Don’t Worry If You Don’t Think You’re Having Enough Sex, According To A New Study, None Of Us Are

We're not sure if we should feel comforted or depressed by this news to be honest...

How much sex is enough

by Georgia Aspinall |
Updated on

Whether you’re single, married, in a situationship or not quite sure what the hell is going on with your sex life, one thing is true of almost all of us, we’re always sure everyone else is having more sex than us. Alas, a new study has taken that insecurity an thrown it out the window, because apparently, we’re all collectively having much less sex than we used to. Hurrah, a nation of bores.

According to a national survey published in the British Medical Journal, nearly a third of women and men haven’t had sex in the past month. Only 41% of people have sex at least once a week, and compared to 2001 the percentage of us living in this month-long dry spell is up by 6% among women and 3% among men.

And those who typically had sex at least 10 times a month? They’ve gone from one-fifth of the British population to less than 15% among both women and men. Essentially, the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles has revealed that we’re all slowly becoming prudes. Kind of.

Researchers state that the drop is most likely due to the increased ‘pace of modern life’ giving people little time to indulge in the carnal pleasures of this life. While those under 25 and single were less likely to be sexually active overall, the biggest decline in the amount of sex people were having fell under older married and cohabiting couples.

‘It is interesting that those most affected are in their mid-life - the so-called “sandwich” generation, Prof Kaye Wellings, lead researcher of the study, told the BBC, ‘These are men and women who are often juggling work, childcare and responsibilities to parents who are getting older.’

One contributing factor also includes the global recession, which we can only assume means we’re all too broke to go out on the pull anymore. Plus, a correlating increase in social media use. Just as we argued last week that Netflix was ruining our sex lives, perhaps the constant scrolling on Instagram is too having an impact.

Click through for 32 things you didn't know about Sex and The City, the show that made us all question our sex lives...

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32 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

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CREDIT: Getty

31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City

The tutu that Carrie wears in the opening credits cost $5 from a showroom bargain bin. It's now framed and hangs in Michael Patrick King's office.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Even if she was filmed from the waist up, Kim Cattrall – who played Samantha – insisted she wore heels as she said it made her feel more like her character.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

MISTAKE ALERT! In the opening credits, the bus that goes past Carrie with her picture on it is full of people in the first shot, then totally empty once it splashes her.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Sarah Jessica Parker was the only one of the four ladies to have a nudity clause in her contract stating she would never appear naked.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Mr Big's second wife, Natasha, always wore white because her character was meant to be 'vanilla'.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Remember that politician Carrie dates in Season 3? He only went on to play ROGER STERLING in Mad Men.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Carrie's 'Newspaper Dress' was designed by John Galliano for Christian Dior and would have set her back $1,500.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda, didn't have pierced ears. All her earrings were clip-ons.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

When Trey (Kyle MacLachlan) proposed to Charlotte (Kristen Davis) outside Tiffanys, it wasn't the real Tiffanys. The store wouldn't let them film for security reasons, so the set designers had to design a fake Tiffanys window. A Tiffanys employer still okayed it though.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

No outfit was ever repeated twice – except Carrie's fur coat in the final scene of the last series where she's on the phone to 'John'.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

When Miranda's cat steals Brady's umbilical cord (hard to forget that bit) the 'umbilical cord' was actually some beef jerky tied to a piece of string.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

The scene where Carrie and Miranda ate a cupcake outside Magnolia bakery was credited for the global boom in cupcakes sales which followed. Yes, GLOBAL. The shop also later had to hire bouncers to control the crowds.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Why was Mr Big called Mr Big? Sex and the City author Candice Bushnell told New York Magazine in 2004, 'He was one of those New York guys with a big personality — you just notice him as soon as he walks in the room.' She also said, 'I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus.'

