Over the time I’ve been writing on the KLAT network about sex studies, I’ve learned that spiritual women have better sex lives than non-spiritual women, that more than 50% of women prefer “drunk sex” to sober sex, and that women are happier when they are getting laid. The last study I read looked into the frequency of different kinds of sex acts for a variety of people.

A recent sex study published by the Journal of Sexual Medicine surveyed men and women about their sexual behavior with some interesting results. As THIS article in Slate observes, the biggest news in the entire sex study is the increased prevalence of anal sex. 40% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 have tried anal sex. In 1992, the number of women who had allowed rear entry was much lower; “in 1992, 16% of the women in the 16-24 age bracket had tried it.”

The strangest part (again as pointed out by Slate) was that of the women who had anal sex in the last year, 94% of them reached an orgasm, presumably during anal sex. That number seems more than a little high to me. I wasn’t able to read the original article published in the Journal of Sexual Health about sex, but I’m almost wondering if the numbers on anal sex reflect the amount of orgasms that gay men had while receiving anal sex and not women. (Do the numbers seem right to you or is it just me?)

The other numbers from the study seemed normal in comparison. Oral sex is more common now than it was in the 1990’s, even among teenagers. As Slate puts it, oral sex is “ubiquitous.” It’s hard to say whether or not the upsurge in oral and anal sex is because of the popularity of shows like “Sex & the City” or columnists like Dan Savage who state that oral sex should be pretty much mandatory in any relationship or if it’s because of the rampant availability of online porn. 

Others have speculated that the increase in oral and anal sex among teens is because both are safe for teenagers to have without running the risk of pregnancy. (Of course, anal sex puts people at risk for a myriad of other sexual diseases.) Whatever the reason, both anal sex and oral sex are becoming much part of the everyday American’s sexual menu than either was just two decades ago.