It’s Not Just You: Everyone Is Anxious About Sex

If you're wondering how to get the most out of sex, you might want to start by examining how you think: New data reveals that our anxieties could be getting in the way of our sex lives, reports Seth Stephens-Davidowitz at The New York Times. To find out what's stressing us out about having sex, Stephens-Davidowitz examined our Google searches. "Sexless relationship" was the second most-searched "____relationship" phrase, after "abusive," which is distressing for more than one reason. And, the top five "____ marriage" searches included the words "sexless," "sex-starved," and "no sex." Yikes. What's keeping us from gettin' it on? Responses from both men and women revealed that pretty much everyone is anxious about sex. Men tend to be worried about their penises; out of the 10 most-searched "my penis"-related questions, nine of them were about size (why is it so small, how to make it bigger, etc). Women's searches revealed other insecurities, often about the sizes of our butts or whether or not our vaginas smell bad. Although most of our vagina-related searches were specifically about health, the data showed that 30% were about other things, such as shaving. Searches about pain during sex were also common. However, much of the data included here skews towards heterosexual couples, and Stephens-Davidson concedes that it's easy to read too much into search data. Still, the next time getting intimate's got you down, we hope you can chill a little knowing that you're not alone in your neuroses. (The New York Times)