Sex makes you happy – but more sex won’t necessarily make you happier.
That’s the conclusion of a new report by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University who instructed couples to go at it a little harder for at least a month to see if more sex made the world seem a little brighter to them.
It didn’t.
A New York Times report on the experiment says that 64 adult couples – all married and heterosexual – were asked how often they had sex; how enjoyable it was; and how happy they were in general, based on standard questionnaires that measure mood and energy.
“Half the couples were assigned to go about their lives as usual. The rest were told to double the frequency of sexual relations. If they had sex once a month, make it twice; couples who had sex three times a week, they were to go to six.”
The subjects were asked to complete a short daily online questionnaire about the amount and quality of their sex the previous day and their subsequent moods.
“(More sex) did not make them happier. In fact, both men and women reported that the additional intercourse wasn’t much fun,” the report says.
Researchers George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon, said: “It seems that if you’re having sex for a reason other than because you like and want sex” it won’t make you any happier than you were before.
So, go at it. But only if you really want to.
One other interesting finding from the study: plenty of couples couldn’t manage to double the amount of sex they were having, despite being required to do so. That includes the group that were having sex only once a month, so maybe being asked to have more sex with somebody you already don’t want to have much sex with makes you more miserable than you were before?
We’ll have to wait for the outcome of a new report to find out.
