Ivillage married sex survey

[BertieBotts]

I know ivillage, bleurgh, but I've just come across this and found it intriguing.

The part that stood out for me was this:

80% of men surveyed said they were happy with their sex lives, whereas only 61% of women said the same thing.

And the perception of how happy your spouse is is even more striking - 79% of men thought their wives were happy with their sex lives, but only 55% of women thought their husbands were happy.

(Full survey is here although the format is horrible, and extra ick points for the 50sog question but anyway.

Anyone else find this interesting?

[AbigailAdams]

Yes I do. Haven't had a chance to read the survey yet but those figures you quite seem to suggest that women are less likely to say when they are unhappy with sex or men don't take that seriously/ignore. Whereas men possibly are more likely to complain, women take notice do something about it but are left feeling their partners still aren't happy. I wonder why that is (or maybe I am wildly extrapolating!). But 45% of women thinking their husbands aren't happy compared with 20% of husbands who aren't actually happy is a huge difference. Is it because women are conditioned to be pleasers?

[carolinecordery]

I'm quite surprised that 61% of married women said they were happy. That's quite a lot i think. I can understand only 55% of women thought their husbands were happy. Because the 45% were thinking hang on our sex life is pretty shit for ME, so you can't possibly be happy can you husband dear? Oh you didn't notice it was shit for me.
I'm not married by the way.

[FastidiaBlueberry]

I think it's to do with women's job of worrying about the relayshunship - it's not men's job to pro-actively ensure a relationship is happy, while women have been socialised to take responsibility for that. Women are constantly looking for ways to maintain happiness, whereas men just assume everything's OK unless it's brought to their attention it's not?