20 myths about sex you still believe

The truth behind some of the weird and worrisome things we think about sex and our bodies.

Truth: A 30-minute romp in the hay burns anywhere from 335 to 1255 kilojoules, depending on how long you go and how – ahem – active you make it. That may sound like a decent burn but the problem is the average sex session lasts just six minutes, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine. During that short span, the biggest increase in your heart rate and blood pressure only occurs for about 15 seconds during orgasm, and then things quickly return back to normal. So if you’re burning 16 kilojoules per minute then that amounts to 100 kilojoules total – the amount in two peanut M&Ms.

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Truth: While oysters do contain a lot of zinc, a mineral that sperm need, no study has ever shown any sexually enhancing effect from eating oysters, according to a study published in Sexual Medicine Reviews. Similarly, the researchers found no support for chocolate as an aphrodisiac either. Dark chocolate has been linked to several health benefits, including lower blood pressure and better functioning of blood vessels, which could enhance blood flow to the penis (important for erections) but you’d have to eat an incredible amount to see any noticeable benefit. That said if a food makes a person think about sex – whether because it resembles intimate anatomy, as oysters might, or even because the person believes it might be an aphrodisiac – then that food might become an aphrodisiac, says Fran Walfish, PhD, psychotherapist, and author.

Truth: This myth stems from old research done by sex research pioneer Alfred Kinsey. He found that men had the most orgasms at around age 18, but women had their highest number of orgasms in their 30s. There are two things to note about this, says Wendy Patrick, JD, PhD, an attorney, relationship counsellor and author. First, just because a young man is having orgasms doesn’t mean he’s having sex. Second, it was the 1950s and women weren’t exactly encouraged to be sexual, much less get pleasure from it. But if we believe frequency of sex to be the factor that matters most in sexual peak, then there’s no difference between men and women, with both genders having the most sex during their 20s, according to the International Society for Sexual Medicine. Sexual desire constantly fluctuates and is related to many more factors than age, Dr. Patrick says.

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Truth: Many men (and women) have worried about the effects of a vigorous romp on their heart, especially as they get older. But sex does not increase your risk of a heart attack and, in fact, having sex more often is linked to better heart health, according to research published by Harvard Medical School. But what if your heart already has problems? The reality is that most people just do not exert themselves that much during sex – the Harvard researchers found that simply walking on a treadmill got men’s heart rates up higher than a sex session.

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Truth: Danish researchers attempted to do brain scans on men and women while their partners tried to give them an orgasm, in a study published in NeuroImage. Apparently, it was drafty in the scanning room and the cold was making it difficult for their subjects to enjoy themselves. So they gave them socks. Lo and behold, once they had warm feet, 80 percent of couples were able to orgasm as opposed to less than half previously, explained lead author Gert Holstege. No one is sure exactly why this works but one theory is that in order to orgasm, you need to be totally relaxed and anxiety-free, and cold feet can interfere with the ability to really get into sex, especially for women, says Walfish.

Truth: A recent study published in the Journal of Sex Research effectively debunks this myth. Looking to tally up the true number of times men (and women!) actually thought about sex in a day, the university had 238 students keep track of their thoughts about food, sex, or sleep for one whole week. The results? Men think about sex far less than you think, averaging about 19 sex thoughts per day instead of the nearly 8,000 thoughts per day that would be netted if men were really thinking about sex every seven seconds. Thoughts about food came in close second, with 18 thoughts per day, while sleep garnered 11 thoughts per day. As for the women? They averaged about 10 thoughts about sex, 15 thoughts about food, and 8.5 thoughts about sleep per day.

Truth: “Around half of heterosexual women sometimes orgasm as a result of penetration alone but the other half either require added clitoral stimulation or other sexual activities in order to climax,” says Justin Lehmiller, PhD, a research fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of a study on sexual fantasies and the book Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Research, published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, backs this up, finding that 37 percent of women said they need some other sort of stimulation during intercourse to achieve orgasm.

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Truth: This theory has been debated for many years, with coaches often telling their athletes to abstain from sex before big games or competitions. The idea comes from Ancient Greece and traditional Chinese medicine, with the prevailing thought being that not having sex would help “increase frustration and aggression, and boost energy.” However, recent research, published in Frontiers in Physiology, suggests sex has little impact on athletic performance – and could possibly have a positive effect instead.

This myth is so pervasive that even doctors will tell their full-term patients to give it a try. But not only does having sex near your due date not start labour, it may actually delay it, according to a study done by the Ohio State University Medical Center. Researchers found that women who were sexually active in the final three weeks of their pregnancies carried their babies an average of 39.9 weeks, compared to 39.3 weeks for women who weren’t having any sex. It’s not a huge difference but when you’ve got a 3kg ball pressing against your lungs, every day counts!

