Study gauges sex time

Penn State researcher Eric Corty recently concluded that "desirable" sex usually lasts between seven and 13 minutes on average, contrary to popular belief.

Through surveys of 50 sex therapists from the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, Corty, associate professor of psychology and Jenay Guardiani, fellow Penn State Erie researcher, found ranges of time to classify sexual intercourse as too short, adequate, desirable or too long.

"I was curious as to how long was most pleasurable ... and I wanted to relieve some anxiety that some Americans have about the duration of intercourse," Corty said. "I found that some people have unrealistic expectations about how long sexual intercourse should last."

According to the surveys, three to seven minutes is considered "adequate," seven to 13 minutes is considered "desirable," one to two minutes is considered "too short" and 10 to 30 minutes is considered "too long."

"I think people who have really long sex don't have much substance to their relationships," Brittney Barbieri (freshman-biobehavioral health) said. "But seven to 13 minutes sounds about right -- get in, get off, get out."

While this study may show the duration of sexual intercourse has specific pleasurable ranges, biobehavioral health instructor Spring Cooper says the range of time for an entire pleasurable sexual experience could be significant.

"Intercourse is lasting that long -- not the whole sexual interaction. That seven to 13 minute range is excluding kissing, touching, fondling, etc.," she said.

Cooper said one thing to keep in mind is that the duration of intercourse should not be more important than pleasure.

"People do have to understand that it's just the intercourse that he's talking about," Cooper said. "If people have a shorter sexual interaction, they might think the sex is shorter, but it's more likely that the entire interaction that was shorter."

Numerical values for the time ranges were judged by sex therapists in a variety of ways, and it should be considered that the values are averages, Corty said.

"These are people who've been in practice for years, so they've talked to a lot of people, but they also keep up on research and current studies," he said. "It's a combination of clinical experience, contemporary research and education."

Corty hopes his research will relieve stress some may have about how long their sex lasts, but Cooper feels such high expectations are because of overestimating the time spent having intercourse by including foreplay.

"People sometimes spend a lot of time on foreplay and then notice that an hour's gone, but that doesn't mean the entire hour was specifically intercourse," Cooper said. "If people knew how long they were actually having sex, I don't think they'd be as stressed about the pressure for intercourse to last."

Although encouraged by the publicity his findings have attracted, Corty does not want his research to cause people to judge their sex lives as abnormal.

"I'm pleased with how much publicity this is getting, but I do want to be real careful when people discuss this because these are averages," Corty said. "If the average shoe size in the United States is a seven and your foot is a size eight, there's nothing wrong. It's just different than average."