Men think almost as much about food as sex, but they don’t think about sex as often as previously believed, a new study reveals.
“Young people don’t think about sex as often as the general popular image suggests — the “once every seven seconds” myth is very far off from reality, and the sex differences are not as large as we believe,” says Terri Fisher, professor of psychology at Ohio State University and lead author of the study.
She recruited 163 female and 120 male college students between 18 and 25 for the weeklong study. Participants were asked to press a small plastic device every time they thought about sexual stimuli of any kind, fantasies and erotic images. Two control groups recording thoughts of food and sleep were also included.
It turned out men thought about sex 19 times a day, followed closely by thoughts of sleep at 18 times a day. That is nearly twice as often as the women thought about sex — but men also thought more about both food and sleep. Both sexes were very intrigued to learn how often they thought about all three categories.
Men want more sex when they are young and need more food — that could be one possible reason they think about it more frequently. However, that doesn’t account for the sleep factor as they don’t need more sleep, says Fisher.