“Women heat up like crockpots while men are like microwaves” is a popular way to explain the supposed difference in how the genders respond to foreplay. The truth? It turns out that there is absolutely no difference in the time it takes men and women to reach peak arousal, according to a study done by McGill University. The researchers used thermal imaging rather than relying on self-reporting, which may mean that if you think it takes you a lot longer to get turned on than it does your husband, the cause may be more mental than physical. Trouble getting turned on? Wait for nighttime; science says the best time to have sex is right before bed.

Is the thing that’s preventing pregnancy also preventing you from getting any in the bedroom? Hormones influence our sex drive and birth control pills alter a woman’s hormone levels, so it makes sense that being on the pill might have an effect on her sex drive. But this popular belief is flat wrong: Taking the pill has no influence on a woman’s sex drive, according to a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Another popular birth control myth is that condoms make sex less pleasurable; a separate study done by Indiana University found that both men and women reported more sexual pleasure when using contraception (likely because they were less worried about the consequences).

Thanks to a blackout, a blizzard, a bomb scare, or some other factor that lands you stuck at home with no lights and no Internet, you decide you’ve got to entertain yourselves by getting busy in the bedroom, right? (And hey, you’re just trying to stay warm!) While this sounds like a fun plot to a rom-com, “blackout babies” are an urban legend, says S. Philip Morgan, a Duke University professor of sociology and demography and author of a study looking at the effects of these events on birth rates. The data simply doesn’t support the idea of a “blackout baby boom,” he says.

Much has been said about the dangers of sexting – and those are very real, especially in casual relationships. But when done in a committed, secure relationship, texting can take your sex life from rote to raging, according to a study from Drexel University. Sending sexual messages and pictures to your significant other increases not only your sexual satisfaction but also your overall happiness in your relationship, says Emily Stasko, MS, MPH, lead author of the study.  The committed relationship part is key, however, as people who identified in the study as single found that sexting had the opposite effect, reducing sexual satisfaction.

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Intercourse simply means there is penetration; having sex can, and should, include so much more than that, says Melissa Coats, a licensed professional counsellor and sex therapist. Sex has an emotional component and encompasses a wide variety of sexual activities, which may or may not include intercourse, she explains. Conflating the two can cause a lot of trouble for couples dealing with things like pain during intercourse, erectile dysfunction, or past traumas. “It’s a myth that every time you have sex, it must include intercourse or it somehow doesn’t count,” she says.

“A very common sex myth people believe is that you’ll be able to tell if someone has an STD by looking at them,” says Robert Huizenga, MD, author of Sex, Lies & STDs. The truth is that many sexually transmitted infections don’t show outward symptoms or may not show up until much later. There’s no substitute for getting a medical screening and being totally honest about the results with your partner – and expecting the same transparency from them, he says.

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Has Hollywood sold you on the desirability of being a “sugar daddy” or “cougar”? Don’t believe it. Having a May-December relationship isn’t ideal and, in fact, is detrimental to both partners, according to a study published in the Review of Economics and Statistics. They found that those married to much younger or older spouses have lower earnings, lower cognitive abilities, are less educated, and – to completely annihilate the stereotype – are less physically attractive than couples of similar ages. Oh, and the sex is worse too.

Delayed ejaculation – meaning when men struggle to have orgasms in conventional ways due to a reliance on porn and masturbation – is way more common than you think, says Cyndi Darnell, an Australian clinical sexologist and sex and relationship therapist. Both men and women can become so accustomed to a certain kind of pressure and speed from stimulating themselves that they find it difficult or even impossible to orgasm with a real-life partner, she explains. A reliance on porn can also give you unrealistic expectations of how your partner should look and act, another mood killer in the bedroom.

Hooking up with your ex not only makes your breakup more complicated but also could even help you move on, finds a study, published in The Archives of Sexual Behaviour. “This suggests that societal hand-wringing regarding… sex with an ex may not be warranted,” the researchers concluded. “The fact that sex with an ex is found to be most eagerly pursued by those having difficulty moving on, suggests that we should… evaluate people’s motivations behind pursuing sex with an ex.”

“I’ve heard a lot of myths about sex toys, such as they can ‘break’ you or ruin you for ‘real’ sex,” says Stella Harris, certified intimacy educator and sex coach and author of Tongue Tied: Untangling Communication in Sex, Kink, and Relationships. “It’s not cheating if you bring toys or masturbation into your partnered sex! Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes, even if it’s their own. Don’t hesitate to touch yourself during sex, or encourage your partner to do so.” As long as they are used in moderation sex toys won’t reduce your genital sensitivity or do other physical damage. You do need to be careful, however, to pick only sex toys that are safe and non-toxic. Silicone, steel, Pyrex, glass or specially laminated wood are the only materials certified as safe for use inside your body, according to a Yale University review.

Vaginas can temporarily stretch to accommodate a large object – how else would women ever survive childbirth? – but they don’t stay stretched out, Harris says. This goes against the “wisdom” currently being spread all over the internet that having multiple partners, a partner with a large penis, or using large sex toys can make a woman’s vagina loose or make her labia look stretched out. How tight or loose a vagina feels depends on the woman’s genetics and the fit between her and her partner.

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Source: RD.com