Sex File: How often should we make love? 

Picture: iStock 

I know it might sound unromantic, but my husband and I have been trying to work out what the ideal amount of sex in a relationship is. We're busy but really value sex for the sake of our relationship and wellbeing. Is once a week a good aim? We're in our 30s. We don't have children and we've been together for ten years.

People are rarely honest about the amount of sex they are having. As a result, everyone ends up assuming that other people are at it like rabbits. In 2017 the global market research company Ipsos confirmed this misperception by conducting a survey that asked people to estimate the frequency with which men and women aged 18 to 29 had sex. The men in the survey guessed that women aged 18 to 29 had sex 23 times a month, and the women guessed that the men had sex 13 to 15 times. Both estimates were, I suspect, wildly out, but they indicate how distorted our perception of sexual frequency has become.