性行为的发展

对青年人来说，婚姻会使得他们的性行动与从前不一样了：20岁之前，已婚男人每周平均有5次性高潮，而未婚青年男子每周只有约3次性高潮。但是，从那时以后不久，两组的统计频率曲线就开始下降：在50岁，男性的每周性高潮的数量少于2次；对于60多岁的男人，每周略高于1次；70岁老年男人，每周少于1次性高潮。这些统计数据是20世纪阿尔弗雷德 C.金西的研究发现，而由于种种理由，这种原来的统计数据因而可能受到质疑。尽管如此，甚至时至今日，就这些数据背后的举例来说，则少有人怀疑。的确，因为新近的研究已经给予了证实。

另一方面，对于女人来说，金西及其同事们曾经发现相当低的频率曲线，他们例举的女人整个一生的频率相当低。从曲线上看，既没有陡然上升的频率高峰，也没有显著下降的频率低谷。就像对男子的研究样本一样，对青年妇女来说，婚姻也会使得她们的性行动与从前不一样了。一旦结婚，她们每周有2-3次性高潮。当然，女性在30-50岁之间时，她们仍然每周有约2次性高潮。另一方面，未婚女人，终其一生，记录的结果是每周也只有1次性高潮或更少；超过50岁已婚女人的性高潮频率也与之相同。

当然，必须强调的是，这些数据意味着一个平均数，而在个体之间存在巨大的差异。此外，这些统计数据只是代表着性高潮而已。还需要说明的是，对于这些“可量化的”行为来说，准确地说来这似乎是缺乏头脑的产物，但是这些数据极好地举证了男女的性反应是如何随着年龄的增长而变化的。就这个意义上看，金西的研究数据仍然是中肯的[1]。

Sexual Response

For young men, marriage makes a difference in their sexual performance: Before the age of twenty, married men have an average of 5 orgasms per week, while the unmarried have only a little more than 3. However, soon thereafter the frequency curves in both groups begin to descend: At age fifty, the weekly number of orgasms for all males is less than 2, for those in their sixties, it is slightly above 1, and for the seventy-year olds, it is below 1. These were the findings of Alfred C. Kinsey in the mid-20th century, and the exact figures may therefore be questioned for a variety of reasons. Still, even today, there can be little doubt about the tendency they illustrate. Indeed, it has since been confirmed by more recent research.
For women, on the other hand, Kinsey and his associates found a rather flat curve which illustrated a much lower frequency level throughout the life span. There was neither a steep initial rise nor a pronounced later decline. Just as in the male sample, marriage made a difference for young women. Once married, they had between 2 and 3 weekly orgasms. Indeed, between the ages of thirty and fifty, they still had about 2 orgasms per week. On the other hand, unmarried women, throughout their lives, registered only about 1 orgasm per week or less. The same figure applied to married women over fifty.                                         
It must be emphasized, of course, that these figures mean averages, and that there are enormous differences between individuals. Moreover, the figures only represent orgasms. They say nothing about the sources of these orgasms and, more importantly, they ignore all other sexual responses short of orgasm. Still, it is exactly this seemingly mindless reduction to the bare numbers of “countable” events that illustrates best how the female and male sexual responses develop over the years. In this sense, Kinsey’s findings remain relevant ¹.

1. Sources: Alfred C. Kinsey et al., “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, 1948, p. 267 and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” 1953, p. 549.