Overweight women have more sex

Hmm, interesting.

YHM!

Maybe overweight women enjoy life more? Less restrained? It makes sense if a woman is less up tight about food/calories they may be more abandoned in other areas of their lives, suchas sex?

Hmm - stable relationship => regular sex and "letting yourself go" perhaps?

I'm not sure i ever had hold of myself to let myself go ?

Erm.... I sense a flaw in your theory ?

Hasn't it been proven that chocolate boosts libido? Therefore C=ms+bb (Chocolate= more shagging+bigger bulges)

I didn't understand this.

I've never been officially overweight but have always enjoyed a good shagging ?

They have controlled for domiciliary status - ie even if you look at only women who are ina stable relationship, the overweight and obese ones still get more sex

? yes, I see your point...

I have a friend who is a firm believer in the relationship between food and sex.

Oestrogen?

You can love your food without being overweight though.

I must admit that a fussy eater wouldn't get past the first date with me. The husband woofed down 3 courses when we first went out and that was me sold ?

It's because they're more desperate and have lower standards, ldo ?

Seriously, that's very interesting. I know when I put on weight my sex drive disapears entirely as I can't bear to be touched. Yay for horny overweight women.

That's what I would think - overweight = hormone changes (that also increase risk of breast cancer).

The love of food=love of sex is interesting though... ??

Interesting. The study suggests that yes, normal weight women (of all ages) are more likely never to have had sex with a man (even when you remove all the women who've ever been pregnant).

The finding that obese and overweight women were more likely than normal weight women to report a history of ever having had male sexual
intercourse with a male is somewhat unexpected. Our results indicate that obese and overweight women do not initiate intercourse earlier, and it does not seem that there are significant differences in sexual orientation between weight groups. There were also no differences between weight groups in the reasons women gave for remaining virginal, with similar proportions of women in the different weight groups reporting that they “hadn’t found the right person yet,” suggesting that the primary reason for the observed difference is not finding a partner.

Wow. So interesting. Again, could it be that staying slim turns women off sex? That women who retain a sub-25 BMI are too anxious about their bodies to engage in sex as much as their volumptous counterparts?

Also, does the study correct for anorexic women? AFAIK a lot of them never lose their virginity at all.

Mine too! Well, on the 2nd date. I like a man who eats appreciates good food, and eats with gusto.

As an aside-some years ago, I was at a party when I was aware of a v attractive man staring at me as I stood with a couple of friends and ate a plate of curry in the kitchen. I pretended I didn't notice and carried on. Later, after more drinks, flirting/banter a smooch- he said he had been attracted by two things initially-my curves in my dress and how I ate that curry-unselfconsciously. He thought a woman who enjoyed her grub was sexy. I can say those comments stayed with me for a long time!

Pithy, and to the point JK?

That, and lots of women with PCOS around. Could be testosterone related too.

I'd like to see a stratification by menstrual cycle, too. Would weed out the amenorrheic at both ends of the spectrum.

Guessing that's a typo, but I bloody love it.

Re the OP, I hadn't noticed.[:'(]

A very good point Soph. It divides women into <25, 25-30, and >30 - in other words would include anorexics in the normal weight group even if they aren't. No mention of excluding women for having anorexia.

But given that the normal weight women will undoubtedly include some present or ex anorexics, and that the other two groups will include a (probably) smaller proportion of ex anorexics - it is true to say that according to this on average normal or underweight weight women are more likely never to have had sex.

Going from my experiment on the subject, my results match the correlation of this experiment. ?

Or maybe theyre just lying?

Not read the paper yet - I've done too many papers already today to make any sense of it! - but it seems to reflect my experience!

Do guys go for fatter girls because they think they'll be easier to get into bed with than thin women who are expected to have the pick of the (male) bunch?

I've always wondered that, given that I've barely been single since I was 18 but some of my (stunning, lovely, fun) friends have barely made out in that time. I don't get it.

NickJ - it's possible that they were lying but the sexual activity questionnaires were done with an audio computer self interviewing thingummy - ie the interviewer waasn't present.This minimises what they call "reporting bias".

