Declining frequency

The newspapers openly refer to late summer as ‘the silly season’ – a period when, because half the world seems to be on holiday and there’s very little going on in the world, weird stories involving skateboarding ducks, UFOs and/or the state of Jordan’s (sorry, Katie Price’s) latest marital ups-and-downs gain traction that – during any other time of the year – would be quite impossible.

Maybe it’s the Indian Summer-type weather, but at the moment we still seem to be inundated with them.

Today I spotted one about the imperfect sex-lives of British couples.

An organisation called VoucherCodesPro has commissioned research which demonstrates that, because of lifestyle pressures, 41% of British couples have been having less sex this year than they did in 2013.

[It almost goes without saying that no information is available as to how the survey was conducted or indeed how many people took part in it.]

In the survey, the top five reasons given for the decline in rumpy-pumpy were financial worries (37%), longer working hours (34%), sharing beds with pets (31%), too tired from an active social life (29%) and arguing because of insecurities (20%).

When all those taking part in the study were asked whether they felt more secure and happier in their relationships when they were having more sex, 58% responded “Yes”.

When asked how they felt when they weren’t getting as much sex as they’d like, 43% confessed that they worried their partner was going off them.

I’m left wondering where all this leaves those of us who don’t have particular money worries, don’t work, don’t have pets, don’t have an active social life and don’t argue with anyone because we’re not insecure.

I guess we just make ourselves another mug of Horlicks, go to bed at 9.30pm and put it all down to ‘lack of opportunity’ …