A Business Insider-SurveyMonkey Audience poll asked American singles what they thought about sex and dating, finding that men and women oftentimes have distinctly contrasting views when it comes to hooking up.
The poll — which had 1,660 respondents, all of them singles comprised of 739 men and 921 women — asked people about the people they've dated or would date, the ways people asked others out, and most interestingly what was appropriate and when.
The poll respondents all identified as either never married, widowed, divorced or separated, so all these responses come from people who are in the market.
Much thanks to our partners at Survey Monkey Audience for collecting the data.
Here's what we found.
Around 70% of both men and women have gone in for the kiss on the first date. Nearly half of men — 45% — and almost a third of women — 28% — reported that they have slept with someone on the first date.
When it comes to who people end up dating, there's a more significant disparity between men and women.
Women seem slightly more comfortable juggling partners, with 43% reporting they've dated more than one person at the same time compared to 37% of dudes.
On the other hand, men are more likely to date young while women are more likely to date older.
44% of respondents said they had dated a co-worker.
Around half of respondents claimed they had dated a member of another race, while around three quarters of respondents had dated a member of another religion.
Americans are pretty cool with texting someone to ask them out. Slightly more men use online dating then women.
Half of people are willing to go in for the goodnight kiss on the first date. Almost everyone expects a smooch within five dates, so quit dragging your feet people.
Sleeping with someone, though, is more complicated. It appears that Daft Punk had a point, and that guys seem to be in it to get lucky, skewing earlier than the ladies. A non-negligible portion of the sample, though, does think that sex should wait until marriage.
Here's a social more that's changed quite a bit over time. Hardly anyone still thinks it's important to wait until marriage to have sex. Men think it's slightly less important to wait.
This chart is relatively interesting but essentially confirms what we'd expect to see. Also we have identified that 2% of dudes are kind of creepy. The ages between 19-22 are seen as the appropriate time to have sex for the first time.
While you should take this with the largest grain of salt you can find at your local grocer, the results line up largely where you'd expect. Both men and women largely say that they were between 15-18 and when they had sex for the first time. A few more men say they had sex for the first time when they were very young.
Oh, and singles by and large seem to be down with gay marriage.
Here's the age breakdown:
- 18 - 29: 37%
- 30-44: 23%
- 45-60: 21%
- 60+ : 20%
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