What Won’t Make You Happier: More Sex

Apparently, more sex does not equal more happiness, at least if you’ve been told to have more sex. How do we know? Because researchers at Carnegie Mellon University experimentally assigned some couples to have more sex than others, and observed both group’s happiness over a three month period. A Carnegie Mellon news release reports on the process, and we do mean process. The first group received no instructions on sexual frequency. The second group was asked to double their weekly sexual intercourse frequency. At the beginning of the study, each of the 128 participants answered questions to establish baselines. Daily during the experimental period, the participants answered questions online to measure health behaviors, happiness levels and the occurrence, type and enjoyableness of sex. The exit survey analyzed whether baseline levels changed over the three-month period. What did they find? The couples instructed to increase sexual frequency did have more sex, but it did not lead to more happiness. In fact, there was a small dip in their happiness. Wait, there’s more: the researchers found that couples instructed to have more sex reported lower sexual desire and a decrease in sexual enjoyment. It wasn’t that actually having more sex led to decreased wanting and liking for sex. Rather, it seemed to be that they were asked to do it, rather than initiating on their own.