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Sad Fact of the Day

Radley Balko | 8.30.2010 10:43 AM

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From Paul Bloom's terrific new book How Pleasure Works:

While people sometimes describe sex as their most pleasurable act, time-management studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex—almost exactly the same time spent filling out tax forms for the government.

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Radley Balko is a journalist at The Washington Post.

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  1. STEVE SMITH   15 years ago

    STEVE NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM! STEVE DEVOTE 24 HOURS TO SEX! STEVE HAVE CPA SLAVE GIRL DO TAXES!

    1. waffles   15 years ago

      what kind of income would a raping yeti possibly have to report?

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        Tourism?

      2. SugarFree   15 years ago

        He makes art from the bones and skin of his victims. "Waste no part of the raped-out human." is an ancient dictate of his tribe."

        1. SugarFree   15 years ago

          Beware the phantom quotation mark! It is a floating harbinger of ultimate doom!

          DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    2. CPA Slave Girl?   15 years ago

      Must be pretty damn fugly if all you use her for is taxes!

      1. STEVE SMITH   15 years ago

        STEVE SMITH RAPE HER FOR HER MIND, NOT HER BODY.

  2. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

    Four minutes? Jesus, no wonder this country has become a socialist wussy state.

    1. Mr Whipple   15 years ago

      Maybe it has to do with the rising obesity rate .

    2. Tom   15 years ago

      Four minutes per week is more like it for me...and that includes foreplay.

      1. Tom   15 years ago

        Why did I just admit that?!

        1. JEP   15 years ago

          subconscious cry for help?

    3. Joe M   15 years ago

      I'm assuming that's four minutes average, which would mean maybe one half hour long session per week. Ya think?

  3. Subsidize Me!   15 years ago

    Is that a pearl necklace on your tax form? You could have indicated that with a ball-point, sir.

  4. Here comes the pervs...   15 years ago

    I assume this refers to sex as an act concerning TWO or MORE people and not of the SOLO variety because I spend WAY more than FOUR minutes polishing the old salt torpedo every day! Reminds me of something I saw once on Adult Swim...

    Bruce Campbell on Robot Chicken: "Hi, I'm Bruce Campbell and I just can't start my day without waxing my morning wood!"

  5. Skid Marx   15 years ago

    Does cleaning my dog's vulva count?

    1. Subsidize Me!   15 years ago

      Only if you're using your uvula.

      1. waffles   15 years ago

        Either abnormal anatomy or I think you meant vuvuzela.

        1. RS   15 years ago

          That clarification doesn't make things any better.

      2. Nelson   15 years ago

        Your epidermis is showing!

        1. Milhouse Van Houten   15 years ago

          Nelson, he's really hurt. I think he broke his leg.

          1. Nelson   15 years ago

            I said Ha-Ha

  6. Mango Punch   15 years ago

    Yet more evidence that the government F---s you?

    1. IRS Rim Jobs   15 years ago

      Once everyday and twice on weekends as per the prenup!

      1. Sheriff Rottingham   15 years ago

        And sometimes right after lunch.

        1. Al "Four Touchdowns" Bundy!   15 years ago

          Sex with the wife or do my taxes? Hmm...that's a close call kids!

    2. TrickyVic   15 years ago

      ""Yet more evidence that the government F---s you?""

      They do that for more than four minutes a day.

  7. Chris   15 years ago

    Actually, that comes to roughly 24 hours of sex in a year. Human beings are generally ugly losers, regardless of what your television tells you, so this is actually quite astonishing. For instance, this means that, assuming 8 minutes to be the average duration of sex (which is being generous), the average person has sex every other day. Unless those 4 minutes per day include foreplay. Just think of all your loser friends. Does this number seem correct?

    As for the tax thing, that sounds about right, though it feels like much more.

    1. Josh   15 years ago

      I did the math and for me it is 0.3 minutes/day for taxes and 1.3 min/day for sex. That's twice a month for 20 minutes in case anyone is wondering.

      1. Chris   15 years ago

        Let me guess: Just celebrated your tenth anniversary.

    2. Old Fart   15 years ago

      30 minutes, once per week. 26 hours a year. Sad, sad, sad.

  8. Fist of Etiquette   15 years ago

    Four minutes? Who are these machines?

    1. JEP   15 years ago

      I'll add that to the list of advantages given to us by the transhumanist movement...

  9. Mr Whipple   15 years ago

    Who needs sex when you have the internet?

  10. Here's Another Sad Fact   15 years ago

    The Ground Zero mosque developer owes $224,270.77 in back taxes.

    The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

    Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.

