Do Married Men Get It More and Better?

Marriage sellers will often say married people have more and better sex than unmarried people.

Unmarried men should not fall for this.

Stop reading now if you don't want the brutal truth.

Such claims depended on self reporting. Frequency is likely to be overreported by married people and underreported by unmarried people, and if the people being surveyed aren’t separated out by gender and the men aren’t confident in anonymity and that their wife (or anyone else) won’t know their response, forget about it. There’s also psychology at work here and perhaps superstition on the part of married men. The Stockholm syndrome comes to mind, as does “positive confession.” There are husbands out there who believe that saying anything negative about their marriage will magically make it worse, while saying it is good will magically make it better. And some men think it would be a sin (ungrateful, lustful, etc.) to say their married sex life was anything less than the best, or to say they enjoyed unmarried sex, forget that they enjoyed it more!

There’s no way of knowing any given husband wouldn’t be having more and better sex if unmarried, even with the same woman. Chances are, he would, because she would still be auditioning.

These studies never separate out intentionally unmarried men who actively pursue sex. Instead, they're lumped together with men who don't went sex or are hapless at getting any. Unmarried men who employ some simple tactics can get lots of sex with multiple attractive women without spending much time, money, or effort.

These studies also lump recently divorced men in with unmarried. People are more likely to marry and stay married if the sex is good. Consider, a couple enjoys great sex for two years and then marries. The sex is good for another four years, then it goes bad and they get divorced after being married for six years. This would skew “married sex is better” because there were four years of great sex while married, two before they married, but what’s the real story? Was the sex really better for the man when they were married?

Men who were inexperienced when they married have no idea whatsoever how much sex, and how great of sex, they could get if they weren’t married. Their claim that married sex is “better” carries no weight. They’re just happy to get any sex at all. So really, they are saying “I like sex.” Or if they had moral qualms with unmarried sex, of course they think married sex is better because they feel guilty, felt guilty, or think they were supposed to, about unmarried sex.

Even the marriage sellers must admit these claims are based on percentages. Let’s say 60% of married people report that married sex is better. (I have no idea what the percentage is, but marriage sellers assure us there is a majority percentage.) That still means there are 40% of married people who said it was better unmarried. You could easily end up in that 40%.

Even if you were in the 60%, just how much better is it? If, unmarried, you had sex an a average of 60 times per year, but married you have it 62 times per year, and it is only slightly better, would that be worth trading in your autonomy, freedom, money, etc.?

And long-married men who claim it’s better with the same woman for decades, what else are they going to say, really? They can hardly remember anything else. Ask divorced men who’ve found a new girlfriend, instead of a man who is basically being held hostage and will get no sex at all and be a sinner if he says anything else. Do you REALLY believe it’s better with an increasingly obese, sagging, wrinkly, drying, complacent, same old woman whose long hair was chopped short years ago, compared to a variety of hot, fit, young, enthusiastic, new flames? Even if a guy is hooking up with a recent divorcee who is older, he's likely to get a more enthusiastic lover than her husband did for the last so many years.

And yes, this blog entry is about the male perspective and addressed to men. I can understand women might be more likely to say married sex is better.

I'm a married man. I'd like to believe sex is better when married. I'd like to experience that. But it hasn't been my experience. And if more married men were honest, they'd admit the same. I can be honest about what my married sex life is like. You can read my latest assessment here.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not endorsing casual fornication. Instead, I'm explaining why a common marriage selling talking point is full of holes.

Remember, there are millions of Western husbands who are getting little to no sex, and very inhibited sex, with their wife. Also, millions of others have divorced, in part, because of that.