Sexual Problems & Difficulties
How common are sexual difficulties?
If you or your partner have a sexual problem or difficulty you may feel that it's just you - that this doesn't happen to many others.An excellent Australian study - Sexual Difficulties in a Representative Sample of Adults (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com) has found that sexual difficulties and problems are surprisingly common.
They surveyed 20,000 people aged 16 to 59 years, and asked whether in the past year they had, for a period of at least one month, experienced a range of sexual difficulties.
Note
that this isn't just had the difficulty for a day or two or a week,
it's having the difficulty for at
least one month.
And this isn't asking whether people have ever had a difficulty. It's only asking about what has happened in the last year.
And this isn't asking whether people have ever had a difficulty. It's only asking about what has happened in the last year.
From the paper:
Results:
The most common sexual difficulty was lack of interest in having sex (54.8% women, 24.9% men).
Women were more likely than men to report being:
Men (16.0%) and women (17.0%) were equally likely to have felt anxious about their ability to perform sexually.
Erectile difficulties and lack of interest in sex were higher among the over-40s. Anxiety about performance was highest among men under 20.
Experience of sexual difficulties correlated with self-reported ill health.
Conclusion:
The assumption that everyone should be interested in sex, should want to have it and should enjoy having it is a socially normative prescription and not a description of the actual state of affairs.
Women reported less interest in sex, less pleasure and more pain than men.
The most common sexual difficulty was lack of interest in having sex (54.8% women, 24.9% men).
Women were more likely than men to report being:
- unable to come to orgasm (28.6% vs. 6.3%),
- not finding sex pleasurable (27.3% vs. 5.6%),
- physical pain during intercourse (20.3% vs. 2.4%) or
- worrying during sex about their body looking unattractive (35.9% vs. 14.2%).
Men (16.0%) and women (17.0%) were equally likely to have felt anxious about their ability to perform sexually.
Erectile difficulties and lack of interest in sex were higher among the over-40s. Anxiety about performance was highest among men under 20.
Experience of sexual difficulties correlated with self-reported ill health.
Conclusion:
The assumption that everyone should be interested in sex, should want to have it and should enjoy having it is a socially normative prescription and not a description of the actual state of affairs.
Women reported less interest in sex, less pleasure and more pain than men.
So if you or your partner have any of these sexual difficulties it's not just you.
For
example, one in five women have in the past year had for a period of at
least one month
suffered physical pain during intercourse. One in five!
This section of the
Devotional Sex website
I'd always intended to have a section in the website on how Devotional Sex can help with each sexual problem and difficulty. But this had been given low priority because until I read the result of this paper I had thought that only a few readers of the website would be interested.
Now that I know the extent of sexual difficulties in the community I'm making completing this section a high priority.
Page
last
updated: 23 September
'18
Copyright © MichaelK 2018
Copyright © MichaelK 2018