16 responses to “A THIRD DEFICIT”

1. 

   melvin toast

   November 7, 2003 at 12:07 pm

   I can tell you from personal experience that there is an
   inverse relationship between work and sex. Productivity
   here is much higher than Sweden. We don’t have time
   for sex!

   One other theory may be that we have better sports
   broadcasting than most nations. I heard a comment
   on Rome yesterday about someone who turned down
   sex because they were watching a basketball game.
2. 

   Stentor

   November 7, 2003 at 12:37 pm

   If you can’t blame something on Bill Clinton, you’re not trying hard enough. Here’s a possibility: the kind of sex that Clinton had was so distasteful to the American public that they were turned off to the idea of sex in general. He provoked a prudish backlash.
3. 

   Jamie

   November 7, 2003 at 12:57 pm

   Could it be that the amount of time Americans spend thinking about sex is far greater than the time they actually spend engaged in it?
4. 

   Staunch Moderate

   November 7, 2003 at 1:34 pm

   Quantity may be low. But quality is probably much better!
5. 

   Kate

   November 7, 2003 at 1:48 pm

   Senator, I disagree…

   Perhaps it’s just that we know we can’t live up to the wonderful sex that Bill had and theirfore have decided not to try. Sex is never dirty…unless it’s done right!
6. 

   Alex

   November 7, 2003 at 2:00 pm

   Taking Melvin’s observations from another perspective, you could say that the Swedes have more sensible priorities than us and are too busy following them to have time for work.
7. 

   Yak

   November 7, 2003 at 2:09 pm

   118 to 127 times a year?

   I don’t know of anyone who’se managed that with a partner.
8. 

   Sebastian James

   November 7, 2003 at 3:39 pm

   Yak,

   Get off the internet and get a girlfriend. Or reignite the passion with the wife. There are people who will meet and surpass that annual number….
9. 

   sidereal

   November 7, 2003 at 3:50 pm

   Never have I seen a more blatant example of systematic lying in a survey. The average American (I assume here that they polled people of sexually active age. . 18 (winkwink) to 45 or something) does not have sex once every three days. Do lots of people? Yes. Enough to make up for the masses of married couples who have sex once a week (if that)? No.

   Next lets check up on the surveys of what men say their penis size is and whether people think they are ‘above average’
10. 

    Crank

    November 7, 2003 at 5:31 pm

    Another way to look at Melvin’s point: assuming that (non-Clinton) Americans have only a statistically trivial amount of sex at work, and given that Americans on average work longer hours, isn’t it possible that our sexual productivity per non-working hour is above average?
11. 

    Sacrebleu

    November 7, 2003 at 8:10 pm

    It’s cuz Americans are ugly and fat.
12. 

    wcw

    November 8, 2003 at 2:27 am

    the mass of married couples having sex once a week is counterbalanced by new couples doing it three or more times a day — hence the penny-jar story. you know that one, right?

    for the math impaired: if one of four ‘couples’ is two singles getting none at all and two thirds have sex only once a week, and the small remaining fraction (one in twelve) are a new couple who do it three times a day… the average days per year people have sex is 126.

    I totally believe the surveys.
13. 

    Kenny Easwaran

    November 8, 2003 at 7:47 am

    These numbers seem inflated – while wcw’s calculations are correct, I find it hard to believe that a quarter of Americans are having sex three times a day. Unless people around age 30 are making up for college students.
14. 

    Chris Lawrence

    November 8, 2003 at 9:02 pm

    This is the basic problem with the ‘mean’ versus ‘median’. Exclude politicians and pro athletes, and our national average drops to 6 times/year.