If you don’t know something, you Google it, right?
Except when it comes to sex, the internet doesn’t always get things right.
There’s so much information out there, most of it unverified, that you end up confused rather than informed or reassured.
Here, you’ll find a selection of sex questions people most often ask me – usually anonymously, online or by email – and honest answers you can trust.
What’s the most common sex fantasy for men and women?
US sex researcher and blogger Justin Lehmiller recently conducted the largest and most comprehensive survey of American’s sexual fantasies to find the single most common sex act that people fantasised about was – you guessed it – having a threesome.
Relationship expert Tracey Cox answers eight questions about sex that everybody wants to know – but is too embarrassed to ask – including the most common sex fantasy for men and women
The second most common was BDSM.
He found men and women were surprisingly similar in the types of things they fantasised about but while men were more likely to vary their fantasies in relation to who they were having sex with, women placed more emphasis on where they were having sex.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Lehmiller also found our fantasies reflect our personalities: extraverts have more fantasies about group sex, highly agreeable people are less likely to fantasise about potential painful BDSM fantasies while neurotic people fantasise about low stress scenarios like romantic sex.
Several recent British studies report that more than 30 per cent of both men and women fantasise about sex with a current partner while masturbating, another fantasy that’s made the top five for decades.
Is it normal to pass wind during orgasm?
Sadly, yes!
If you’re having intercourse and he’s on top of you, the motion of being pushed and pulled and/or him lying on your stomach can force wind out.
The penis is also rubbing against the anus, through the vaginal wall.
When we climax, the muscles around the genitals – including the sphincter muscle – relax – letting any trapped gas escape.
It happens – and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
Sex is meant to be noisy, sweaty and smelly!
When people cheat, are they more likely to do it with someone they know or a stranger?
Given the amount of studies on why people cheat, it’s hard to find research focusing on the people we actually cheat with.
But one US study published in April this year did offer some answers.
Researchers looked at the responses of more than 13,000 people collected between 2000 and 2016 of people who reported having extramarital sex.
They were asked who they had sex with: a close friend, a neighbour, co-worker or long-term acquaintance, a casual date or pick up, a person they’d paid or other.
Turned out most people (53%) cheated with a close personal friend, followed by a neighbour, co-worker or long-term acquaintance (29.4).
Tracey says that the most common fantasy among men and women is BDSM
The clear answer on this one does appear to be that we cheat with someone we know – with lots of reasons why.
We know that familiarity breeds lust not contempt. If we initially like someone, we tend to like them more, the more time we spend with them.
There are more opportunities to cheat with someone we know and see often and while casual sex is appealing to some people, it’s not to all people.
The chase is highly arousing to both sexes and that’s intensified with someone you know because they’re even more forbidden than strangers.
If you’re after something other than just sex, it makes more sense to cheat with someone you know might want a relationship rather than a random you’ve hooked up with on Tinder.
So, it’s not a sexy stranger you need to be wary about, it’s more likely to be your best friend your partner’s unfaithful with!
Why do men get erections when they sleep?
True, he might well be having one hell of a great sex dream but it’s more likely to be a biological reason behind why he gets hard when he sleeps: sleep erections seem unaffected by the frequency, amount or quality of sex he’s having in real life.
Most men have several erections per night during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, when our pulse and breathing race and our eyes zig-zag, showing the nervous system is on high alert.
This can easily trigger a reflex erection.
Women also experience night time arousal, by the way.
By monitoring the genitals during sleep, researchers found the same kind of arousal responses – the vagina expanding and lubricating – in women as well.
Do men and women really enjoy giving oral sex as much as receiving it?
There’s a perception that while we all pay lip service to enjoying giving oral sex, most of us are secretly selfish sexually and would much prefer to receive it.
Is this true?
A Canadian college study found 97 per cent of men and more than 95 per cent of women found receiving oral sex pleasurable.
