HOW TO STOP YOUR 67 WORST WORRIES

You can be sure of it. It's all over the TV screens, the movie screens, the magazines, in everyday conversation with your friends - evidence that others have a better sex life than you have. Few things in life strike such a raw nerve as sexual comparisons. They are very basic, and no doubt rooted in our evolutionary past. We are, after all, the descendants of people who didn't just talk about sex, but actually had sex and reproduced. In the past, leaders would often show their sexual prowess by having numerous wives and concubines and maybe hundreds of children.

The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Bureau reported in the February 1998 issue of American Demographics magazine that the average American had sex about once a week - 58 episodes a year.10 However, a 2000 sex survey by SSL International, maker of Durex condoms, reported that Americans claim to be enjoying the most sex of any country surveyed - 132 times a year! The global average was 96 times a year. Canadians ranked themselves slightly higher, at 99 times a year. Young Japanese made love the least often - 37 times. The French claimed to have had the most sexual partners, at 16.7 each, well above Americans at 11.8 and Canadians at 11.1.11 Of course, any sex survey should also have data on endurance. According to the Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behavior Brazilians are the best, averaging 30 minutes. In Thailand it takes just 10 minutes.

All this pales in comparison to Joel Ryan's sex life. In 1999 he was reportedly Melbourne's most successful legal heterosexual prostitute. He charged $180 an hour for sex, and had more than 1200 female customers, while still married with four children.12 Maybe he should have met Grace Quek, who reportedly made pornographic history by having on-camera sex with 251 men over a ten-hour period. Apparently she was consumed by self-loathing at the end of the episode.13

What are we to make of such figures? Does comparing yourself with others help in any way? Most sex surveys are probably wildly inaccurate, skewed by some who boast and by others who deny their sexual history. A good response is "So what?" There will always be those who are having a better sex life than you are, and there will always be those who are having a worse one. Indeed, some people are glad not to have one at all. We have been consumed by statistics, led to believe in averaged behavior as somehow real, something against which we feel we must match ourselves. Comparisons are not only odious; they can be harmful, creating false goals that we worry ourselves to death trying to reach. One person's heaven may well be another person's hell - especially in sexual matters.

10 Carey, Elaine, "TV watchers have more sex: Survey," Toronto Star, January 16, 1998.

11 Green, Sarah, "Yes, we do it," Toronto Sun, February 15, 2001.

12 "What sort of gentleman are you after?" WTN Magazine, Winnipeg, MB, Fall, 1999.