The Truth About Sex

FACT OR FICTION: Women hit their sexual peak in their 30s; men do in their 20s.
FICTION. Blame pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey: This myth comes from his early studies, which found that 18-year-old men and 36-year-old women reported the highest frequency of orgasms per week, explains Lori Brotto, director of the University of British Columbia’s Sexual Health Laboratory. “But what that figure doesn’t account for is the frequency of the 18-year-old man’s masturbation, which likely accounts for this high frequency of orgasm,” she says. Another reason Kinsey’s stats were skewed: He carried out his early surveys in the 1940s, back when it was socially acceptable for younger men to brag about their conquests but taboo for young women to kiss and tell, points out sex educator Petra Boynton, a social psychologist at University College London in England. Although women don’t experience a sexual peak as a “biological event,” Brotto says, your sex life probably will get better with time: Studies show a woman’s orgasmic ability increases with age as she becomes more comfortable with her body.