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Prevalence Research

“Common lifetime sexual behaviors included wearing sexy lingerie/underwear (75% women, 26% men), sending/receiving digital nude/semi-nude photos (54% women, 65% men), reading erotic stories (57% of participants), public sex (≥43%), spanking (≥30%), role-playing (≥22%), tying/being tied up (≥20%), and watching sexually explicit videos/DVDs (60% women, 82% men). Having engaged in threesomes (10% women, 18% men) and playful whipping (≥13%) were less common. Lifetime group sex, sex parties, taking a sexuality class/workshop, and going to BDSM parties were uncommon (each <8%).”

Herbenick, D., Bowling, J., Fu, T. J., Dodge, B., Guerra-Reyes, L., & Sanders, S. (2017). Sexual Diversity in the United States: Results from a nationally representative probability sample of adult women and men. PloS one, 12(7), e0181198. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0181198

“Nearly half of this sample expressed interest in at least one paraphilic category, and approximately one-third had had experience with such a practice at least once. Voyeurism, fetishism, frotteurism, and masochism interested both male and female respondents at levels above what is usually considered to be statistically unusual (15.9%). Interestingly, levels of interest in fetishism and masochism were not significantly different for men and women. Masochism was significantly linked with higher satisfaction with one’s own sexual life.”

Christian C. Joyal & Julie Carpentier (2016): The Prevalence of Paraphilic Interests and Behaviors in the General Population: A Provincial Survey, The Journal of Sex Research, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2016.1139034