French are having less but better sex as violence reports double, survey finds
The French are having less sex but with more partners, while exploring more varied sexual practices, a major nationwide survey has revealed. The findings also show that reports of sexual violence have doubled since the last survey in 2006.
The survey – carried out by Inserm, France's public health research body – is the first major exploration of sexuality in France in nearly two decades. Vast in scale, researchers questioned 31,000 people over a two-year period.
One significant change noted by the survey, published this week, is that young people are having sexual intercourse for the first time a little later – at the age of 18.2 for women and 17.7 for men. In 2006 the reported ages were 17.3 for women and 17.5 for men.
People also reported having more sexual partners than the previous average – women aged 18 to 69 said they had had an average of 7.9 partners in their lifetime, while for men the figure was 16.4. In the 2006 survey, these figures were 4.5 and 11.2 respectively.
However, there were discrepancies in how men and women chose to report the number of people they had slept with. Women took into account only “the men who counted” while men also included “the one-night stands", said sociologist Nathalie Bajos, one of the study’s two main authors.
Nearly a third of women said they've been attracted to the same sex compared to 13.8 percent of men. And more than a third of young women and one in six young men said they were not strictly heterosexual.
Read more on RFI English
Read also:
Why do people in France say they're having less sex?
French law criminalising clients of sex workers upheld by European court
What's stopping more men in France from getting vasectomies?
