Married couples have more sex, so why does our culture think the opposite?

The Happy Endings Paradox and the desexualized mother

The most surprising part about sharing my totally common marriage’s sex stories on Substack is that people seem to have forgotten that married sex is common.

I’ve gotten comments like, ‘Damn, I didn’t know parents got down like that.’ And others insisting that contrary to evidence, marriage was ‘destructive to a man's sexuality.’

I shouldn’t be surprised. Our Culture doesn’t celebrate sexy married people. Figures of notable sexual activity have had that notoriety tied to their singledom or extramarital freedoms for millennia.

Statistically, this is bullshit. Marriage quadruples one's copulation rate¹.

• Average single person has sex once per month

• Average married person has sex once per week

  • Average parental sex fluctuates based on age of the child, but overall is still higher than the average single person

The Happy Endings Paradox

I call this the Happy Endings Paradox: Married people have more sex, on average, than single people, yet our sexy cultural icons are almost exclusively single.

I don’t know how often your parents banged because I’m not watching their cam, but statistically speaking, they’re getting down more often than Samantha Jones, James Bond, Lady Chatterly, Charlie Sheen, Zeus, Mae West, Barney Stinson, and every other character culture has convinced you is swimming in it.

Parents fuck. They did it to become parents. So why do we have these disconnects between reality and representation?

(Before I continue, I’ll mention society wasn’t always like this, and it isn’t like this everywhere. But that isn’t this publication's shtick.)

Couple in a bedroom - Jan Steen 1626-1276

Maybe Fearing Sexuality Denies Us Sexual Fulfillment?

Has our fear of catching our parents in the act blinded us to the fuckability of half of the adult population?

If our formative experiences included parents concealing or demonstrating shame around their erotic lives, the parental sexuality taboo creates a psychological barrier. Imagining ourselves as both parents and sexual beings becomes challenging. Believing stable relationships are sexy feels almost revolutionary.

Uncomfortable with marital intimacy, we compartmentalize ourselves. The erotic self gets tucked away from the family life. With a whole aspect of our identity in the shadows, how can it grow? And how can anyone else know a mom is not just a mother who you’d like to fuck, but a mother who does indeed like to fuck, and does fuck, if her sexy psyche was split and stored?

Our mother-whore squeamishness means we can’t see the freaky mothers in the streets, and our media isn’t showing us either.

Maybe ‘Ever Afters’ Don’t Sell Tickets?

I bet the last sexual interaction you saw in film wasn’t between long-term spouses. One might proclaim incest plots in porn are to blame, but not me. Our dearth of fulfilled romantic examples is media-wide and predates film.

The stories that grip us have drama. A happy marriage simply doesn't make a good narrative - at least, that's what we've been told.

People want the sordid before. They want the after-after - the drama when things fall apart. But we’re missing the bliss because it’s mistaken for boring.

Without narrative jeopardy in the marital bed, society interprets that marital sex is less exciting. But that is precisely the bias that formed the paradox and created the self-fulfilling prophecy.

A Woman at her Toilet - Jan Steen 1626-1676

Maybe Capitalism Doesn’t Want You to Have a Happy Ending?

Culture glorified marriage when it needed couples for optimal population productivity. Then, it pivoted to independence when the opposite became true.

I grew up with messaging to work hard, earn money, stay independent, and remain single because it’s sexually exciting (i.e., upgrade to premium on Hinge and subscribe indefinitely to Big Beauty because young people also have better sex - another fallacy).

In my comments sections and elsewhere, young people say love is a lie. Literally, someone said, “I’d rather be an e-gamer than a husband.” Marriage isn’t aspirational, and marital sex’s boring reputation conveniently directs us toward contributing to society’s GDP rather than tending our own gardens where we’ll find more satisfaction and meaning, and less anger and despondency (in comments sections everywhere).

Maybe It’s Easier to be Unhappy?

When our cultural stories tell us love is a lie, sexy people are single, and commitment and passion are incompatible, internalizing these messages makes finding, fostering, and choosing love more difficult.

Research suggests commitment is passion, but it takes effort and communication. To swim in sex, you first must swim against the cultural messaging about commitment, and then you must fight for that love. It’s easier to be unhappy.

In a relationship, there is literally a person there, in your home, that could make your wildest sexual fantasies a reality with you. But it’s simpler not to try. To believe it’s an impossible objective because a monogamous partnership is destined to fail.

We've all been shaped by these narratives - myself included. They're so pervasive that they feel like inevitable truths rather than cultural constructions. Recognizing the paradox is the first step toward seeing alternative possibilities, should we want them.

Nobody’s Winning in the Paradox

The Happy Endings Paradox isn’t just a quirky observation - it influences how we approach intimacy, often without conscious awareness.

Singles chase endless novel encounters that won't deliver sustained satisfaction. The coupled worry their normal, healthy sex lives don't measure up to an imaginary standard. Everyone's sexual dissatisfaction feeds back on itself in a cycle of cultural delusion.

Unhappy singles become disillusioned about relationships, unhappy couples reinforce the narrative that marriage kills desire, and the media sells us the same stories. Meanwhile, a generation decides relationships aren't worth the effort, never having seen evidence of what makes them worthwhile.

Because the people – not the characters – who are happy, who are enjoying their sex lives (once per week, on average) are so blissed, unbothered, and content that they forget to say: hey, there's another way, that’s so everyday and common, that you might've missed it all this time. We've been here. In your homes, even.

Have a Happy Ending

If any of this resonates, I’d invite you to question the narratives that limit you. Might I suggest sexualizing the mother in your mind?

1. Sexual activity is dependent on numerous factors. These are average numbers across age, demographic, health, life events, etc. Studies referenced include ‘Trends in Frequency of Sexual Activity and Number of Sexual Partners Amongst Adults in the US,’ ‘Changes in, and factors associated with, frequency of sex in Britain,’ plus consultations of work from the General Social Survey (GSS), The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB) from Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, The Journal of Sex Research, and The Family Project.