Was It Good For You, Too?

The obligatory media-hyped rollout of counterintuitive sex studies caught our attention, as usual. This year, we learned that older people are having more—and better—sex than ever before. That the best kind of sex is the kind that’s mercifully short. That TV prefers sex to marriage. That sneezing is a sign of arousal. And that women, God love ‘em, would rather be puttering around the internet that getting laid, causing one online commenter to observe: “With statistics like this, no wonder the world is in turmoil.” Researchers also found that the more sex teenagers watch on TV, the more likely they are to get knocked up (or knock up someone else.) And that, much to the dismay of women who dutifully pick at their salads, overweight girls get luckier.

Same-sex marriage won a couple small victories this year, and suffered one shocking defeat. After Connecticut legalized it, and Iowa (Iowa!) announced it would consider it, California smacked down gay marriage with the ballot initiative known as Proposition 8, which reversed a state Supreme Court decision from earlier this year that had ruled in favor of same-sex couples’ right to marry. Sex and marriage also went on trial in the U.K., where a woman took her husband to divorce court after catching him engaged in virtual sex with a hooker avatar in the online world, Second Life. Finally, a series of restrictions put in place by courts around the world led to a global sperm bank shortage. “Our problem is that we can’t get enough sperm,” lamented the manager of New York City’s largest sperm bank.

Photo: David McNew/Getty