Sexual Positions Survey Results

Jay Dee

Sexual Positions Survey Results

Jun 18, 2015

At the request of a few readers, I ran a survey a week and a bit ago asking people what their favorite positions were during sex.  And I decided to hold out doing the analysis until we hit 500 respondents.  That seemed to work, because we

Sexual Positions SurveyAt the request of a few readers, I ran a survey a week and a bit ago asking people what their favorite positions were during sex.  And I decided to hold out doing the analysis until we hit 500 respondents.  That seemed to work, because we got them.  527 actually, not bad.

So, thank you for everyone who responded, for those who didn’t…shame on you 🙂  So, without further ado, let’s get on to the results.

Simple answers

As usually, we’ll just run through the simple answers first:

Gender

173 female respondents, 343 male and 11 who abstained for sharing, giving us a total of 527, though the 11 who abstained will of course need to be exclude for any data comparisons using gender.

How often do you currently have sex?

The average given was 2.0 times per week.

Are you happy with the quantity of sex in your marriage?

1% said they’d like to have less, 68% said they’d like to have more leaving only 31% who are happy with the quantity of sex.

Are you happy with the quality of sex in your marriage?

59% said yes leaving 41% saying no.

What is your favorite position for “regular” sex?

  • 28% – “Standard” man on top (missionary position)
  • 28% – “Standard” woman on top
  • 9% – A man on top variant
  • 6% – A rear entry variant
  • 6% – A woman on top variant
  • 25% – Rear entry (doggie style)

I was a little surprised by how high rear entry scored, I expected it to be well behind the others.  Apparently I should have had a side by side (spooning, or facing) as that wasn’t represented in the options.

How often do you use this position during sex?

The average was 60% of the time.  3% never use their favorite position, and only 10% use their favorite every time.

What is your favorite position for receiving oral sex?

  • 17% – 69 position (reciprocated)
  • 3% – 69 position (unreciprocated)
  • 3% – Kneeling with spouse under you
  • 13% – On your back, spouse beside you leaning over
  • 46% – On your back, spouse between your legs
  • 8% – Sitting with your spouse kneeling/sitting between your legs
  • 9% – Standing with spouse kneeling

I tried to think of all the possible variations, but being on your back with your spouse between your legs seems to be the winner.

How often do you use this position while receiving oral sex?

The average was 48% of the time. 19% never use their favorite, while again, only 10% use their favorite every time.   Seems fewer people get what they want during oral sex than “regular” sex.

What is your favorite position for giving oral sex?

  • 52% – Your spouse on their back, while you are between their legs
  • 10% – Under your spouse while they kneel
  • 13% – Spouse on their back, you beside them leaning over
  • 7% – Kneeling/sitting while your spouse sits (in a chair, edge of the bed)
  • 4% – Kneeling while your spouse stands 3.85%
  • 1% – 69 position (unreciprocated)
  • 13% – 69 position (reciprocated)

And again, the same position wins.  I wonder if this is considered the “missionary position” of oral sex, and so it scores high because people don’t try other ones.

How often do you use this position while giving oral sex?

The average was 59% of the time.  I guess the one who offers oral sex gets to pick the position more often.  That makes sense.  11% never get to use their favorite but 15% get to use their favorite every time.

How do you generally transition between sexual positions and/or activities during sex?

  • 30% – Discuss it (do you want to try/switch to …)
  • 11% – I move how I want to be and my spouse follows
  • 7% – I move my spouse where I want them to be
  • 7% – I tell my spouse what to do
  • 10% – My spouse tells me what to do
  • 10% – We don’t change positions and/or activities
  • 9% – Without conversation (we always do the same thing)
  • 18% – Without conversation (we just know what we want to do)

The largest group discussed it, with the second largest just knowing what each other wants (mind readers apparently).

How many different positions do you use during a sex session?

The average was 2.5, but over 45% of couples use 2 positions during a sex session.  24% use 3 positions and 17% use 1.  Only 6% use 5 or more positions in a session.

By Gender

So, let’s look at a few of these by gender.

