Adherence to the human construct of "a week" suggests there's a strong social component that impacts when we do or do not have sex. And yet, the fact that people like to get busy according to a daily rhythm suggests that sexual activity could be dictated, to some extent, by our biology. "As someone who studies circadian rhythms, I know that practically all functions of the human body exhibit [daily] variation," says University of South Carolina biologist Roberto Refinetti in an interview with io9. "It would be reasonable to expect that 'horniness' would exhibit [biological] rhythmicity."
Yeah, every 28 days or so in accordance with a woman's mensies... but no its daily and weekly - just look at these charts!
Palmer and his colleagues analyzed the sexual activity of 78 young, married couples over a 12 month period, and observed a distinct weekly rhythm to sexual activity, which the authors note is characterized by "a rather constant copulatory rate during weekdays, with a large increase on weekends."
What, more sex on weekends! It must be Circadian rhythms and has nothing to do with people being more relaxed, with more free time on weekends.
But wait, that is not all! Peoeple tend to do it - AT NIGHT!
I mean, just because people work all day, and have kids that are in bed at night has NOTHING at all to do with when people have sex. If it weren't for biological rhythms we would be doing it on the kitchen counters at 11 am in front of our kids.
I follows, then, that having sex at night may be an emergent feature of our social structure. Generally speaking, you're not having sex if you're eating breakfast, driving to and from work, or making dinner. Maybe the reason we have sex at night is because it's convenient.
Really, wow what a f'ing genius. Ever, um, actually had sex yourself? Because studying this really obvious stuff kinda makes it possible that you haven't..
"I concluded that this choice of time is simply due to convenience — that is, that's the time when the two people are in bed and lying close together, so they go ahead and have sex," says Refinetti. A biological explanation for human sexual rhythms may well exist, he says, "but I would expect the effect of circadian rhythmicity on sexual desire to be weak."
"To study it, we would have to keep couples alone in constant darkness for many days and check when they initiate sex," he muses.
Yeah, because people who are unnaturally bored and unnaturally in constant dark are going to fall into a "natural" rhythm. Give me more money so I can study it.
Seriously. Someone was paid for this. Has built a career on this.
