Articles & Advice

... a lot shorter than you would think.

In a "they got paid to do this?" kind of study, researchers have figured out that the optimum amount of time for sexual intercourse is three to 13 minutes -- not counting foreplay.

That's the word from a survey of 34 sex therapists, all of whom are members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research in the United States and Canada. While some fudged the answer by saying the optimal time depends on the couple, most agreed it was sometime between three to 13 minutes. Sexual intercourse that lasts just one to two minutes was deemed "too short" by the sex therapists. The Associated Press reports that this strikes at the very notion that endurance is the key to a great sex life.

Lead study author Eric Corty, an associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, told AP that the purpose of the research was to ease the minds of those who believe "more of something good is better, and if you really want to satisfy your partner, you should last forever."

Previous research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine concluded that the median time for sexual intercourse was 7.3 minutes. This was based on a four-week study of 1,500 couples in 2005 in which the women in the study were armed with stopwatches.

Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist and director of Wellminds Wellbodies in Annapolis, Maryland, told AP that it's difficult for older men and young men to make sexual intercourse last much longer than 13 minutes. "There are so many myths in our culture of what other people are doing sexually," she told AP. "Most people's sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are."

The study findings were published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

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