Well, Wolverines, we have reached that point in the semester once again: The snow sticks to the sidewalks as the crisp wind bites back on commutes to class, homework problems and readings pile up on our to-do lists like the laundry on that one chair in our bedroom, and the annual Statement Sex Survey, detailing all the intricate intimacies of the sex lives on our campus, has finally been released for the 2023 season.
Some may say this Sex Edition is the greatest annual tradition at the University of Michigan — screw the OSU game, screw running naked through the Diag, screw walking through the Ingalls Mall fountain. Above all, evidently, U-M students love screwing each other — and reading about it.
Here at The Statement, we are deeply committed to poking around and asking questions that other researchers are simply not inclined to. Who is having sex? Where are they “doing it”? And what can we learn about our campus by exploring what goes on in the bedroom?
The Statement debuted its first-ever “Sex Issue” on this very day in 2012, which outlined stories such as a very-failed threesome and the shift of gay cruising from physical to online spaces.
This year, 11 Sex Editions later, we invite you back to indulge in the sexual dispositions of your peers as we garner a detailed insight into all things sex, pleasure and kink. In early November, the Statement and Web teams sent out the annual sex survey to all 52,065 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In turn, we received 7,611 responses — our highest number of respondents to date.
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Demographic results reveal that 16% of respondents were freshmen, 18% were sophomores, 22% were juniors, 21% were seniors and 22% were graduate students. In terms of gender identity, 54% of respondents identify themselves as female, 40% as male, 3% as nonbinary, 1% as genderqueer and 1% as other. 64% of respondents characterized their sexuality as heterosexual, 16% as bisexual, 7% as lesbian/gay, 5% as queer, 3% as asexual, 2% as pansexual and 1% as other.
It must be noted that, despite our attempts to minimize bias in the survey questions and results, the statistics presented here may be skewed or not representative of the entire U-M population. Some respondents may have refrained from answering certain questions or withheld information, while others may have answered the questions dishonestly. We also acknowledge the presence of survey bias in this questionnaire, as some individuals are more comfortable answering sex-related questions openly and honestly. Further, others are more prone to checking emails from The Michigan Daily, the mode by which the survey was distributed.
Furthermore, more than half of the respondents in this survey were women, which means that the final results may be skewed toward the female-identifying perspective and, due to the nature of the survey questions, will likely be representative of individuals who are generally more sexually open and curious. The distribution of sexual identities in our sample does not necessarily reflect the distribution of sexual orientations of the entire U-M population, so it is important to keep in mind that these results may not accurately portray the sex lives and inclinations of 100% of the entire student body.
We’d also like to acknowledge that a heteronormative skew may be present in the survey questions and answers. In particular, the questions about sexual education, contraception, relationships and kinks may not have been fully representative of all sexual orientations and their experiences.
College and Class Standing
This year, 63% of U-M students engaged in some form of sexual intercourse during the fall semester, which is only one percentage point higher than 2022. One would think that the proliferation of dating apps, reduction of pandemic anxiety and restrictions or even just one more win over OSU would contribute to a higher amount of students getting “play,” but it’s good to know that students are prioritizing their schoolwork over sex just as much as they were last year.
Putting the “sex” in sex education, the students in the Marsal Family School of Education have had the most sex this semester — shagging seven plus times a week. Students in the School of Kinesiology and School of Music, Theatre & Dance rank in a close second for the horniest colleges on campus, putting their skills in movement and dance to good use it seems! Yet not everyone on North Campus can get as lucky as Music, Theatre & Dance students; 47% of Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning students did not have sex this semester followed closely by the 43% of College of Engineering students who, too, remained chaste. To our engineers, this is the first time in many sex surveys that you have out-done your peers (even if only slightly). As the second largest college, we encourage you to “do” a little more (until next year).
According to this year’s results, the higher in class year that Wolverines climb, the more sex they have. Seniors, on average, had sex five times this semester, while freshmen had sex less than three times. So for you freshmen without a snuggle buddy in your twin XL, there is still hope — as long as you’re not an architecture major (statistically speaking).
