Great Questions: How Often Do You Think About Sex?

Reggie Noble: As much as it goes every rule ever written in the mythical Bro Code, I think, that if we’re honest, we think about sex less than the stereotype that’s been created for young men in pop culture. Of course sex sits at, or near, the top of our priority lists each and every day. That’s just nature. But movies, commercials, and generalizing archetypes would have you believe that all men under the age of 55 are some sort of primitive set of walking genitals existing only to spread love juice on anything handy.

I hate to break it to you, but we’re much more complicated.

If we really thought about sex every seven seconds, we would die. It would become an omnipresent obsession that would keep us from feeding ourselves and, ultimately, surviving. So let’s just through that ridiculous figure out the window – Lorena Bobbitt style – right now. No man, and I mean not a single one, comes close to thinking about copulation at that rate. If you think you do, however, might I suggest seeking professional help because that road only ends in kinky mass murder.

Now, I believe I think about sex less than the average man. I possess a healthy sex drive, but I am 28, on the cusp of getting married, and don’t have a lot of free time to look at pornography. Between doing it with another person and doing it with myself, I’d estimate I reach sexual satisfaction five times a week. Of course, I think about reaching that goal much, much more often.

So let’s talk numbers.

I sleep, on average, seven hours a night. If I am fortunate enough to have a sex-related dream, it’s a remarkably rare occurrence. That gives me 17 waking hours in a day. Honestly, there are stretches of two, three, and even four hours when the thought of a perfectly rounded breast and tight ass never enter my mind. Jesus, that is a depressing thing to type. But, hey, we strive for nothing but heartbreaking honesty here at Great Questions.

Those spans are more frequent than the times I have multiple distinct sexy thoughts in an hour, so my daily boning-thought count has to be less than 17. Unscientifically, let’s put the number at 12 – meaning that 12 times out of my precious day, I set aside everything else that matters and concentrate on furthering the human race here on earth. Man, it’s a beautiful thing right there.

From there, the math is easy. Twenty-four hours for 12 thoughts mean they, overall, come in two-hour intervals.

Yes, it’s a far cry from once every seven seconds. On the bright side, it did afford me the opportunity to write this without clicking over to PornHub dozens of times.

Andy Moore: Let me just start by saying that it’s impossible to write this without thinking of that Old Spice commercial from a few years back dealing with this same subject. I have this terrible habit of forgetting close family members’ birthdays or where I put my keys each day, but that commercial has been firmly implanted into the inner recesses of my skull ever since it began airing.

“Guys think about sex every seven seconds,” says some dipsh*t with a basketball. “Guys think about soap… Probably never!” Cue actor playing basketball and talking about new Old Spice soap.

That commercial not only sucked egregiously, it made the misleading Seven Seconds statistic the widely cited error it is today. (Note: I am probably giving that commercial too much credit.)

The problem with the Seven Seconds Stat is that it’s impossible, absolutely impossible, to accurately track. You can’t just say, “I’m going to track how much I think about sex each day!” and then not have skewed results. Just thinking about tracking it causes our brains to then think about it, much like if you read something you will immediately picture it in your head. (Don’t think about Bob Ross riding a moped with Teddy Roosevelt.) This is why I’m hesitant to believe any study that attempts to come up with a specific number, no matter the source. A January 2012 study by Ohio State put the number at 19 for guys. But it found that number by having the subjects click golf tally counters each time they thought about screwing. I either would have forgotten to click the counter (because I had more important things on my mind at the time), or I would have mindlessly clicked it 675 times during a boring lecture.

Here’s how often I think about sex: Enough. Enough to stay employed to “impress” women. Enough to shower semi-regularly. Enough to go pay $8 at a bar for a beer. Trying to put an exact number on it is impossible, but whatever the number is, it’s enough to dictate my behavior every day for better or worse.