When it comes to sex, we British appear to have "lost our swagger".
In a study of the country's sexual habits, first conducted by a Sunday newspaper in 2008, we were notching up a tally of seven times a month. That was only weeks before Lehman Brothers folded. Six years later, that figure has slumped to four times a month, with one-third of respondents saying they can get through 30 days with no sex whatsoever, and 61 per cent believing that you can have a happy marriage or relationship without any sex at all.
Lest any readers are hopping up and down, wondering why their views were not canvassed, it seems that in terms of libido, Scots are leading the field, with 50 per cent rating their sex drive at above average. This may mean, contrary to recent indications, that we are a country that prefers to say yes. On the other hand, it could reflect nothing more than innate cockiness and wishful thinking rather than anything usefully scientific.
My own suspicion is that, if true, it is simply a consequence of longer and colder winters in the north, when a choice has to be made between a hefty heating bill or getting under the duvet and generating enough warmth to get you both through the night. Interpret it as you will, however, the fact remains: as the markets have cooled, so has our appetite for physical conjugation.
The detail into which the survey goes is impressively thorough. No corner of the British sex life is beyond its inquiring torch. Yet, try as I might, I cannot get interested in how many people have had houghmagandie in their workplace, or read to the end of Fifty Shades of Grey, or slept with their partner's best mate.
Apart from a friend who has hinted that her relationship might be more electrifying if her partner didn't keep falling asleep in front of EastEnders, and another who crossed the Mason-Dixon line of 50 and found nothing but desert on the other side, I have absolutely no idea about the proclivities and of my friends and colleagues, and even less interest.
Even as a teenager, when worldly wise school chums would relate the previous evening's exploits as if conducting a biology lesson for beginners, I was embarrassed. At that age, though, prying or revealing too much is natural. Thankfully, the days when sharing accommodation meant having no secrets unless one installed sound-proofing are long gone. I have even occupied flats so poorly built that the activities of those across the landing were unignorable. A call to the SSPCA about a whimpering dog next door was mortifying, to say the least.
But by the time one is an adult, why speculate about what is going on behind neighbours' curtains? What purpose does it serve knowing the arithmetic of the general population's behaviour, against which one is presumably expected to measure one's own.
Are we to take comfort or a sense of solidarity from discovering how the majority behaves, or is it intended as a spur to do better, and for goodness' sake keep up? Whichever way you look at it, the statistics are a benchmark, the sexual equivalent of a university degree, with only the most driven - or mendacious - achieving a starred first.
Such surveys assume we are fascinated by the geography of other people's passions, their peaks and troughs and plateaux. But are we? Perhaps reality TV has led us to crave access to all areas, no matter how intimate. Or maybe we have grown too accustomed to polls, and now follow them as avidly as if they were a racing tipster's advice on Derby day.
Most likely, though, we have just given in to prurience. How ironic, then, that while the anonymity offered by the internet has eroded inhibitions and helped researchers produce surveys such as this, to judge from the results we have become a nation of voyeurs rather than doers.
Think of it this way: if you look around a shop or cinema or pub, do you care how often these strangers hop into bed and with whom, or want them knowing what you do and how skilfully? There's a reason it's called having a private life. In this age of information overload, sex is one area where being an individual, and not caring what anybody else does or thinks, really matters.
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