But when it came to giving oral sex, the men surveyed enjoyed doing it more than women did: roughly 93 per cent of men said giving was pleasurable compared to just over 82 per cent of women.
Tracey explains that most men get several erections during REM sleep, when our pulse and breathing race and our eyes zig-zag, showing the nervous system is on high alert which can easily trigger a reflex erection
The research also showed women get more pleasure from giving oral sex when the act is reciprocated.
Understandable, when you consider while men orgasm nearly every time through intercourse, a much larger percentage of women orgasm through oral sex.
It might sound sexist but receiving oral sex is far more important for a woman than a man.
Why does my man want to watch me have sex with another man?
It’s called ‘cuckolding’ (a term that means a wife is cheating on her husband) and it’s different to your standard threesome because the man wants to watch not participate.
The practise is on the rise: ‘cuckold porn’ and ‘youth’ were the two top straight men’s porn searches for a popular porn site.
But why would a man get pleasure out of watching their partner have sex with another man when it’s something most men would get angry and jealous over?
It could simply be that they’re voyeurs: they get aroused by watching others have sex.
Other men are turned on by the fact that it’s unorthodox and ‘forbidden’ or (more commonly) like thinking their partner is irresistible to other men because it boosts their own ego (I’m hot enough to be with a woman this hot).
Some people believe people who enjoy being cuckold are masochists who get off on being humiliated.
Dan Savage, a US columnist, believes men cope with the threat of their wives being unfaithful by turning the fear into something arousing.
That’s the possible psychological motivation behind fantasising about cuckolding.
Whether you should actually grant him his wish and take it through to reality is quite another matter.
In my judgement, I’d say no: it has way more potential to backfire spectacularly than turn into something you’ll both want to repeat.
Is big better for most women?
In 2016, a US research team gave 75 women (aged 18 to 65) different-sized 3D penis models and asked them to select the perfect size for both a long-term relationship and a one-night-stand.
Most chose a slightly larger than average penis size (6.3 inches long and 4.8 inches around) for long-term and increased that by one inch for casual sex.
(The average erect penis is around 5.2 inches long and 4.6 inches around.)
But while the media had a heyday – finally proof big is best! – the reality is the vast majority of research on heterosexual women indicates penis size doesn’t have a bearing on how they rate sex with their partners (85 per cent say it doesn’t).
Most of the nerve endings in the female genitals are outside the body, so a longer penis isn’t going to help much (though there is some evidence that deep penetration may stimulate the cervix – a possible source of pleasure for some women).
More important is the girth of the penis.
The thicker it is, the more contact it has with the first inch of the vaginal canal, which is rich in nerve endings, and the more likely it is the area around the clitoris is ‘pulled’ by the act of thrusting.
Do women orgasm from anal sex?
Anal sex jumped the fence from ‘kinky’ to ‘the norm’ a while ago and has stayed there.
Many women find it pleasurable, it’s increasingly common and far less taboo.
Anyone watching this season’s The Affair, saw the character Helen inform a group of young women ‘Oh you really should’ when discussing if they should ‘go there’.
And that’s on mainstream TV.
But can women actually orgasm from anal sex alone?
A 2009 US study of adults (aged 18 to 59) revealed that the number one sex act which reliably caused female orgasms was receiving anal sex: 94 per cent of women who’d had anal sex reported having an orgasm in that session.
As all women know, this is a damn sight higher than the statistics for orgasms from vaginal penetration (only 25 per cent of women consider this a reliable way to orgasm).
That said, the women who had anal sex in the survey also did other sexual acts in the same session: it wasn’t necessarily the anal sex that tipped them over the edge.
The general consensus from sex therapists: women who have anal sex are more confident and experimental and we conclusively know that the more different types of stimulation women try, the higher their orgasm rate.
Women who report five or more sexual acts in one session, report an orgasm rate of 89 per cent.
The conclusion: yes, it’s entirely possible!
Tracey’s brand new website traceycox.com has more practical, no-non-judgemental information about sex and relationships.