However, the frequency at which U-M students engage in the good ol’ rump in the sack (or, in some cases, the rump in the LSA Building bathrooms) does not faithfully reveal the totality of our underlying backgrounds, perceptions and preferences on sex. Join us as we delve further into the sex lives of Wolverines and perhaps learn a bit more about your own sex life (or lack thereof) along the way.
Sexual Education and Safe Sex Practices
In terms of acquiring knowledge about how to get down and dirty, 70% of students first learned about sex through the internet or social media. This suggests that access to a proper sex education curriculum is still lacking for a majority of students, as many are turning to informal alternatives as their main source of sexual education, rather than official sources from within the classroom and doctors’ office. Further, our survey finds that only 45% of students either somewhat or strongly agree that their education regarding sexual and physical well-being in school was positive, informative and helpful.
Speaking of informal education between peers, U-M students are, generally, pretty open about discussions of intimate topics — 41% of students frequently discuss sexual topics with friends and 40% occasionally discuss sexual topics. Levels of “open discussion” of sex also vary by college: Rackham Graduate School students are most private about their sex lives, with only one in five frequently discussing sexual topics with friends. In contrast, more than 50% of Social Work and Nursing students talk frequently about their sex lives. Expectedly, students are much less likely to talk about sexual activity with their parents, with almost half (47%) of Michigan students never touching the topic.
The one thing that remains constant and available to all students is access to on-campus medical resources for sexual health, such as the services offered by University Health Services, which only 19% of students have utilized this past year. To the 81% of students who have not yet explored the variety of sexual health resources available to you: The next time you’re gearing up for or winding down from some sexy time, consider exploring the U-M Sexual Health website as intimately as you’d explore your partner’s body.
This is not to imply that Michigan students aren’t safe when it comes to sex — more than 30% of respondents reported that both they and their partner(s) purchase and take contraception. Is this percentage high, or is the bar super low? The most popular method to ensure safe sex is male/female condoms, which more than 65% of students who purchase contraception claim to use, followed by 35% of respondents using birth control pills and 20% relying on the withdrawal method. For those of you who enjoy the adrenaline-filled game of “pulling out,” we here at The Statement would love to inform you that condoms, lubricants and dental dams are available to all U-M students free of charge at the Wolverine Wellness center, and remind you that there’s nothing more important than keeping it clean while you’re getting down and dirty.
Relationships and Consent
An important part of what determines who’s “doing it” and who’s not rests in Wolverines’ definitions of what “doing it” even means at all. According to our results, 68% of the student body considers sex to be penetrative, followed by 12% believing the deed to consist of other genital contact. And in terms of consent, 67% of students believe that a verbal, sober “yes” is the only form of consent. We relay with great sorrow, but unfortunately not so great surprise, that men are more likely to believe that a verbal, sober “yes” is not the only form of consent. We wonder what went on in the middle school male classroom during that one day when we got separated by gender.
Regardless of any disagreement about such definitions, 60% of students agree that they’ve had mostly positive sexual experiences in college. Most students have sex “for pleasure,” followed by a second majority who has sex “out of love” — how wholesome! But not more wholesome than the respondent who informed us that they have sex to “have kids, that’s what it’s made for.”
And although we assume most Wolverines are not yet family planning, their sexual habits certainly would lead us to believe that they are. Fifty percent of you have had one to three sexual partners since being sexually active, with a small and mighty 3% having had more than 31! While a majority of students have had one to two sexual partners this semester, Education (closely seconded by Music, Theatre & Dance students), had the most, boasting a staggering 10+ partners for this semester. Perhaps bedroom activity is a weekly assignment.
Either way, the School of Education is clearly into group work. More than any other school, 13.5% of Education has had a fivesome or larger. Not so far behind, the School of Social Work put their social savvy to practice, with 8.6% of them having had a foursome. Their professors must be so proud of their students’ fieldwork. Regardless of group projects or solo work, though, all Wolverines have been going to great lengths to get the assignment done. On average, students are willing to travel 77 minutes for sexual purposes. The minimum amount of time willing to be traveled is zero minutes. Perhaps this student holds the empowering belief, “If they wanted to, they would.” Well, we know someone who would: The person who responded that they’d travel 360 minutes for sexual purposes. We hope they bring water and snacks on their six-hour journey.
