The average American adult has sex about 54 to 63 times per year, which works out to roughly once a week. That number comes from the General Social Survey, one of the longest-running and most reliable sources of data on American sexual behavior. But averages obscure a wide range of real experiences, and the trend over the past two decades has been a notable decline.
What the Numbers Actually Look Like
General Social Survey data from the early 2000s placed the average at about 62 times per year. More recent analyses suggest that number has dropped into the mid-50s. For married or cohabiting couples specifically, the median is about three times per month, according to a 2019 study. That median is arguably more useful than the average, because it isn’t skewed by the small number of people having sex very frequently or not at all.
Among married couples surveyed between 2016 and 2018, roughly 58 percent of men and 61 percent of women reported having sex weekly or more. About a third fell into the one-to-three-times-per-month range. And a small percentage, under 2 percent, reported no sexual activity at all despite being married.
Age and Life Stage Matter Most
Sexual frequency tracks closely with age, but not in a perfectly linear way. People in their 20s and early 30s tend to have sex more often, partly because they’re more likely to be in newer relationships where frequency is naturally higher. Frequency typically dips in the 30s and 40s as careers, children, and fatigue compete for time and energy. The decline continues gradually from there, though plenty of people remain sexually active well into their 60s and 70s.
Relationship length also plays a role independent of age. Couples in their first year or two together tend to have sex more often than couples who’ve been together a decade, regardless of how old they are. This is normal and well-documented.
The Rise in Sexual Inactivity
One of the more striking trends in recent data is the growing number of people, particularly young adults, who aren’t having sex at all. Among men aged 18 to 24, the share reporting no sexual activity in the past year rose from 19 percent in 2000 to 31 percent by 2018, according to research from Indiana University. Nearly one in three young men reported having no sex.
The pattern extends to adolescents as well. The proportion of young men reporting neither solo masturbation nor partnered sexual activity rose from 28 percent in 2009 to 43 percent in 2018. For young women, the jump was even steeper: from 49 percent to 74 percent over the same period. Researchers have pointed to several possible factors, including more time spent online, delayed milestones like moving out and forming relationships, economic pressures, and shifting social norms around dating.
How the U.S. Compares Globally
International surveys consistently place the United States toward the lower end of sexual frequency among developed nations. A large global survey found that 53 percent of Americans reported having sex weekly, compared to 87 percent of respondents in Greece, 82 percent in Brazil, and 80 percent in Russia. Japan sat at the bottom of the list at 34 percent. Cultural norms, work-life balance, living arrangements, and even how openly people discuss sex all influence these numbers, so direct comparisons are tricky. But the general pattern holds: Americans report less frequent sex than people in many Southern European and Latin American countries.
More Sex Doesn’t Automatically Mean More Happiness
If once a week sounds low, you might assume that doubling it would make you happier. A Carnegie Mellon University study tested exactly that idea by asking couples to increase their sexual frequency. The result was surprising: couples who were told to have more sex actually reported lower mood during the study period, not higher. The researchers didn’t conclude that more sex can’t improve happiness. Instead, they found that when sex felt like an assignment rather than a desire, it reduced the quality of the experience enough to cancel out any benefit from the increased quantity.
Other research has found that happiness does correlate with sexual frequency, but the relationship plateaus. Couples having sex about once a week report similar levels of relationship satisfaction as those having sex more often. Below that threshold, satisfaction tends to drop. The takeaway isn’t that once a week is the magic number for everyone, but rather that quality and mutual desire matter more than hitting a specific count.
What “Normal” Actually Means
The most honest answer to “how often should I be having sex?” is that there’s no should. The statistical average of once a week is just that: a statistical artifact that blends together 20-year-olds in new relationships and 65-year-olds who’ve been married for decades. Some couples are happy having sex a few times a month. Others want it daily. Both are common patterns in the data.
What does predict problems is a mismatch: when one partner wants sex significantly more or less often than the other. That gap in desire, rather than the absolute number, is the most consistent predictor of sexual dissatisfaction in relationships. If you and your partner are both content with your frequency, you’re in good shape regardless of where you fall relative to any national average.