Don’t judge yourself by others especially when it comes to sex

Virility is important to our self-esteem. We want to be wanted. We want to be seen as wanted. This is not just a thing in western culture. It’s a human thing.

We humans want to know, to quote the Pet Shop Boys, “Have you got it? Do you get it?  If so how often? Which do you choose, a hard or soft option?”

By knowing this, we can know – are we normal? Average? Above average. If you are basing your self-worth on how often you get it and with how many people, please stop. I’m not shaming you or anything. You can do whatever you want. I’m just saying, that there are other ways to gauge your worth. Sex should be enjoyable and fun, not a competition.

The good news, for those of us who are rather … monogamous, is that, that appears to be the norm. There is a really great article over at medium that summarizes a study by the National College Health Assessment. It is based on 15 years of data!

Here is a link:
https://medium.com/@enagoski/these-graphs-tell-a-shocking-story-about-the-rampant-college-hookup-culture-38a0ef1b0af8#.9bcjeye3c

Turns out that despite our perception that everyone is doing it with everyone else, most people aren’t.
~30% of college students didn’t have sex with a partner in the past year.
 ~45% had only one partner in the last year.
~15% had 2 or 3 partners in the last year and
~10% had 4 or more.

Both men and women were equally celibate.  The only real gender difference was that there were slightly more men than women who had more than 4 partners making men ever so slightly more promiscuous.

So, that 80/20 rule – where 20% are having 80% of the sex? Yeah that appears to be true.   Should we be panicked about rampant sexual hookups on college campuses? Probably not.   Also, if you aren’t having a lot of sex or are rather monogamous when you do, you are perfectly normal and you have a lot of company.

If you are a young person struggling with these sorts of issues, get my book; The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom.

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