Some respondents may be more rewarded by such travel than others, as we have yet to close the orgasm gap on our campus: Men are almost twice as likely to never fake sexual satisfaction (45%) compared to respondents who identify as female (26%), and more than 12% of female students attest to faking sexual satisfaction often, compared to 2% of male respondents. Once the dance is done, for most respondents, cuddling/aftercare seems to take the cake as the preferred post-coital activity. However, many individuals also revel in smoking cigarettes after sex, showering together, having more sex or watching TV. Other folks tend to put the “coy” in post-coital and prefer to instead tackle trivia questions, play “World of Warcraft” (The Onyx Cloud Serpent waits for no one, we get it) and experiment with building Lego structures.
In terms of seeking partnerships, 59% of respondents claim to use dating apps, most swiping left strictly for casual browsing. Yet, we the editors know that nothing about Wolverines’ sex lives is casual.
Kinks and Fetishes
This year, The Statement ventured out of the boundaries we typically explore in our sex survey, and for the first time ever, included questions about the more naughty things in life, namely kinks and sexual fetishes. The average student rated themselves as a five on the vanilla scale (one being the most kinky, 10 being the most vanilla) — is Blue Bunny to blame?
And speaking of bunnies, rope play and bondage is the most popular kink among respondents — with the School of Nursing leading the pack and proving that those tourniquet-making lessons paid off. On the other hand, only about 2% of Michigan Students are into animal play, which, as it happens, is pawsitively disproportionately represented by Art & Design students.
We also appreciate the many of you who chose to detail your wide variety of other deviant behavior, although we’re not sure if “emotional support” or “synesthesia” are fetishes. And for those of you with piss kinks, you’re screwing up our dataset! The p-value is getting too high.
And just as many students are fond of ranging kinks and fetishes, they are just as passionate about employing a variety of tools, gadgets and doo-dads while they’re “knocking boots.” Of the respondents who use toys, the majority (83%) have used a vibrator. What’s more buzzworthy is that 35% of total respondents dabble with dildos, anal beads and plugs, cock rings, fleshlights, gags and whips. However, our most sexually significant data comes in the form of write-in responses, which tell us that students are also utilizing candles, ice cubes (as if Michigan weren’t cold enough already) and chastity cages. Looks as though some of you should be reevaluating your place on the “vanilla” scale. And to the person who remarked that grapefruits are their toy of choice — let’s just say we’re glad you’re getting your daily dose of vitamin C.
Location
As we know, Wolverines are the leaders and best, most evidently in a creative capacity. People are having sex everywhere imaginable: in trains, on golf courses, in the Bursley stairwell … you name it. The 2023 Michigan Marriage Pact did recently come out, but also allow The Statement to play matchmaker for you — to respondent 1,728 and respondent 4,678, who have both done the deed in the South Quad gender-neutral restrooms: Until death do you apart.
The roof of the Michigan Theater. Jeremy Weine/Daily. Buy this photo. 
The Hatcher stacks. Julianne Yoon/Daily. Buy this photo. 
Third floor gender neutral bathroom in the Union. Jeremy Weine/Daily. Buy this photo. 
Elevator in Angell Hall. Julianne Yoon/Daily. Buy this photo.
Looking Forward
We suggest that surveyors continually shape the questions to be inclusive of all sexual identities to allow for a more accurate and equitable understanding of our campus’s sexual habits, preferences and well-being. Per usual, there were many sex-related questions we would’ve loved to toss out to all of you Wolverines but did not have the space to do so. In the future, we’d be interested in exploring how students’ reliance and affinity for technology affects their sexual practices. We wonder if phenomena such as “sexting” have altered what students consider to constitute as sex and how often students’ sexual activities are achieved by or through technological means.
As always, U-M students will never fail to astound us with the lengths they will go to in order to achieve a fruitful and exhilarating “churning of the butter.” This year, and like every other year before it, we here at The Statement have thoroughly enjoyed regaling and sharing your stories of how and when you jerk the turkey.
Until next year!
The Statement Editorial Staff can be reached at statement@michigandaily.com.