EUR: Men want intimacy and closeness too: Study

AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-2008
EUR: Men want intimacy and closeness too: Study

By Danny Rose, Medical Writer

BRUSSELS, Dec 9 AAP - A global study of what people value most in their sex lives has
found "closeness" and "intimacy" are rated higher, universally, by men.

The study took in the views of more than 1,000 committed couples aged in mid-life or
older, drawn from the US, Spain, Japan, Germany and Brazil.

They were quizzed on the importance of their relationship, sexual behaviour and also
the role sex played independently in the health and life satisfaction of the men and women.

Their answers were collated into a scale ranging up to 10 - "very important" - and
men returned stereotype-busting results on the question of what they derived from sex.

"Partnered sexual activity is important to men and women across all countries," the
study, released at the Congress of the European and International Societies for Sexual
Medicine in Brussels, concludes.

"Contrary to cultural stereotypes, across all countries surveyed, men rated the importance
of sex for closeness and intimacy to their partner more highly than did their female partners."

American men rated the importance of having "sex for intimacy" at 8.14, compared to
7.5 for US women, and the other countries continued in the same pattern.

But the results could be skewed by women generally placing less importance on all matters
to do with sex, and it also seems they are generally less interested in having it.

A separate study using the same pool data concluded that men across all nationalities
"reported experiencing desire more frequently than women".

US men reported the highest level of interest in sex, with 13.3 per cent responding
they felt sexual desire more than once a day. This compares to just 1.9 per cent for American
women.

The study found men, generally across the globe, thought about sex either several times
daily through to several times weekly while for women it was a several times weekly or
less frequently.

"The proportion of women in western countries reporting infrequent or absent desire
- once a month or not at all - ranged from 11.68 to 19.91 per cent," the study concludes.

In Japan, almost 70 per cent of women stated they thought about sex at a rate of once
a month or not at all.

AAP dr/tam/maur/

KEYWORD: INTIMACY

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