Sex File: Our neighbours' frequent noisy sex is making us feel inadequate

Mon, 20 Mar, 2023 - 07:07

Suzi Godson

A younger couple have renovated the house next door, and now we can hear everything through the walls - and I mean everything. As if that weren't awkward enough, realising how much more sex they're having is making us feel inadequate.

Young love, eh? There's no point feeling inadequate. There is an inversely proportional relationship between the duration of a relationship and the amount of sex people have, so give them five years and they'll be watching Corrie in their slippers too. Don't assume it is anything to do with age either. Newlywed 70-year-olds have a lot more sex than couples half their age who have been together twice as long. Your neighbours are obviously busier than you are, but most of us overestimate the amount of sex that other couples have.

A recent National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) in Britain, found that women aged 35-44 had sex twice a month and men had sex three times a month - and about one person in four reported having had no sex at all in the previous month.

If you and your partner are having sex once a week you are doing just fine. In fact, research suggests that this may be optimal. A University of Toronto study examined the relationship between sexual frequency and happiness and found that people who had sex less than once a month weren't as happy as those having sex once a week, but interestingly, having sex more than once a week didn't bring about a corresponding increase in happiness. So take comfort from the fact that even if your neighbours are more active, they are not necessarily any happier about it.

In fact, if your female neighbour is particularly noisy, the sounds you are hearing may be her trying to bring sex to an end. Psychologists have mapped the moment that women were most likely to orgasm onto the times that women were most likely to make noise during sex. They found that women were most likely to orgasm prior to penetration, during oral or foreplay, yet they made the most noise just before their male partner's orgasm. The researchers concluded that, rather than being some kind of unconscious expression of sexual pleasure, women who make a lot of noise during sex are trying to encourage their partner to finish.

Asking the neighbours to pipe down is an option. Confronting them would probably just embarrass them though, so I can't really see how that would help your long-term relationship. After all, if your neighbours can't have unselfconscious sex in their own home, where can they have it?

I know you find it a bit awkward, but if it has made you and your partner question whether you are having enough sex, perhaps that is no bad thing. If you can get past your feelings of inadequacy and allow hearing how much fun they are having to propel you back into each other's arms, it may actually turn out to be a bonus.