How Long should Sex Last?

Huh? Is there a science to that art?

Apparently, there have been attempts to scientifically answer the question! For instance, an article in the Mirror summarised a scientific inquiry into the subject by Dr. Brendan Zietsch. The doctor, the Mirror related, investigated 500 couples to determine that, for the couples studied, the length of actual intercourse can last from anytime between 33 seconds to 44 minutes with a median time of 5.4 minutes. This time, ostensibly, is an improvement over a historical figure of 2 minutes for American men according to an article in The Cut.

A recent survey of 4000 respondents reported in the Metro shows that the average length for sexual intercourse can be up to 10 minutes, the time goes up to 19 minutes when foreplay is thrown into the equation.

Furthermore, The Cut article cited a 2008 survey of sex therapists, which found that sex is “too short” when it lasts one to two minutes, “adequate” when it lasts three to seven minutes, and desirable when it lasts from seven to thirteen minutes. It is deemed “too long” if it goes up to 30 minutes, and that anything more than forty minutes will henceforth be known as “too Kanye” – a reference to a 2012 sex tape of Kanye West.

But hey, I don’t think anyone should allow these numbers to influence their sexual life. I mean, those are just opinions and the experiences of the people surveyed and I very much doubt that they are true representatives for legally sexually active people. When all’s said and done, sex is an intimate and personal experience and I believe that every couple should be able to work out what works for them. My best guess is that there is no optimum length of time, the act would simply last just as long as it takes the couple involved to climax – both parties, not just one of them. So, in a nutshell, it is quality over quantity.