Time survey reveals our true sex lies

Oct. 24, 1994

If one is to believe the most recent and thoroughly researched survey on how Americans treat sex, be prepared for a few surprises.

According to the University of Chicago report, published in the current issue of Time Magazine, married couples have the most sex, Americans overwhelmingly lean toward monogamy, only 54 percent of men and 19 percent of women think about sex daily and only 2.7 percent of men and 1.3 percent of women have had homosexual sex in the last year.

Of course, the survey's sample pool was slightly more than 3,400 people. And everyone knows people don't lie about their sex lives.

"The Social Organization of Sexuality" will make its first appearance in bookstores this week. The book will contain the results of a survey that has its roots in a 1987 survey conceived in response to the AIDS epidemic.

In 1991, the Senate voted against funding the survey, and the Chicago-based team conducting the survey had to scrounge for cash from private sources.

Initially, the research was restricted in the areas of more questionable sex, but questions concerning masturbation and anal sex, originally omitted, were re-included.

This has been lauded as the most important sex survey since the Kinsey Report and possibly the best sex survey ever (even better than those appearing in Cosmopolitan and Penthouse).

The significance, it seems, comes mostly from the survey's puncturing a few of the more notable assumptions America has cavorted under since the swinging '60s. Namely, that we're all incurably horny, that we like variety, that at least ten percent of us are homosexual and that marriage, well, sucks.

The University of Chicago report paints the picture of a much more staid, limp if you will, America. Or is it just a frightened America, what with AIDS, the Bobbitts, sexual discrimination and political correctness inflicting monogamy on us whether we like it or not?

Truly, though, the American population has a fascination with sex, even if it orbits mostly around how often their friends get it, compared to themselves.

Even if the survey is 100 percent truthful, what does it tell us about sex in this country? True, it still occurs - and in permutations far beyond those taught in junior high. Beyond that, who cares? The over-riding impulse to conceal what goes on behind closed doors will always cast doubt over sex surveys.