U.S. MALE DOESN'T DELIVER
By BILL HOFFMANN
American men may think they're studs - but a new survey suggests they're duds. The June issue of Men's Health says the average American guy has sex only 79 times a year. That's 11/2 times a week, only half as often as men in many other countries. Even more embarrassing is the revelation that American men masturbate almost as often as they make love.
The magazine reveals that the average man engages in solo sex about once a week. "We're not hip guys. We're average guys," Men's Health editor Greg Gutfeld says.
That's true - surveys of European countries reveal that Frenchmen and Italians have sex three times a week and Germans twice a week. Folks in Australia do it three times a week, according to one report.
But Men's Health has advice for those American Romeos who think 11/2 times a week just isn't enough.
The magazine says they can easily up their count by dating French, Russian or Italian women.
Women from those nations are "twice as likely as American women to expect sex during the first week of dating," Men's Health says in its annual "State of Man" report.
As far as love-making sessions go, it turns out that American men are not marathoners. The magazine says the average man lasts just 14 minutes during sex.
And American men are prone to fooling around - the odds the average married man will cheat on his wife are 1 in 4.3. On the other hand, the odds his wife will cheat on him are only 1 in 8.3.
The number of sex partners the average American guy has during his lifetime is 12.4, the magazine says. The average American women has four.
On the virility front, American men are doing just fine: the average American male has a healthy sperm count of 100 million per milliliter.
That's an extremely ample number considering that infertility begins when you dip below 20 million per milliliter.
But there is some bad news.
Men's Health - which compiled the survey from questionnaires and scientific studies from around the nation - says the average American man's risk of developing erectile problems nearly triples after the age of 50.
In one study of 732 men, nearly 40 percent of those who were impotent had had at least one case of penile trauma in his life, such as being hit in the crotch with a ball or having a bad sex experience.
The problem can be fixed in many cases, though.