All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. The most rewarding part of being a woman is dealing with society's crushingly heavy expectations for every aspect of your life.
So fun. From weight to hair to yes, even labia , it's hard not to wonder if you're "normal. There's nothing like listening to friends chatter their about endless sexual sessions when you and your partner routinely tap out around 10 minutes. Or, on the flip side, hearing that your friends orgasm rapid-fire when for you it takes so long you sometimes want snacks or a nap break.
So what do you do when you find yourself wondering how your time in the sack stacks up? We did the math for you, so you can just go ahead and focus on feeling good. One landmark Journal of Sexual Medicine study published in found that the median length of intercourse was 5.
It's also worth pointing out that so far, studies of this kind focus on hetero couples when obviously people don't only get with others of the opposite sex. No matter who you're sexing, PIV is not the be-all and end-all. In a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine , sex therapists said intercourse that lasted minutes was "too short," minutes was "adequate," minutes was "desirable," and was "too long" interesting that there's some overlap between their opinions on "desirable" and "too long".
But a study in the Journal of Sex Research that did actually include foreplay found that on average, people were indulging in minutes of foreplay followed by minutes of intercourse, which sounds positively luxurious compared to the previous numbers. Still, the participants generally wanted sex to last for double the time. I'm no scientist, and I'm sure some of the discrepancy is about one partner or the other not feeling satisfied, even though they had a good amount of sex time-wise.