Are the fatter women more likely to lie than the thinner women? are either group more likely to underestimate (societal pressure/moral standards about how many partners one should have) or overestimate? But you're right, all of these "self report" studies are liable to some degree of bias, the trick in a good study is working out how to limit them.

I've read the paper a couple of times now. There are a few differences which differ from the way it's been reported (on those <ahem>well respected science magazines Yahoo! and the Daily Mail). Overweight and obese women are more likely to ever have had sex than thin women (that gives the misleading title "fat women have more sex").

The bigger and IMO more important result is that fat and thin women, in all other respects, report much the same sexual behaviour as thin women So doctors esp when considering sexual health and contraception, should not make the assumption that fatter girls and women are having less sex because it does not appear to be true. In fact wrt women of all ages studies (15-44), the overweight and obese ones are more likely ever to have been sexually active. It's less snappy but a better title would be "fat women have just as much sex as thin women, despite what people might presuppose".

Or actually, "thin women more likely to be virgins"?

(Or if you tabloid it up, "thin women frigid!")

Under the original DM/Yahoo implication I was going to ask how we'd work out if it's a social thing (men prefer the larger woman), emotional (fat women less hung up) or chemical (the JK hypothesis). I guess the same question still applies but kind of the other way round.

Well we know from psychological experiments that men find a certain hip:waist ratio attractive, and ovulating women more attractive than women who don't ovulate (that sorts out the anorexics). Your classic endomorph and mesomorph is more likely to have an attractive waist:hip ratio than an ectomorph.

Chemical - you could look at oestrodiol levels at a couple of points on the cycle, testosterone levels, LH/FSH levels, and see if you can find a correlation between that and weight and sexual behaviour, and try to spot links.

Emotional - that's harder I think. Would need qualitative studies first, then perhaps an experimental psychological approach.

I know that guys at my hockey club play "Pull a pig"..i.e an overweight woman..

If this is a nationwide thing, is that also likely to skew the results?

p.s don`t flame me, i`m trying to raise a valid point..

Some of my thoughts which are somehow related to this topic...

1 - i have observed among women I have known and discussed this with that your body shape changes somewhat (if it is going to) when you start having regular sex. it's as if something internal clicks and says 'oho! up to that are you? let us therefore adopt the Matronly bodyshape in readiness for the sprogs which are sure to be shortly forthcoming.'

2 - in terms of evolution, would slightly overweight women be in a better position to take on childbirth? i would have thought that in a primitive hunter-gatherer sort of world being heavily up the duff would decrease the (already comparatively slim) chances of catching/picking some serious nourishment, although more energy would be required than normal because of the baby-growing. so therefore you'd think that men might be instinctively drawn towards women with a few calories in hand, so to speak.

3 - i agree about the 'enjoy food = enjoy sex' lowered restraint idea. also as a particularly frisky individual who wears a size 14 it makes sense to me ?

don't know if any of the above are actually correct, of course

It's only going to skew the results if fat women are stupid enough to fall for it ?

But surely, game or not, the men wouldn't take part unless they specifically wanted to sleep with overweight women, however they phrase it?

Hazel you`d be very very very suprised..

I think there is something in this - think about fertility symbols from ancient tribes. They're all big, curvy women. You need to know that the woman you choose to bear and raise your child (ie the woman to whom you are entrusting the continuation of your gene line) is going to survive a hard winter!

However, as Rache says, we know that there are considerable disadvantages to being overweight - diabetes, heart disease etc etc.

I guess there are two possible ways to look at this. One is that we are (as with so many other things) a set of compromises. There is a trade off between reproductive success and the risk of ill health. The other way to look at it is that the health concerns associated with obesity are predominantly illnesses of old age and in a "natural" setting, we wouldn't survive long enough for Type II diabetes to be an issue. It would be more important to have the extra fat reserves for a hard winter.

A gay friend said when he was in the closet he used to go out with fat women because he seemed to think they'd want sex less, although he was always proved completely wrong and they wanted more.

funny, i hadn't thought about it, but that fits in with the report.