The optimal length of sexual intercourse is three to 13 minutes, according to a survey of sex therapists that will be published in May in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The survey was conducted by Eric Corty, an associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College and one of his students, Jenay Guardiani.
The researchers surveyed 50 members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research in the U.S. and Canada, using questions that were gender neutral.
This optimal sex time does not include foreplay, and the therapists said that sexual intercourse that lasts from one to two minutes is too short, according to the researchers.
Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, defended Corty’s findings by citing a 2005 study of 1,500 couples that discovered the median length of sexual intercourse was 7.3 minutes. In this study, women wore stopwatches to gauge the time.