The average number may be higher than some people expected…
Most people have probably wondered at some point whether their sex life is normal, especially when it feels like everyone else is either doing more or talking like they are.
There is, however, a number often used to describe how often the average person has sex. For some people, it may sound pretty reasonable. For others, it may feel like a lot more than expected.
Of course, averages can be a little misleading. They do not mean every person or every couple should be hitting the same number, but that did not stop the figure from getting a big reaction online.
Back in 2022, TikToker Daniel Schaal, who posts as @thatschaalfolks, got people talking when he shared what he called the “magic number.”
The number seemed to catch him off guard, and plenty of viewers had the same reaction. Many joked that they suddenly had some serious catching up to do.
In a video that quickly spread across TikTok, Schaal addressed his viewers and reacted to the average in a way many people found painfully relatable:
“The average person has sex 54 times a year or so, looks like the next few days are gonna be pretty crazy for me.”
The comment landed with a lot of people, and the statistic soon turned into a running joke in the comments. Instead of treating the number like a serious target, many TikTok users used it as a chance to laugh at themselves.
That is part of why the clip worked so well. It took a topic people often compare themselves over and made it feel a bit less awkward.
A lot of users jumped in with their own jokes, with several admitting they were nowhere near the supposed yearly average.
“I’m the reason it’s not 100 times a year lol,” joked one user.
Another commenter added, “I’m bringing down the average so you guys feel better about yourselves.”
A third person also joined in, writing: “Well someone here must be doing it 54 extra times to make up for me.”
The figure being discussed came from research in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, based on a study published in 2017. It suggested that the average person has sex around 54 times a year.
Put another way, that works out at roughly once a week, though real-life sex lives can vary a lot depending on age, relationship status, health, stress, and personal preference.
The research suggested that a typical person has sex about once a week, which is the part that surprised many people online.
It also found that people were having sex less often than they had been in a similar study from the 1990s. That detail added another layer to the discussion, because it suggested the average had already been dropping over time.
The data may also have been shaped by the pandemic, which changed routines, stress levels, relationships, and daily life for many people.
Why the average does not tell the whole story
Sex frequency can be a sensitive topic because people often compare themselves to numbers without knowing the full context behind them. An average does not show whether someone is single, long-distance, stressed, ill, newly dating, married, or simply not that interested in sex.
It also does not say much about whether the sex people are having is healthy, wanted, or satisfying. For many couples, communication and comfort matter more than trying to match a statistic from a study.
That is why sex and intimacy conversations can get complicated fast. Similar topics, such as different types of orgasms and why they matter, often show that people’s bodies and relationships do not all work in one standard way.
On paper, that sounded like it might create more opportunities for intimacy. In reality, things were not quite that simple.
There was even early talk of a possible Covid-19 baby boom, with some people assuming couples stuck at home would end up having more sex because there was not much else to do.
But condom sales began to fall in March, which suggested the opposite might have been happening. The head of Durex did not only blame that drop on single people having fewer chances to meet partners.
The decline pointed to a wider issue: even people who were physically close to a partner may not have felt relaxed, happy, or emotionally ready for intimacy during such an anxious time.
He suggested that even people who technically had more chances to have sex were still doing it less often.
Speaking to the BBC, Laxman Narasimhan, then CEO of Reckitt Benckiser, the company that owns Durex, explained what the company was seeing:
“What you see is this virus is having a toll on the number of intimate occasions in the UK.”
“Intimate occasions are going down and that is a manifestation of anxiety.”
