In praise of quick sex

What happened

The optimal amount of time to spend having sex is three to 13 minutes, according to a new survey being published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Researcher Eric Cody said he hoped to ease people’s minds, because disappointment from a sex life that falls short of the “fantasy model” of “all-night-long” love-making can lead to dysfunction and unhappiness. (AP in the Boston Herald)

What the commentators said

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So, if somebody tells you he or she can go all night long, said MSN India, they're lying, or doing something wrong. The participants in the North American survey “described three to seven minutes of the act as ‘adequate,’ seven to 13 minutes as ‘desirable,’ from one to two minutes as ‘too short,’ and 10 to 30 minutes as ‘too long.’” Past research showed that men and women—reinforced by popular culture—wanted sex to last 30 minutes or more.

“If your mate is a two-minute man,” said the blog Mom Logic, “they have nothing to cheer about.” The people who responded to the survey did say that some foreplay before the clock starts ticking on the “actual deed” is critical, and sex under three minutes is "too short."

“Creators of the middle-school make-out game Seven Minutes in Heaven (consult Wikipedia if you must) may not have been too far off the mark,” said Tuan Nguyen in ABC News online. Now we know from the “sexperts” of Society for Sex Therapy and Research—the people surveyed by the Penn State researchers—that that figure is on the mark. So don’t try to fulfill the “fantasies” of all-night sex. You’ll only be disappointed.