Sex Survey 2011 results

You can view the whole version here.

Presented above is a small, X-rated snapshot of the sexual lives of Imperial students. While the data has certain obvious flaws (see ‘Sensitivity and Reliability’ below), it nonetheless leads to interesting conclusions. For instance, the Union was the most popular place on campus to have sex – followed by the Library and, disturbingly, the Felix Office. The Maths Department simultaneously boasts the highest proportion of virgins as well as of students who have sex every day (the department must be full of envious stares across the lecture theatres).

We saw that male-dominated departments collectively masturbate more than their gender-equal equivalents; mainly because men were revealed to masturbate far more than women. Imperial students are overwhelmingly straight, but also, interestingly, more respondents identified as bisexual rather than gay.

The majority of students (around 60%) lost their virginity between the ages of 16-18, but on average, 15% are still virgins. Around 50% of respondents admitted to watching porn at least once a week and 26 adventurous students identified as straight but admitted that they had slept with a member of the same sex.

10% said that they have engaged in a threesome and the vast majority rejected the idea that studying at Imperial had restricted their sex life. However, one poor student commented: “Boys NEVER hit on me here! Literally, the better I look, the more they run away. I get the most attention when I look a bit rubbish. They need to MAN-UP!”

The results are, admittedly, a mixed bag. While the data is not wholly unrepresentative, it is not strong enough to indicate anything other than certain trends. They also sadly don’t offer any quick fixes for stagnating sex lives. If you transferred to the Maths Department, for instance, you would be just as likely to have a year-long dry spell as daily multiplication exercises.

What sexuality are you?

The majority of polled students were straight; hardly a surprising result. But the data became more interesting when we compared responses across sexualities. Gay men and bisexual women (there were no gay female respondents) were substantially less likely to be virgins than their straight peers. Bisexual women were twice as likely to masturbate regularly than straight women and had the highest proportion of respondents claiming to have sex daily. 50% of gay men said that they masturbated every day, compared with only 20% of straight men.

How often do you masturbate? Guys vs. Girls

The results confirmed the common assumption that men masturbate more than women. 68% of men at Imperial said that they masturbated every day or a few times a week while only a quarter of women at Imperial said the same thing. Whereas students in a relationship masturbate less frequently than their single counterparts, the total fraction of onanistic students (of either gender) is unchanged.

Bisexual women and gay men were the most likely to make use of sex toys, though nearly 30% of straight women and 16% of straight men admitted to their use. One unexpected result was the number of respondents claiming to use more than 4 sex toys – a figure over 10% in certain departments.

How often do you masturbate? By Department

So who are the biggest wankers? The Materials Department are well in front with 73% of their students masturbating daily or a few times a week (regularly). However, due to the low number of respondents there, the potential for error is quite high. Mech Eng, by contrast, is a much more stable sample. 70% of their students masturbate regularly, compared with only 36% in the Life Sciences Department – perhaps due to the greater percentage of female students. The trend supports the idea that women masturbate less, as departments with more females lie low in the spectrum.

How often do you have sex? By Department

Incredible though it may seem, the Mathematicians place third in our survey for frequency of sexual activity. In fact, their Department has the highest percentage of students who claim to have sex daily. By contrast, almost 50% of students in Aero and EEE are either virgins or engage in sexual activity only a few times a year. While almost a third of Imperial students claim to have engaged in anal sex, this figure rises to nearly 50% among Chemists. In the breakdown by year group, PhD students and current 3rd years are the most experienced in this area.

Comments from the survey

“I lost my virginity to a girl and a guy in the same night. one in a car, the other in the woods.”

“[I attended a] 27 all-male orgy hosted by an ex-TV presenter. One of the most incredible experiences of my life – and another ‘thing to do before I die’ checked off the list.”

“My first sexual partner exploited me and I haven’t had sex with anyone since because I don’t trust them to not do it again.”

Sensitivity and Reliability - Editor

Before I begin this short analysis of the figures displayed above, I would first like to express my appreciation to those who trusted us enough to share their deeply personal data. We strived at every juncture to ensure that the data was completely anonymous, and college usernames were not seen at any point in the data analysis. By the time of going to print the raw data has been entirely deleted.

It is also important that I confess my inexperience in the fields of surveying and statistics. There were a number of instances where the questions and available answers limited data collection. Several questions did not allow multiple choice where they plainly should have (‘Where have you had sex on campus?’ being an obvious example), and others had too limited a range of answers – many legitimate respondents complained that a limit of four sex toys was far too low. Perhaps the most egregious mistake on our part was to group people with differing numbers of sexual partners together (the combined 1-5 category instead of the separate 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). This loss of resolution restricted a lot of interesting analysis.

In addition to this, the results are skewed in a number of noticeable ways. Firstly, the respondents are precisely those students comfortable enough to discuss their sexual lives after having used their College username to unlock our survey. Perhaps such uninhibited students have more active sexual lives than their unsurveyed colleagues. While we tried to promote the survey widely, the somewhat skewed number of 3rd and 4th year respondents indicates that a significant number are part of the wider social network of Felix Editors. Additionally, our participation was limited to 562 students, with individual departments providing anything from 11 to 104 responses. Those with smaller sample sizes are self-evidently less generally representative. As a final disclaimer, every attempt was made to weed out nonsensical responses.

Design: Veronika McQuadeova
Analysis: Matthew Allinson & Simon Worthington
Online Design: Jonathan Kim