I was recently asked this question by a patient and it is one I hear a lot. The truth is, while there is certainly an AVERAGE amount of sex, a HEALTHY amount is a loaded question. In my opinion, a healthy amount is what makes you AND your partner happy. As a man ages, his sex drive tends to decline over time. This decline is related to many factors, testosterone being just one of them. Similarly, the sex drive of a woman can precipitously decline after menopause.

I did post some content about decline in sex drive with age previously.

In my intake form, I always ask both about the sex drive of my male patient as well that of his partner. Why is this important? Because in my experience, the happiest couples are those with relatively compatible sex drives. Some of my most satisfied couples are those where neither one cares about sex anymore. Similarly, when both partners have big sex drives, relationships can thrive. However, the stress and strife can become issues when sex drives are incongruent. This is something that I see a lot.

For example, I once had a couple in my office and the man asked for Viagra. His wife stood behind him, out of his view, and shook her head at me is if to say “Please don’t give this man anything to give him erections!”

Conversely, I’ve had men say things to the nature of “Well, I was perfectly fine when my wife had no sex drive. Now she is on hormones and chasing me around the house so you have to help me get there!”

I believe the late George Michael broke it down quite simply to “sex is natural, sex is fun, sex is best when it’s one on one”. For most people these tenets are all true. For some people none hold true anymore. Look, there are gonna be some who only believe the first two but reject the third. To each his own. Of course Mr. Michael later confessed “I’m never gonna dance again, guilty feet have got no rhythm” so he was probably up to something. But I digress.

I love to see happy relationships. This is why I don’t really care about how often my patients have sex. I do care that their sex lives are satisfying to them AS WELL AS their partners.

Let’s be healthy and happy! This is what we focus on at The Men’s Center.