RUSH: I ran across a story today in USA Today. The headline: “What ‘Good Sex’ Really Means to Singles,” and it is a story basically about unmarried people and sex and various aspects of it. The way this story starts (it’s written by a woman, Mary Bowerman) is, “When it comes to having sex with a potential love interest, many singles wonder: How do I measure up in the bedroom?” Yes, women ask that. It’s a poor choice of words, I think. It’s not what you think there. It’s… How am I doing?
“Being good at sex isn’t as complicated as people often think, according to the annual Singles in America survey, funded by Dallas-based dating service Match and conducted by Research Now. Eighty-three percent of singles, regardless of sexual orientation, ranked a caring and enthusiastic partner as the top two indicators of good sex. Other ingredients that lead to good sex,” again, among single people — ’cause married people don’t have sex.
It doesn’t have to be odd, weird, new. “The study found that singles also have definite turnoffs…” Among the turnoffs: “too much talking,” too much analysis, too many questions seeking approval, too many questions asking for a review, “no passion, little movement” and “bad kissing.” Those are the things that detract.
“And when it comes to bad sex, women aren’t willing to wait for things to get better, according to the study.” If it’s bad, they’re gone. If it’s bad, they’re not coming back for round two. If it’s bad, there is no second chance. “The survey found that while the majority of singles believe sex improves after a few sexual encounters with someone, women are 70% less tolerant of bad sex than men.”
“There is no bad sex if you’re a man” was agreed to by 80% of the men. Just making that up. Now, let me cut to the chase here. None of this should be surprising. I mean, it’s pretty much what you would think. The survey found that the best age for sex in women is 66 and for men is 64. A common misconception is that younger people are having better sex. Research on the contrary shows people over 50 and 60 report much higher levels of satisfaction than others. Feeling comfortable with your body is part of it.
Do you want to hear one of the reasons why this is? The young are obsessed with looking good, thinking they look good, thinking others think they look good. Once you’re past 50 or 60 you realize there’s nothing much you can do about it and so you don’t have that bogging you down. It boils down to older people are less self-conscious about things that don’t matter.
Young people are obsessed with are they in shape? Do their ab packages show up? Does the other person notice the ab package? All those things that people 50, 60, they’ve been through that, they’ve done that, and it no longer matters so much. So there’s no inhibition or less inhibition, and there’s much less self-consciousness about it.
You think that makes sense? “Feeling comfortable with your body is a part of it, but older individuals are more likely to speak up about what they like and don’t like, which is a skill that is crucial,” it says here, “for great sex. The older we get, the more comfortable we are in our skin.” That’s the same thing as saying the older we get, I mean, we are who we are and we’re comfortable with it, and we’re not worried about trying to meet some standard society or television has spelled out. And when we’re over 50, we know what we like and don’t like. When you’re younger, you’re still figuring it out.
So I imagine those are striking numbers, 66, 64. By the way, this news, conflicts with many things — not many — it conflicts with certain things I was told when I was younger by people who professed to be experts. Well, no. I’m not gonna say what they — no. No, no. This is not Dr. Judy here, whatever. Or doctor whoever. We’re not doing this as a — well, something I was told.
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