of them are getting it at all, let alone more than millennials.
But the truth according to these new stats, is that singles are sexually unhappy right now, with a score way below the national average. Which is surprising in this age of Tinder, the internet, high-performance condoms and the acceptability of random hookups. We haven't been this poised for fun, chandelier-swinging sex with strangers since Mick Jagger first put on leather pants, and yet here we are.
And when it comes to where all this older-folk sex is taking place, more surprises. The Western Cape outsexes all provinces, followed by KwaZulu-Natal, with Gauteng bringing up the rear (not literally, only 14% of you have anal sex, and then only on special occasions).
Females are more open-minded than men when it comes to BDSM. Although I suspect that's a function of the 50 Shades phenomenon.
And in the category of bizarre, in response to the question "Which of these fantasies do you fancy the most?", 4.5% admit to fantasising about sleeping with their partner's sibling; 27% copped to fantasising about a liaison with a colleague in the photocopy room; 31% of you are fantasising about group sex; and a massive 36.7% of South Africans are fantasising about "an excursion to a farmyard". What the actual hell does that even mean? No judgies, but what is wrong with you people?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sex itself is one massive hard-on wrapped in a bunch of anomalies. The only question I thought was missing though was, "How honest are you when you answer sex surveys?"
How hot are South African's sex lives?
We asked South Africans to rate their sex lives on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being 'zzzzzzzzz' and 10 being 'continuous exploding fireworks'.
Couples in a relationship enjoyed sex the most giving their sex lives an average score of 7/10.
Married couples also seem fairly satisfied with an average score 6.2.
Singles seem to be sexually unhappy with a low average score of 5.4, which is below the national average of 6.4.