(More sex.)
One last bit from the Details (April 2013) sex survey: “Orgasms by the Numbers — Straight vs. Gay”. Here the issues are how the respondents understood the questions and how to interpret the major straight vs. gay difference in the answers.
The text on p. 104:
On average, straight male survey respondents say they receive 6 blow jobs a month, have casual sex 7 times, orgasm 23 times, and masturbate 17 times.
On average, gay male survey respondents say they receive 9 blow jobs a month, have casual sex 6 times, orgasm 28 times, and masturbate 40 times.
Question 1: How did the respondents understand the questions about getting blow jobs, having casual sex, and masturbating? Carrying the act to climax, or just engaging in it? I tried to go back and look at the questions, but now that the survey is closed, they’re not available on details.com any more (and I’ve recycled that issue of Details.)
I can report that some men report blow jobs as number of mouths on their dick, not number of times coming. I’ve met guys at the baths who think this way; they see themselves as “collectors”, like the protagonist of John Rechy’s Numbers. They can count 15 or more blow jobs in an evening, but come only once or twice.
Question 2: How did partnered respondents match up against unpartnered respondents? The huge difference in masturbation rates — the one really striking disparity — could simply follow from the fact that a higher percentage of gay men are unpartnered than straight men. If you’re alone, it’s easier getting your release at home (using porn or jack-off chat) than hooking up with someone else in the flesh.
In any case, 40 times a month sounds entirely normal to me.
March 26, 2013 at 10:41 am |
17 times a month seems shockingly low, especially if the age range of the survey includes men ages, say, 21+, or egad, 18+.
May 1, 2013 at 9:32 am |
[…] a while, I tried to make sense of the last sex survey by Details magazine; a lot depended on how the questions were worded and how […]