Maybe it’s because society still finds it taboo and hard to talk about, but there’s so many stereotypes surrounding sex – and the sexes – that even the most progressive and forward-thinking people find it hard to escape them.
One of the most enduring sex myths is that men want sex more than women, or at the very least, are more confident in the bedroom than women. However, a recent Australian study suggests that might not be the case (at least when it comes to Aussies), and that men perhaps aren’t as confident in the bedroom as the blokey, ocker stereotype that abounds in our culture might suggest.
Research conducted by YouGov on behalf of Netflix Australia for the release of the third season of hit coming-of-age drama Sex Education has revealed that while Aussie men might seem full of bravado, in fact, it’s women who actually rate their performance in bed highest compared to men (16% of women versus 11% of men).
This is despite the fact that 1 in 10 Aussies rate themselves as a ‘great’ lover and nearly a third (32%) rate themselves as ‘good’ – so overall, we’re pretty confident about how we do in the bedroom. Unsurprisingly, it’s millennials who are the most confident generation when it comes to self-evaluating their sexual prowess, with 59% rating themselves as a ‘great’ or ‘good’ lover. Because of course they do.
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Other interesting findings from the study include how men (51%) are much more likely than women (28%) to be worried their partner won’t be into the same fantasies as them, and that men report having more sexual partners on average than women (11.6% on average versus 7.6% on average).
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What do these findings tell us? Perhaps it suggests that the hackneyed expectation that blokes need to be assertive and the instigator when it comes to sexual intimacy actually puts a lot of pressure on men. On the flipside, maybe it suggests that Aussie women are too confident in the bedroom; that they assume that men will always enjoy themselves because men are expected to be geared towards sex.
It will be interesting to see if COVID-19 and the waves of lockdowns we’ve endured over the last eighteen-plus months will affect Australian men and women’s confidence in the bedroom going forward. Singles feeling rusty and lacking confidence because of a lack of practice, or conversely, couples feeling more confident after months of being locked up together… Now that’s some data we’d like to pour over.