In an act of public service, the British pharmaceutical company, Superdrug, has released a survey on the sex positions we love… and those that scare us.
The reporting out on the survey was interesting – and what drew me to it. Rather than simply saying what sexual positions men and women prefer, they tried to derive – for each sex position – the discrepancy in its appeal to men versus women. So, more simply put, which positions to men like more than women, which do women like more and which positions do men and women life equally.
The results – while not shocking – are interesting.
The positions most disproportionately liked by men over women – Anal. I get that. In my experience, men are pretty intrigued by anal, whereas women tend to be pretty skeptical. I suppose that since most anal in heterosexual relationships involves the man penetrating the women, it makes a lot of sense that women are much more concerned about getting a penis pushed in their ass than men are about doing the pushing. But one, perhaps interesting, observation — while it is pretty much unquestionable that men are more intrigued by anal, in my experience, one anal has been test driven a bit, two things happen. Women – not at all universally, but considerably – get more comfortable with the idea of anal. Men, on the other hand, after they’ve had that initial experience, are more apt to see anal as a ‘they can take it or leave it’ proposition. I suspect its because some of the women who experience anal – when its done well – find it a little easier than they feared and enjoy the stimulation is gives. For men, on the other hand, the thrill was in getting to try it but, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really feel as good as a vagina or a mouth.
The position that is second most disproportionately liked by men over women surprised me more – Oral. This shocked me. I though everyone loved oral . Maybe I am completely out of touch because most of my friends are pretty sexual and sex positive, but in my experience everyone is really, really, really into oral. But I guess not. Apparently men are wayyyyy more into it than women.
So… what do women like more? This also surprised me somewhat but maybe should not have. It reinforced some stereotypical gender stereotypes that I thought were outdated, but maybe they are not. The only three positions in the survey that women enjoyed at a higher rate than men – missionary, spooning and woman on top. At one level this is not surprising – these are probably the most benign/vanilla/unrisque of the positions surveyed so it does fit a certain gender stereotype that women would like this more. Its the same gender stereotype that tells us that women are less into sex and sexual experimentation. I thought this was old thinking and that women had more fully embraced their sexuality and kinks.
So, what does all of this tell me. The key tale home for me – the sexual revolution is not as advanced as I thought. In my little liberal elite, sexually positive bubble, I thought men and women were equally sexual and sexually experimental. I’m doubting that a bit now. This is definitely something I want to look into more.
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