{"id":1600,"date":"2016-04-24T06:08:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-24T06:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2016-04-24T06:08:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-24T06:08:03","slug":"sex-relationships-dating-love-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1600","title":{"rendered":"Counting Coitus and the Mathematics of Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span><\/p><\/div>

t the dawn of the first day, humanity was chill. So chill, in fact, that Joseph and Mother Mary \u201ccreated\u201d Jesus without having sex (shouts to Christianity<\/a>). Post that immaculate conception, we oddly got obsessed with numbers. How many days did Jesus take to resurrect? How many years was Ram exiled for? How much did you score in your 12th boards, to how many people you\u2019ve dated, to the number which is the greatest threat to modern relationships: How much sex should an average couple have?\n\nIf you Google this question, over 19 pages of results<\/a>\u00a0pop up, citing all kinds of research, based on \u201chow much sex is healthy<\/a>\u201d to \u201chow much is normal,\u201d how much avoids fights, how much keeps the spark alive, or the death knell: How the lack of it leads to divorce. This is a subject so rich, a legion of glossy magazines have made their fortunes off it.\n\nOne of the more promising studies that was done over a 40-year period stated<\/a>\u00a0in 2015 that \u201ccouples who have sex once a week are the happiest.\u201d Once a week seems like a normal course over which the sexual desires of a long-term couple would play out. But another couple was so incensed with such low figures that they called bullshit on the research, and decided to undertake a 30-day sex challenge<\/a>, which essentially means they have to fuck at least once a day, for 30 straight days. I\u2019m not sure what they were trying to prove at the end of it? If one of them cannot get it up on any given Monday, is that the end of happiness? Should they get into couple\u2019s therapy asap?\n\nBut it\u2019s not just this weird couple. It\u2019s also us. We keep asking our friends about how often they do it and feel bad when their number exceeds yours and gloat if theirs is lower. We don\u2019t seem to realise we are dating different people, with different desires and moods and choices and physique, and, most importantly, a relationship dynamic that is always unique. Then why does this conversation elicit an emotional response when our expectations are exceeded or not met?\n\nThis desperate everyday competition using arbitrary numbers, to essentially seem normal, yet somehow better; the \u201cI have dated a normal number of people which must mean I am a decent human\u201d internal argument, is confusing, frustrating, and mostly dumb. It is also emblematic of the persnicketies and generic exceptionalism which plague modern interactions.\n\n

It\u2019s almost as if an arbitrary alarm goes off, telling you it\u2019s time to be wet or erect and fuck<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nIdiotic rules like, you should wait three days before calling after a date\/fight. You should wait six months before saying \u201cI love you\u201d<\/a>. You should only marry after living together<\/a>\u00a0for a year. Should romance be dictated by numbers, and should sex be another deliverable on your average work day?\n\nApplying method to what is a kind of biological madness seems\u2026 umm… madness to me. It\u2019s almost as if an arbitrary alarm goes off, telling you it\u2019s time to be wet or erect and fuck, mechanising what should be \u2013 and pardon my naivete here \u2013 a somewhat romantic ordeal.\n\nIncidentally, the \u201chow much\u201d research leaves out the all-important quantity vs quality question. You don\u2019t need research to tell you that most women are left unsatisfied<\/a>\u00a0and that half the dudes climax in two minutes<\/a>. Even my Maggi takes two and a half minutes, so what the hell are we trying to prove here? That we have sex even if we don\u2019t enjoy it because that\u2019s what we\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to do?\n\nWe should just chill the fuck out when it comes to the three-letter word. There are no numbers. There are only variables of the couple and the circumstance and maybe, yes, a little bit of sexual appetite. For Indians, we can add even more variables like an actual place<\/a>\u00a0to fuck or nosy family<\/a>\u00a0members. It all boils down to different value systems of the two people supposedly engaged in coitus. There are no magic numbers, only the magic phrase: No one fucking knows.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research suggests that sex once a week is optimal for a couple\u2019s happiness. But the \u201chow much\u201d lobby always leaves out the all-important quantity vs quality question, displaying, once again, modern romance’s fetishising of numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":1601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[505,19,224,22,408],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-and-sex","tag-dating","tag-india","tag-love","tag-relationships","tag-sex"],"yoast_head":"\nCounting Coitus and the Mathematics of Sex<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Research suggests that sex once a week is optimal for a couple\u2019s happiness. 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