How Often Do Men Think About Sex?

Men are "always" thinking about sex, according to researchers at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University. By that they meant that 54 percent of men think about sex several times a day, compared with just 19 percent of women, they wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists. Think that's a lot? It's nothing if neuropsychiatrist Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of "The Female Brain," is correct.

She writes in her book that men think about sex every 52 seconds, while women tend to think of it just once a day. If men are thinking about sex more frequently than once a minute, how do they get any work done? Blame it on a society that is bombarded with subconscious erotic images. ABC News reports that researchers at the University of Minnesota concluded that sexy subliminal images competed for attention in the human brain even when those images were not right in front of the person's eyes. Weirdly, most people are not even consciously aware of them! Brizendine says the huge disparity in the frequency that men and women think about sex is the result of basic neurological differences. Because of hormone levels at different stages of life, the male and female brains are built differently, which in turn makes us think and act differently.

Even if women aren't thinking about sex as frequently as men, they are thinking about their sex appeal. In addition, women never forget a fight, a romantic encounter or a tender moment, asserts Brizendine in an interview with The Washington Post. She says a woman's strengths are in conflict resolution, deep friendship and the ability to read moods. "There is no unisex brain," Brizendine told Post reporter William Booth. "It follows these two brain models can produce quite different behaviors." Blame it all on hormones. A man's body is bathed in testosterone, which accounts for those sexy thoughts once every 52 seconds. A woman? "The female brain is so affected by hormones, they control her very perception of reality," she explained. "Her values, her desires, what's important to her, even whom she loves." And it's not just about sex.