People shocked after research reveals difference between how long men and women expect sex should last

The results of research into how long sex should last surprised a number of people after studies on the bedroom activities of 500 couples produced some unexpected figures.

Dr Rena Malik spoke about 'true and timed data' of how long sex lasted, and she clarified that the times people were talking about were specifically talking about penetration.

Sorry gang, your foreplay and mid-sex cuddle game might be strong as hell, but in this study the stopwatch was only going for the actual penetration part of sex.

The study compared something called the 'intravaginal ejaculatory latency time' (IELT) which is a fancy way of saying the time between a ding-a-ling first going into a woman's thing and the bloke blowing his beans.

According to men in the study, the estimated ideal time was 16 minutes, but they believed that on average they actually went for just nine minutes.

With couples timing themselves on a stopwatch, there was a big difference in the amount of time it took for a man to... arrive.

"Next time we're using the stopwatch because that was definitely not nine minutes." (Getty Stock Photo)

The average IELT was 5.7 minutes, but the range went from 0.1 minutes to 'about 55 minutes'.

It also varied significantly depending on which country the study participants were from, with Dr Malik saying that men from Turkey finished quickest with an average time of 4.4 minutes while for British men it wasn't just the upper lip that was stiff as we had the longest IELT of 'about 10 minutes'.

Huzzah.

While the study didn't ask women how long they wanted penetrative sex to go on for, Dr Malik cited another study of 4,000 women which said that they wanted it to last for 25 minutes.

We might have some work to do on that front.

Hearing all the information laid out by Dr Malik on how long people thought sex should last, plenty of commenters were surprised at the different times and admitted that having wildly varying ideas about how long a session in the bedroom ought to last was an issue they discussed.

"The study says the average time is five minutes and 42 seconds, let's see if we can improve on that." (Getty Stock Photo)

One person commented: "I started talking to a girl. We talked about expectations and she said it should last about an hour. In my mind I was like 'oh baby, prepare to be disappointed'."

Someone else chipped in to offer what they thought was a good explanation, saying: "If she ever complains about a short duration, I say 'I was being respectful of your time. I know you’re a busy woman'.

"It's not necessarily a matter of duration but of how well quality-time was spent.

Another said that '5 minutes of honest work is enough', though you might want to ask their partner if they agree, while someone said that if 25 minutes was the expectation 'she's going to need to count all of round one, the 10-15 minute recover time, round two and the cuddle'.

"I lasted an hour and 40 seconds once. It was daylight saving time," was a comment your humble writer found particularly humorous.