New book based on sex survey offers unprecedented look into Canadians’ bedrooms

Until just lately, Tina Fetner’s sociology college students at McMaster University have been skeptical when she introduced statistics about sexual exercise. 

Though researchers at Indiana University have lengthy performed surveys about Americans’ intercourse lives, Fetner’s college students needed to see Canadian information — which didn’t exist.

“As soon as you present U.S. data to them, they’re like: ‘Yeah, but that’s not us,’” Fetner mentioned. 

It peeved Fetner, too. Her analysis focuses on sexuality and social change, however she didn’t have entry to the identical scope of knowledge as her American counterparts. 

“I was like: why doesn’t Canada have this? And then I was like: wait a minute. I know a researcher. I could do this.”

The outcomes of her survey, modelled after the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior within the U.S., are detailed within the ebook “Sex in Canada: The Who, Why, When, and How of Getting Down Up North,” revealed on Valentine’s Day by the University of British Columbia Press.

Fetner surveyed a consultant pattern of greater than 2,000 Canadians again in 2018, positioning the info as a type of baseline for Canadians’ sexual exercise and attitudes earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic turned everyone’s lives the wrong way up. 

The respondents answered an array of questions on their sexual actions, opinions, and identification, starting from whether or not they had ever used a vibrator or had anal intercourse, to whether or not they achieved orgasm of their most up-to-date sexual encounter. 

Fetner expects some issues could have developed in individuals’s intercourse lives because the pandemic. Take digital intercourse, for instance: pre-2020, when requested about their most up-to-date sexual encounter, Canadians didn’t depend sexting or cellphone intercourse. 

“It’s an open question whether that’s changed, whether what we count as ‘real sex’ (includes) cyber sex,” she mentioned. “We’ll only know if we do more research.”

But greater than a jumping-off level for additional research, the findings supply a glimpse into Canadians’ bedrooms.

The survey outcomes recommend the best figuring out think about how a lot intercourse an individual has is whether or not they reside with a accomplice.

“A lot of people might say single people have more sex. Marriage puts a damper on your sex drive. You get tired, you get bored, you get busy, especially with kids. And of course, it’s the opposite that is the truth,” Fetner mentioned.

“Married people have more sex than single people.”

She mentioned it is sensible whenever you assume it by means of — in case you’re single, you must exit and discover a intercourse accomplice.

The survey additionally famous variations between individuals who recognized as straight, homosexual, lesbian or bisexual, although it didn’t take transgender or non-binary Canadians into consideration — there wasn’t a large enough pattern to attract any conclusions.

Of the respondents, those that recognized as bisexual have been most probably to have had intercourse prior to now month: 71 per cent of bi males, and 58 per cent of bi girls.

The survey additionally discovered that homosexual males have been extra prone to have just lately had intercourse than straight males, and straight girls have been extra prone to have had intercourse prior to now 30 days than lesbians.

For Fetner, the survey has already led to extra analysis. She’s revealed research on the intercourse lives of those that determine as feminists, condom use amongst Canadian adults and discordance between sexual exercise and sexual identification — in different phrases, straight individuals who have intercourse with members of the identical gender, and homosexual individuals who have heterosexual intercourse.

Likewise, she adopted up on outcomes in regards to the so-called “orgasm gap.” The analysis means that with regards to intercourse between women and men, males have been extra prone to have an orgasm. 

Of the lads who’ve intercourse with girls, 86 per cent reported having an orgasm of their final sexual encounter. For girls who’ve intercourse with males, the proportion was simply 62 per cent.

Fetner and her colleagues expanded on the survey by conducting in-depth interviews with 40 individuals.

“When heterosexual couples count real sex as just when the penis is inside the vagina, it means that stimulation of the penis becomes central to what counts as the real deal, the main act,” she mentioned. “Stimulating the clitoris becomes secondary.”

However, analysis exhibits that clitoral stimulation is essential to feminine pleasure. If it’s considered supplemental, girls are much less prone to obtain orgasm — despite the fact that opposite to widespread perception, it’s not physiologically more durable for girls to climax.

But in the end, Fetner mentioned, there’s good news out of the survey.

“Large majorities of the population are feeling really good about their sex lives,” she mentioned. “Isn’t that a beautiful thing to discover? I think that’s probably the best news in the whole book.”