Quantity & Quality

Our women readers are having far more sex than our male readers on average.  Wives report 2.5 times per week with men reporting 1.7 times per week.  As we’ve hypothesized in the past, this is likely due to the fact that we’re more likely to draw sex-positive and/or high-drive wives, and since wives tend to be the defacto gate-keepers of sex, this would account for that anomaly.  But not all of our female readers are high-drive, because they’re also 4 times more likely to say they’d like less sex (though only 2% of women respondents answered that way).

While 76% of husbands would like to have more sex, 52% of wives would as well.  I wonder how much overlap there is there.  How many couples both want more sex, but just aren’t making it a priority, or their lives are too busy, or maybe they don’t even know their spouse wants more.

Among our female readers, 70% are happy with the quality of sex in their marriage.  That’s pretty good considering historically women are harder to please during sex.  By contrast, 54% of men are not happy with the quality of sex in their marriage.

Preferences during sex

We’re always told that women prefer woman on top positions because they get more control and it’s easier to climax and that men like man on top, because he can control the sex and orgasm easier.  But, according to our data, this isn’t so.

35% of wives say they preferred the missionary position and only 22% said they preferred woman on top.  Actually more women prefer a rear entry (doggy style) position (23%) than being on top.  I wonder how much of this is due to being sensitive about how they look.  After all, when the woman is on top, she’s pretty exposed.  In rear-entry, all you can see is their back, something far less daunting.

Men, on other hand, on average, seem to prefer woman on top, possibly due to that same exposure which they get to enjoy, then rear-entry, and lastly man on top positions, and they get to enjoy these positions about 57% of the time, compared to the wives who get to enjoy theirs 64% of the time.

Preferences regarding oral sex positions

Men seems to be a lot less picky about how they get oral sex.  On their back with their spouse between their legs is preferred by 35% of them, and 69 reciprocated being preferred by 20%.  Women tend to be more united on this, with 73% preferring to be on their back with their spouse between their legs.

Husbands that prefer to receive oral sex on their back with their spouse leaning over them tend to receive it more often, 67%.  Wives have about the same stat (68%), but have even more success if they prefer their husbands to be between their legs (75%).  This is probably because 65% of husbands have a preference for giving oral sex to their wives from between their legs and wives seem to prefer being beside their spouse, leaning over them.  Funny how that works out, isn’t it?  Even when we’re “giving” oral sex, we still seem to stick to our own preferences instead of our spouse’s.

Communication about sexual positions

The largest group in either gender were those who discussed position changes (29% for men, 33% for women) with the second being those that just know what they want to do next (15% for men, 24% for women).  After that it changes depending on the gender.

13% of husbands say they don’t change positions or activities during sex, they stick with what they started with, another 12% just move how they want to be, and their spouse follows.  10% tell their wife what to do next and 9% just physically move them how they want them to be.  8% just follow the same script, and only 5% take the lead from their wife.

19% of wives say their spouse tells them how to move while 10% feel they follow the same script every session.  A further 10% move how they want and let their husband follow.  Only 2% of the women in our survey say they don’t change positions.  That’s quite different from what the husbands reported, but again, it could be due to the types of wives we get reading this blog.  Less than 4% physically move their spouse or tell them where to move.

On average, the men say they use 2.3 positions per sexual encounter, and the women say 2.8.

Interesting correlations

Couples that only use one position per sex session seem to have less sex, a little over once a week, whereas those who use two have sex almost twice per week, and those that use three, four or five around the 2.5 times per week mark.

There also seems to be a correlation between communication and sexual frequency (I know, big surprise).  Those that discuss position changes have sex 2.4 times per week on average.  Compare that to those who always do the same thing (1.5 times per week), or those that don’t change their positions (0.9 times per week).

Also, it’s interesting to note that husbands who tell their wives how to move have sex 2.2 times per week, while those who wait to be told by their wife what to do have sex 1.4 times per week.  I think there’s something about an assertive husband, at least in the bedroom, that appeals to a great many wives.  That’s consistent with what I hear from them over emails and in comments as well.

With women there is a different dynamic at play.  Those who move how they want and let their spouse follow have sex 3.6 times per week.  I would be very curious to know if these wives consider themselves higher drive.  I suspect they are as none of these said they wanted less sex, and a third of them actually wanted more.

Your Turn

Any questions you had that were left unanswered?  Let me know.

Looking for help?


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