Esquire and Marie Claire magazine recently hooked up to conduct a poll which gives insight into the sexual habits and beliefs of Americans. Here are some of the interesting highlights of the poll:

On average, men have sex 2.6 times per week, and women have sex 2.3 times per week. Single men in monogamous relationships have significantly more sex than married men, 4.5 times versus 2.7 times per week. Another interesting thing is that a man’s financial status is also correlated with the frequency he has sex, the more money men make, the more sex they have.

The average number of daters before having sex is 5 for women, and 3 for men. Men have had an average of 14 partners in their lifetime, and women have an average of 11. About 40% of men and women have had fewer than 5 partners in their lifetime; 10% of men and 5% of women have had 50 or more partners.

Men, surprisingly, have gone, on average, longer without having sex. The average longest period that men have gone without sex is 19 months, and for women its about 16 months. 35% of both men and women have gone without sex for more than 1 year, and 13% of men and 7% of women have gone without it for 5 years or more.

Men masturbate on average 4.9 times per week, while women admit to just 2.8 times per week. 15% of men have paid for sex, another 10% said they would try it, and just 1% of women say they have paid for sex.

If given the choice between sacrificing sleep or sex, 61% of women say they’d rather lose sex, and 65% of men would rather give up sleep.

Interested in reading more? Check out the full poll results at Esquire.com.

Men dating women who are significantly younger has pretty much been an acceptable practice for years, however, older women dating younger men has not been as well accepted. This is because, as we are told growing up, that women mature faster than men. I personally don’t think that it is that easy to sum up the whole situation with such a sweeping generalization. I can name a number of 30 year-old women who are far less mature than some 22 year-old women that I know. Just as I can name some 30 year-old men who are a bit more mature than say a 38 year-old.

Another thing I find interesting is that the “acceptable” age range for dating varies significantly between different people. For me, at the age of 23 with my next birthday creeping up in the next few weeks, I would have to say that if I were available for dating, I could go for the 23 to 36 range. A twelve year difference would be where I’d cap it off. Anything much older than that, and the man would be old enough to be my father. I dated a guy once very briefly who was a year younger than me, and I doubt I’ll ever be trying that again. I’ve also never been very much into dating people my own age either. I’ll leave it to you psychoanalysts out there to figure out why.

But back to the acceptable age ranges. What is acceptable to me, probably isn’t to someone else. Like my aunt, for example. She thinks it is completely crazy to date any one who is more than a few years older. To me, that is a bit close-minded, but I know of plenty of other people who share a similar mentality to her. Some women might be comfortable dating a much younger man, but much of society frowns up this practice.

For the most part, I believe in the live and let live philosophy. If two people are happy with eachother, who am I to say that their relationship or age difference is not normal or appropriate? As long as both parties are consenting, legal adults, then what’s the problem? On the other hand though, I do think there are some instances when age should be a concern. One instance that comes to mind is when either of the two parties starts treating the other as if they are some kind of prize or object to be had, or if one of the two starts to assume a sort of parental role to the other. That kind of mentality is not healthy, and doesn’t bode well for the future of the relationship. Another cause for concern would be having drastically different expectations. Things like having or not having children can be an issue in some relationships with significant age differences.

So, what are you thoughts on the age issue? I find it to be very interesting people’s different perspectives and thoughts on this issue.

In the online dating world, men are severely outnumbered by females, giving them a better shot of finding a love connection. Women, on the otherhand, are experiencing a shortage of men and often times have a more difficult time. This information was gathered by the datafirm Hitwise, which tracked the type of traffic online dating websites received.

Other interesting information that the results revealed where that dating websites with longer questionairres were more likely to have a significantly higher number of women than men. The most popular dating sites amongst men involved few questions, and more of a focus on pictures. Men tend to be more visually oriented, so I guess this can’t be too surprising. Another odd thing that was found was that the higher the price it cost to join or utilize the site’s services, the more women there would be. Men, it seems, aren’t willing to shell out a whole lot of money to find that special someone.

Bill Tancer, Hitwise’s general manager of global research, said:

“The more money and time involved in signing up to a dating site, the more the site would skew female. And, the more free pictures were available the more the site would skew male. I think what the data shows us … is that women use online dating as an actual service for what it was intended…. Some male users are using dating sites more just to look at pictures of women.”

That seems to be a pretty good summary, Mr. Tancer. Why are we not surprised?

When it comes time that you need to get you girlfriend or wife a gift for her birthday, anniversary, holiday, or any random occasion, don’t wait until the last minute and get her any old thing just to have something to give her. I know I speak for a lot of women when I say that it is not the gift necessarily that matters, but rather, the thought behind it.

I’ve gotten all kinds of gifts from boyfriends over the years, and my most favorite gifts haven’t necessarily been the most expensive ones. The ones that I treasured the most, the ones that made me go “awww..”, were the ones that were clearly given with my personality, tastes, etc. in mind, and weren’t thrown together at the last minute.

Amongst the lamest gifts that you can give your significant other is a wad of cash or your credit card. Hello, she can go out any day she wants and buy herself whatever it is that she wants. Giving her cash is like saying “I don’t know what the heck to get you, and I’m not going to waste my time trying to figure it out.” If you’re going to give cash, you might as well not give anything at all.
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The question of whether office romances are harmless or harmful is a tricky one to answer. My answer would be that it really depends on the individual circumstances. It’s a very common occurance for co-workers to start dating, with a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management finding that nearly 40% of workers had had an office romance.

I guess I would fall into the 40% category, having worked at the same place of employment as my current boyfriend, although I knew him before I started working there. We always kept things strictly professional and friendly at work, and never crossed the line with risky behavior on the job. The institution was large enough that we didn’t really work in the same building either. But we also never denied the fact that we were dating. While I was employed there, I also knew of a number of other office romances going on. It seemed that some people were able to remain professional, while others just could not help themselves and ventured into some dangerous grounds.

The formation of inter-office romances is inevitable as men and women continue to spend long periods of time together. It’s only natural that different kinds of relationships will be formed, such as friendships, romantic relationships, and so on. The workplace is a great place for men and women to meet other people who share similar goals and interests, however, office romances can sometimes spell disaster for the company.

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No, I don’t mean settled as in you’ve settled down, calmed, made babies and so on. The kind of settling that I am talking about is the kind where you have settled on being with someone who is less that what you really want. There are basically two kinds of dating people. There are those that are content while single and look at a relationship as a nice bonus, and then there are those that are not happy being single and long to be in a relationship, any relationship.

Settling is a mistake. If you are so sick of the dating game and finding “Mr. Right” or “Mrs. Right”, that you give up and stick with someone who is less than what you really want, you’re doing yourself a real disservice. If you tell yourself something long enough, you might start to believe it. But if the relationship or person you’ve settled on isn’t giving you the satisfaction that you need, you’ll only end up hurting yourself, and eventually the other person. Giving up on finding the person that you’ll truly love and be passionate about closes off the opportunity of you finding that truly special someone, and may instead leave you with a lifetime of heartache.