This is lovely but I do have to go to work soon. (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Misinformation and sex are about as tightly bound together as Love Island and fake tan.

Maybe it’s because sex is supposed to be private, or maybe it’s because Brits are crap when it comes to talking about anything more personal than the weather.

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Whatever the reason, a lot of sex myths have been allowed to live on, way past our teenage years when naivety is understandable.

The most prevalent?


That women are impressed, or pleased, when sex goes on, and on, and on, and on.

I have no idea who makes the rules about sex and time, but whoever it was did a very poor job.



Women are supposed to come almost instantly. A couple of minutes of penetration and we should be wailing to the rafters. If you take much longer than that, you’re failing. Which is probably why some women feel compelled to fake it.

That’s why he keeps the watch on. (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Men, on the other hand, are not allowed to come quickly. They’re supposed to have self control, and stamina, and keep going endlessly. If you’re a ‘real’ man you will have been boning your partner all night long.

Only, if we’re going to be really honest with you guys… that’s not what most women actually want.

When sex goes on for ever it starts to get uncomfortable. Sore even. And if it’s a really, really long time?

It can get a little bit boring.

In a study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, which addressed how long sex ‘should’ last from a female perspective, sex therapists found that intercourse which lasted 1-2 minutes was ‘too short,’ (no s**t Sherlock).

3-7 minutes was ‘adequate,’ 7-13 minutes was ‘desirable,’ and 10-30 was ‘too long’.

We’re not sure what happens if you’re having sex for 10, 11 or 12 minutes – is it both desirable and too long?

In a small survey of 125 people, we asked how long the actual inny-outty bit of sex should last (foreplay is another story – the rumours are true on that one. Most of us really like it).

How long should the penetrative bit of sex last? — Rebecca Manning Reid (@RebeccaCNReid) July 31, 2017

41% of people (the majority in the survey) said that it should last 5-10 minutes.

37% of people wanted 10-20 minutes.

10% opted for 20-30 minutes, and 12% wanted more than half an hour of bonking.

That means that 78% of people wanted to have sex for less than 20 minutes.

It’s entirely possible that lots of couples have ended up playing sex chicken – where one partner is pretending that they’re loving the incredibly long sex session, and the other is fighting to hold back from orgasm in order to tick time boxes which don’t need to be ticked.

Let’s not do that. It looks like the majority of people like things short and sweet when it comes to penetration. So now there’s no excuse not to fit a quick bonk in between making some pasta and watching Game of Thrones.

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