America reveals its sexual secrets

The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour reveals a more adventurous streak to sexual activity than previous studies. Photograph: Edvard March/Corbis

There are 130 pages of it, most densely packed with statistics and the remainder couched in the kind of language that only the most erudite and obsessive of researchers could find remotely arousing. But the most comprehensive national survey of Americans' sex lives for nearly two decades – arguably the most revealing since Dr Alfred Kinsey's two now-celebrated reports some 60-odd years ago – throws up some fairly intriguing findings. And, as always with this kind of behavioural thing, if it's happening in the US, it's more than likely happening here too.

More than we ever used to, for example, we fancy a bit of this and a bit of that (or at least, we're prepared to own up to it). Not that we indulge in all 41 possible combinations of sex acts enumerated by the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour (NSSHB), published yesterday in a special issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, every time we have sex. But we do seem to be getting considerably more adventurous: of the five basic acts identified by the study (penile-vaginal intercourse or PVI, solo masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral sex and anal sex), more than 6% of men aged 25-29 claimed to have indulged in each and every one the last time they slept with someone.

Well that, you may object, doesn't prove much. There will always be a small proportion of sexual acrobats (or men who think they are). But how to account for the 16% of women aged 18-24 who reckoned they used four of the five techniques the last time they had sex, or the 8% of women aged 50-59 who said the same thing? "The findings demonstrate the enormous variability that occurs in the sexual repertoire," concludes Debby Herbenick of Indiana University's Centre for Sexual Health Promotion, a leading author of the study of 5,865 US residents aged between 14 and 94. So while "vaginal intercourse was still the most common sexual behaviour" among adult men and women, more of them than ever before reported experiencing what the researchers romantically refer to as "sexual events" that did not feature any actual intercourse at all.

Herbenick puts this down mainly to "evolving and varying definitions of what it means to have 'had sex'". In other words, behaviour that was once considered mere foreplay, a kind of precursor or accessory to the main event – the starter, if you like – is increasingly becoming the main course. (And it is worth pointing out that the statistics above refer only to the respondents' last sexual experience, not necessarily to what they get up to when they are really setting out to have a good time).

Half a century ago, the writer Somerset Maugham opined that there is "hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror". He may, finally, be right. The study doesn't delve much into the reasons why our sexual behaviour is evolving in this way. (Indeed, it may have ended up with some even more evolved behaviours – and probably a far larger number of sex act combinations – had it chosen to ask its respondents about their use of sex toys and pornography, which it didn't.) But nonetheless, the NSSHB pretty much puts paid to any lingering notions that repressed Anglo-Saxons are less adventurous in bed than, say, the Italians or French. The missionary position may not quite have died a death, but it's certainly no longer the beginning and end of what we now consider as sex.

Oral sex, for example, has become positively banal. Some 88% of men aged 30-39 have performed oral sex on a woman, 69% of them in the last year. Likewise, nearly 20% of boys aged 16-17. More than half of all women surveyed said they had received oral sex from a male partner in the previous year, while 12% of women aged 14-15, 23% aged 16-17 and well over half of those aged 18-49 said they had given a male partner oral sex.

Masturbation, likewise, is universal. Between 28% and 69% of men in each age group reported having masturbated alone during the past month; and solo masturbation emerged as the most common sex act among 14-24 year-old men and the over-50s. Among women, more than half aged 18-49 said they had masturbated alone in the previous 90 days, pretty much regardless of whether or not they were in a relationship. Nearly a quarter of all women said they had engaged in mutual masturbation with a male partner in the previous month.

Same-sex activity appears to be on the rise, or at least less taboo

More surprisingly, perhaps, the reported rate of anal sex has also increased dramatically, effectively doubling since the National Health and Social Life Survey was carried out by researchers from the University of Chicago in 1988. That study suggested around 12% of American women in the 25-29 age group had experienced anal sex in the last year; that figure has now risen to 21% (and also applies to the 30-39 age group). Some 20% of American 18- to 19-year-old girls have had anal sex at least once in their lifetimes, the new study shows, rising to more than 45% among 25-29 year olds.

Same-sex activity also appears to be on the rise, or at least less taboo (rather than through face-to-face interviews, the new survey was carried out online, a method believed to encourage more open and honest responses). While only about 7% of men and women identified themselves as "other than heterosexual", far more said they had engaged in some form of sexual activity with a member of the same sex. Nearly 15% of women in their 30s, for example, reported having performed oral sex on another woman at least once in their lifetime, while 13% of men over 40 said they had done the same to another man and 50% of men aged 50-59 said they had received it.

While we may be doing more stuff, though, we are not necessarily talking about it. According to Jocelyn Elders, the former US surgeon general, American society continues to view sex "primarily in negative terms"; she has used the report's evidence to argue for a more "open, frank conversation" in American society. "We have a sexually dysfunctional society because of our limited views of sexuality and our lack of knowledge and understanding concerning the complexities and joys of humanity," Elders writes in an introductory paper to the report. "We must revolutionise our conversation . . . to a discussion of pleasure."

Perhaps the most notable consequence of this expanded smorgasbord of sex does, though, appear to be that the whole business has become more pleasurable for women. While men were, on balance, more likely to reach orgasm during vaginal sex, women reported they were far more likely to if their partners adopted more than just one of the five basic techniques – and nearly 90% said they did so when they or their partner used all five. (More disturbingly, a startling number of women – almost a third – reported experiencing some form of genital pain during their most recent sexual encounter, against just 5% of men.)

Not that this more varied sexual diet and greater degree of female sexual satisfaction has done much to reduce the problem of what researchers call "the orgasm gap": in other words, the number of women who actually experience orgasm during sex, as opposed to the number of men who think they do. The NSSHB reports that 64% of women indicated they had reached orgasm in the course of their most recent "sexual event", whereas a fairly staggering 85% of men reported that their partner had done so during their most recent encounter. Some, of course, may have been having sex with other men, but that can hardly account for a 21% difference in perception.

Few young American teenagers seem to be having sex with anybody apart from themselves

There was more reassuring news, though, for those who fear that amid growing concern about teenage sexual development – much of it linked to mobile phone "sexting", social networking websites such as Facebook, and computer-based instant messaging services – very few young American teenagers seem to be having physical sex with anybody apart from themselves. Of the 14- to 16-year-old boys and girls surveyed, only around 10% said they were engaging in any kind of sexual activity with a partner – whereas 62% of boys, and 40% of girls, in the same age group were happy to admit to masturbating on their own during the last year.

The highest rate of condom use (the study was funded by the manufacturer of Trojan condoms) was also found to be among 14- to 17-year-olds. Nearly 80% of the boys and 69% of the girls surveyed said they used a condom the last time they had sex, against 25% for all the men in the study, leading the researchers to conclude that condom use had now become "the norm" among teens. Rates of condom use among black and Hispanic males were also considerably higher than among white men, perhaps showing that HIV-Aids awareness campaigns in these communities, where the disease is proportionately more prevalent, were making progress. "Our findings also show that condoms are used twice as often with casual sexual partners as with relationship partners, a trend that is consistent for both men and women across age groups that span 50 years," Herbenick said.

Cheering findings, too, for the over-60s: both men and women continue to be both active and adventurous in bed between the ages of 60 and 69, with 38% of men and 25% of women indicating they had been given oral sex by a partner of the opposite sex at some stage during the previous 12 months. Past 70, 19% or men and 8% of women reported they were still enjoying regular oral sex as part of their overall sexual activity. Somerset Maugham, one imagines, would be thrilled.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/05/sex-us-american-attitudes-survey