    El-Gamal's company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

    The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l.....6WhTmIawSP

    1. Corduroy   15 years ago

      Oh good. I was afraid nobody would mention the GZM in this thread..

      1. Boris   15 years ago

        MOOOOOSQUE!

        1. RS   15 years ago

          Is that a place for moose to go and worship?

        2. kinnath   15 years ago

          AND SQUIRREEEEEEELLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

    2. Aresen   15 years ago

      The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

      I'm getting to like them more all the time.

    3. Chris   15 years ago

      I take it you have sex way less than 4 minutes per day.

    4. Tim Cavanaugh   15 years ago

      There are no tax deadbeats. Only tax protesters.

    5. TrickyVic   15 years ago

      ""The Ground Zero mosque developer owes $224,270.77 in back taxes.""

      Because not paying your taxes is unamerican?

    6. cynical   15 years ago

      If taxes are the price we pay for civilization, does this prove they are trying to destroy our civilization?

  11. SugarFree   15 years ago

    4 minutes? Jeez, it takes me that long to get out of my maroon velour track suit.

    1. Chris   15 years ago

      That's why you use baby powder first. Haven't you been getting Tony's newsletter?

    2. Mr Whipple   15 years ago

      Please do not cross contaminate the threads. I've got enough salmonella.

  12. DG   15 years ago

    I bet the average would go up if they adjusted for people who play WoW.

    1. ClubMedSux   15 years ago

      Up if adjusted for World of Warcraft. Down if adjusted for Whip'em Out Wednesdays.

  13. JW   15 years ago

    I can go more than 4 minutes if I think about filling out tax forms.

    1. Chris   15 years ago

      Yeah, but then you're just coming while trying to calculate your earned-income credit.

  14. Aresen   15 years ago

    ?time-management studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex?almost exactly the same time spent filling out tax forms for the government.

    Well, those people doing time management studies can get their jollies any way they like, but I'll keep to more traditional methods.

    1. RS   15 years ago

      They're all about multi-tasking.

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        Multibating.

  15. Brett L   15 years ago

    So what do people do for the other 6 minutes of the lunch-time private browsing spike?

  16. Barely Suppressed Rage   15 years ago

    the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex

    Speaking as a guy who's been with the same woman for 23 years and married to her for for 20, with two teenage kids, I can say that this is one way in which I am below average.

    Dammit.

  17. AlmightyJB   15 years ago

    4 minutes? So 4 times a day? Yikes, I have some catching up to do.

  18. Sting   15 years ago

    I can make love to a woman for 8 hours, but that's once a year, so still only 1.3 minutes per day, damn.

    1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      Is that Tantric humor?

  19. Anomalous   15 years ago

    The average time used to be 15 minutes, back when most people only had dial-up.

    1. ClubMedSux   15 years ago

      Ah, the bad old days... Nothing like waiting 5 minutes for a jpeg to download only to discover the chick was actually a tranny.

    2. Aresen   15 years ago

      Anomalous wins the thread.

    3. Joe M   15 years ago

      Yes, definite win here.

  20. Tim Cavanaugh   15 years ago

    You telling me I have to go another three minutes just to be up to average?

  21. Kevin   15 years ago

    And this, my friends, is why it's so important we legalize prostitution immediately.

    And for the record, I masturbate more than 4 minutes a day. Does that make me a part of some hedonistic sexual revolution of the 21st Century? Because that's how I'd like to think of it.

    1. ClubMedSux   15 years ago

      Pretty sure it just makes you a male with a high-speed internet connection.

  22. prolefeed   15 years ago

    studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex

    Does this include foreplay? Cuddling and pillow talk afterward? Or just actual time of penetration?

    20 hours per year of sex seems waaaaaay low if you include all of the above.

  23. MattXIV   15 years ago

    I'm calling BS - 4 min a day is 24.35 hrs a year on tax forms. Filling out both state and federal tax forms took me under 5 hrs last year and that included a fair amount of capital gains paperwork that I was doing for the first time. I can see spending 24 hrs if you are self-employeed and actively invest, but that seems extermely high for the average amount when most people only have a W-2 and a 1099-INT to deal with.

  24. fresnodan   15 years ago

    Even with all the semen-ly endless variety of porn on the internet, and as far as I can tell, every hot...and not so hot woman naked between 18 and 87, at my age it still takes me 40 - 50 minutes of whacking...I mean foreplay, before I reach climax at the two to three times I visit the porn tubes each day.

  25. IceTrey   15 years ago

    Ha! I can get that down to under a minute!

  26. Nooge   15 years ago

    Uh, does that include thinking about sex, too? Because I'm up in the 16-hour-per-day range if that's the case.

  27. ????? ??????   13 years ago

    Thanks

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