Want to know how long should sex last? Science finally answers this question

One of the recent studies involved 500 couples from around the world. They timed themselves having sex over a four-week period – using a stopwatch.

“That is as practically awkward as it sounds: participants pressed ‘start’ at penile penetration and ‘stop’ at ejaculation,” Dr. Brendan Zietsch from the University of Queensland commented. “You may note this could affect the mood somewhat, and might perhaps not exactly reflect the natural flow of things. But science is rarely perfect, and this is the best we’ve got.”

The most striking result is that there was a huge amount of variation. The average time for each couple ranged from 33 seconds to 44 minutes. That’s an 80-fold difference!

The average across all couples, though, was 5.4 minutes. This means that if you line up the 500 couples from shortest sex to longest sex, the middle couple goes for an average of 5.4 minutes each time they do it.

By the way, condom use didn’t seem to affect the time, and neither did men’s being circumcised or not.

“Another surprising finding was that the older the couple, the shorter the sex, contrary to the prevailing wisdom (probably peddled by older men),” Zietsch added.