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Carrie's iconic nameplate necklace came from costume designer, Patricia Field's, East Village shop – often frequented by students. 'That name necklace was something that black kids, Puerto Rican kids, borough kids, ethnic kids had been wearing forever, that was just a statement,' she said. She had one made up especially for Carrie.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Jennifer Aniston's ex-husband, Justin Theroux, appeared twice in SATC. First as Jared, Stanford's pal in Season One's The Monogamists, who Carrie flirts with at New York Magazine's '30 coolest people under 30' party. Second, as writer Vaughn Wysel in Shortcomings, who has a very close and open family, the mother of which Carrie felt was the person she ultimately had to break up with when the relationship with Vaughn collapsed.

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CREDIT: Getty

31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Who was Mr Big supposedly based on? Publishing executive Ron Galotti, former publisher of GQ and Talk. Wanna see a pic of him? Ok...

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CREDIT: Getty

31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Mr Big was originally described by Carrie as 'the next Donald Trump'... What a relief she was wrong.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

The first dog to play Aidan's pooch, Pete, was afraid of actor John Corbett. It loved SJP though. In the end, they had to find another dog for the role.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

When Carrie falls into the Central Park pond to avoid a kiss from Big, Sarah Jessica Parker cut her foot on the bottom and had to have a tetanus shot straight after, even though the pool was dredged prior to filming. Luckily the scene was filmed in one take – but still... WHAT a palaver!

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Sarah Jessica Parker was once set-up on a date with Willie Garson.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Season 5 was created to be shorter than the other series' because Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Carrie never calls Mr Big 'Big' to his face – only behind his back. In fact, she doesn't call him anything at all in the ENTIRE series. It's only in Sex and the City: The Movie that she refers to him by his real name, 'John'... and that's just the once when she gets home and asks where he is.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

The four girls' family are rarely mentioned because the show's creators didn't want family issues to detract from the friendships and characters.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

When Carrie goes to LA to talk about a film version of her book and ends up having that #awkward chat with Matthew McConaughey about his take on the 'Mr Big character', Matthew wasn't the first actor approached for the cameo. Originally it was Alec Baldwin, who turned it down. As did George Clooney and Warren Beatty.

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CREDIT: Getty

31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Candice Bushnell only made $60,000 from selling the rights to her bestselling book Sex and the City.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

The most expensive dress Carrie wore was the Atelier Versace Couture 'Mille Feuille' gown in the penultimate SATC episode, when she was in Paris awaiting her date with Aleksandr Petrovsky. It cost $80,000.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Carrie's apartment – 245 E 73rd Street, between Park and Madison – doesn't exist. It's actual location was 66 Perry Street, between Bleeker and 4th East 73rd street.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

All the ladies 'lobbied' for more diversity on the show, 'no one more than Sarah Jessica', Cynthia Nixon once revealed.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Kim Cattrall only decided to play Samantha after a friend convinced her. She turned down the role twice.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

Carrie Bradshaw's apartment was sold in 2012 for $9.65million. In the series she said she paid just $750 per month in rent for it.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

The book Love Letters Of Great Men from SATC Movie didn't exist until after the film, and it only came out because so many people wanted to buy it.

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31 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia

When Carrie bumps into Aidan carrying his baby in Season 6, the child was actually Sarah Jessica Parker's. That's why the baby looks so pleased to see her – CUTE!

Of course, when you’re really feeling it, there’s no amount of flat-lay coffee pictures that are going to stop you from getting it on, so perhaps this study is just indicative of a general decline in the value sex brings our lives? At least, that’s what professor Wellings states could be a comfort to many who worry they’re not having sex enough.

‘What is important to wellbeing is not how often people have sex but whether it matters to them,’ she stated, ‘Most people believe that others have more regular sex than they do themselves. Many people are likely to find it reassuring that they are not out of line.’

The real question then, is, would we value sex more if it was good enough? Given the discussions around the result of this study haven’t qualified whether there is a difference in sexual frequency between opposite-sex and same-sex relationships, it’s not yet known whether this solely applies to heterosexual relations. We know that women are likely to orgasm only 11% of the time during heterosexual sex, so could this sex-drought be developing from the ever-enduring orgasm gap? Either way, it’s time to step up our sex education and turn off Netflix if we don’t want to become a nation of tense and dissatisfied bores who think discussing Brexit over a pint is a good Friday night.

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