The power of uncertainty

There are two things that one can glean from this graphic showing the frequency with which more than two thousand men report they have sex.  The first is that men tend to have much more sex if they are married or partnered than when they are single.  The second is that denying a wedding ring to a woman who is 30 or older tends to create enough uncertainty to inspire her to engage in more regular sexual relations than she otherwise would if she was married.

Consider how the percentages of men having sex 2 or more times per week switch once a woman passes the age of thirty:

Married:  43 percent (25-29), 32.6 percent (30-39)
Partnered: 33.4 percent (25-29), 45.5 percent (30-39)

Now, there are a number of potential explanations for this.  But Game provides the most obvious one, which is that the more secure a woman feels in her relationship, the more inclined she is to ignore a man's sexual desires and only indulge them when she happens to feel like it.

There is another, slightly more ominous explanation that is nearly as credible, which is that the roughly 11 percent difference is explained by women attempting to get pregnant.  However, the fact that 40.1 percent of Partnered men between 60-69 are in the 2+ category versus only 9.5 percent of the Married men lends support for the uncertainty hypothesis.

As is so often the case, it appears that following the recommendations provided by women tends to be sexually self-defeating for men.