The myth is that folks are more likely to masturbate if they don't have a sex partner. According to the study, however, the people who masturbate the most are the ones who have the most sex. Or take oral sex. Not surprisingly, both men and women preferred receiving it to giving it. Next thing you knew, it was in Cosmo with rules about how to do it.
More intriguing twists emerge when sexual behavior is charted by religious affiliation.
But Catholics edge out mainline Protestants in frequency of intercourse. But to concentrate on the raw numbers is to miss the study's most important contribution. Wherever possible, the authors put those figures in a social context, drawing on what they know about how people act out social scripts, how they are influenced by their social networks and how they make sexual bargains as if they were trading economic goods and services. We all have this image, first presented by Freud, of sex as a riderless horse, galloping out of control. It's just that society determines whom you're in the room with.