Question of the Day: How Often Do Men Think About Sex?
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Men think about sex constantly. It”s a fairly general statement, thrown around left and right, and there”s no evidence to support it. There”s even a myth that men think about sex every seven seconds, but it”s practically impossible to get inside their heads and count how many times a day thoughts of sex cross their minds. And yet, there are those who dare to conduct such studies.
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Study by Ohio State University
One of those who attempted to create statistics on human thinking was Terry Fisher, president of Ohio University. The best way to understand how often a person thinks about something is to interrupt them mid-day and ask them what they”re thinking about.
Of course, you can”t do this with everyone in the world, hence the term “sample” in psychology. This means that the study used a specific group of people, and the scientist used the results to draw statistical conclusions.
In her study, Fisher recruited a sample of students. Each participant was asked to press a button whenever they thought about sex, food, or dreams.
The study”s results showed that the average man thinks about sex about 19 times a day. This is almost twice the rate of women, with the average being only 10 thoughts per day. But don”t rush to conclusions, rubbing your hands together and blaming men for every mortal sin. In fact, men thought about food and dreams far more often than women. This may mean that even their weak sense of completely embellished thinking may indicate that they are more likely to expect something.
Moreover, the variation in the number of similar thoughts among different study participants was simply incredible. For example, one student reported thinking about sex only once a day, while another showed the highest result, recording 388 thoughts! Calculations showed that he literally thought about sex every two minutes. Wow, that”s truly impressive!
And here we must immediately make a reservation that such unpleasant factors as the “cynical process theory”, also known as the “white bear effect”, probably influenced the purity of the experiment. This is a rather unpleasant psychological phenomenon for researchers. Its essence lies in the fact that the less a person thinks about something, the more thoughts about it appear.
Read also: How often should men and women have sex? Expert opinion
In fact, the questions are very interesting. And most importantly, shame is simple and at the same time incredibly difficult. This article explains how.
Imagine being asked not to think about a polar bear. What are the odds that you really aren”t thinking about him? Yes, almost zero! The more effort you make not to think about the poor polar bear, the more he will fight your thoughts.
The same thing happened with the participants in the experiment. They say, “Every time you think about sex, push the button, but don”t think about it specifically.” They pick up the device and try their best not to think about sex, but remember that if the thought of sex does arise, they must press the button. And now they are thinking about sex again. This may have had the biggest impact. But in trying to understand how often men think about sex, Fisher still achieved good results.
Study by Wilhelm Hoffman
A different approach to studying the same statistics was used by the German researcher Wilhelm Hoffmann. Unlike Fischer, they left the need to correct their thoughts to the machine — a special application on the smartphone — all the reminders.
Each participant in the experiment — and for this Hoffmann specially selected adults. At random times throughout the day, notifications focused on what the person was thinking. This way, study participants no longer had to worry about remembering to check in—the device did it for them, and they could focus on other things.
This may be why the results of Hoffman”s study differ so markedly from those of Fisher”s study. Unlike the 19 sex ideas per day, Hoffman”s study posted average results only once per day. Moreover, Hoffman”s research showed that even the idea of experimental sex is not the most important. For example, they thought increasingly more positively about food, sleep, social contacts, personal hygiene, free time and, surprisingly, coffee.
Even thinking about social media took up more time than thinking about sex. Usually it appeared closer to the night and yet receded into the background after thoughts of sleep.
Of course, the “white elephant effect” did not escape Hoffman. It manifested itself in the fact that he could overestimate some and underestimate others, knowing that people understand that they need to reconsider their thoughts. And the thought of sex can have a particularly negative impact on the overall outcome of the study.
However, one thing is certain. At the very least, Hoffman”s research disproves the myth that men think about sex every seven seconds. No, they definitely don”t think about it. And while it”s difficult to say exactly how often men think about sex, it”s safe to say that the same dreams and other thoughts about coffee occupy their heads much more often during the day. Moreover, the spread between the results of different male representatives is so great that it is easier to ask this question to a specific person you are interested in and get a more realistic, although not entirely accurate, answer.
