I'm a Woman, and Guys, We Don't Want to Have Sex With You Every Day

What’s more interesting, however, is that a sizable number of survey respondents said they wanted to have sex even more often than that. 18 percent of men and 9 percent of women said they wished they could have sex at least once a day.

When I read this, my initial reaction was befuddlement. Once a day?!?! Like, with the same regularity as a daily lunch break, or a morning bowel movement? Where did they expect to find the time for this? Don’t these people have jobs? When I thought about it more, however, I realized that wanting to have sex at least once a day isn’t just unrealistic, it’s also ridiculous. It's kind of like something your tenth-grade best friend would have said after he lost his virginity in astronaut camp. Congratulations, dude — you’ve figured out that sex is awesome. Hooray for you. Have you forwarded your findings to the Nobel Committee? Because I think you’re really onto something there.

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Now, before I go into precisely what angers me about the "I should be having sex once a day" assertion, let’s get one thing straight off the bat: I am no prude. I have written extensively about my own sex life and other people’s sex lives for years, to the point that I regularly get emails and dick pics from men asking me if I can help them get into the porn business. (An aside to these men: I cannot, and even if I could, you wouldn’t have a chance in hell, unless there is suddenly high industry demand for penises that resemble anemic Glo Worms.)

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There is also a substantial body of scientific evidence to suggest that having regular orgasms is beneficial for men, in terms of improving heart health and protecting dudes against various forms of cancer. In fact, having sex just once a week can protect you from developing erectile dysfunction later on down the road. (And if you are, in fact, currently grappling with this affliction, might I suggest perusing our Men's Health Guide to Erectile Dysfunction?)

And yet! As a woman, I feel it is ludicrous for a man to expect or desire sex at least once a day, especially if you’re in a long-term relationship. While having sex at least once a day is common in the early stage of relationships, when the hormones are flying and you just can’t keep your hands off of each other, so you spend the majority of your time studying each other’s genitals like a George R.R. Martin fanboy crafting a map of Westeros. This is typically referred to as the limerence stage, and it is awesome, but it is temporary: typically, sex reaches a drop-off point about six months or a year into a relationship. Statistics vary, but a 2015 study determined that the average couple has sex about once a week, which squares pretty well with the numbers from the YouGov study.

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It’s also silly not just for time management reasons, but because it reflects a lack of understanding of what women actually need to get off in bed. According to a column sex therapist Vanessa Marin wrote for Bustle, while it takes men approximately five minutes to reach orgasm, it takes women an average of 20 minutes, largely because the vast majority of women (75 percent, according to some estimates) can’t come without clitoral stimulation. “To combat this timing discrepancy, make sure to spend plenty of time focusing on you during foreplay,” Marin advises women.

So what does this mean for guys? Basically, that getting a lady off requires a lot of time and effort — more time and effort than you need to get off, and definitely more time and effort than it takes to grab a burrito from Chipotle or go to the gas station or walk the dog or whatever other menial task you do at least once a day. Above all else, it requires you to view giving her an orgasm as something that goes beyond a daily menial task. It demands time. It demands patience. It demands creativity. It is an art, not a science. And you cannot make art by slotting it in your Google calendar for 10 minutes at least once a day.

Now, if you’re in a relationship and your wife or girlfriend is down to have sex at least once a day (or if you’re single and you can somehow find someone to sit on your penis for at least once a day, which means you are either Leonardo DiCaprio or a liar), that is amazing for you. You have my blessing to pork one another with reckless abandon. That also applies if you are lucky enough to have a partner whose clitoris is as responsive and sensitive as an iPhone screen that's just come back from the Genius bar, so her life is a constant series of rapid, full-body orgasms. Mazel tov! Don't forget to give a sculptor your measurements, so we can build a statue in your honor.

But if you’re in a long-term relationship with a woman who doesn’t fall into this category (a.k.a. The vast majority of women), you should not only not expect to have sex at least once a day, but you also shouldn’t want to. Not to sound too much like a middle school gym teacher in hygiene class or anything, but sex should be special. It’s not like walking the dog. It’s not like grabbing a burrito. It’s fun and cool and you should be taking the time to enjoy it — not just for her sake, but also for your own. Because let's be real — if Liam Neeson did a million movies where he killed wolves in highly entertaining ways, that would be awesome. But it'd make watching The Grey a lot less special.