12 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020
I
t’s that time of year again, Michigan
Daily readers. The leaves are chang-
ing, holiday music is playing, snow is
falling and you guessed it — The Statement
Magazine is analyzing campus sex culture.
Welcome to our annual sex edition, where
we dive deep into the topic’s nuances and in-
tricacies through narratives and investigative
pieces. But first, in order to get quantitative
data about what sex looks like for students
at the University of Michigan, we created a
survey with a wide-range of questions fo-
cused on sexual education, perceptions and
activity. Our survey was sent to all University
of Michigan students, undergraduate and
graduate students alike, totaling 47,902 re-
cipients.
Of those recipients, 3,761 people re-
sponded, consisting of a makeup of 17.1%
freshman, 15% sophomores, 17% juniors,
18.3% seniors and a significant 32.6% gradu-
ate students. In regards to gender identity,
57.3% of respondents identified as female,
40.9% as male and 1.8% as non-binary. The
respondents described sexual orientation
was also 72.1% heterosexual, 13.9% bisex-
ual, 5.8% lesbian/gay and 8.2% as other.
It should be noted the statistics resulting
from this survey may be skewed, as many
individuals may not have wished to disclose
information detailed in the questionnaire,
may have refrained from answering certain
questions and/or may have answered ques-
tions dishonestly.
Who uses contraceptives?
"Have you and your partner ever had a conversation about
contraceptives and who is responsible for it?
Eric Lau and Naitian Zhou / Daily Data Team
Woman
Man
Non-binary
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Yes, and I use
Yes, and my partner uses
Yes, and we both use
No, but I use
No, but my partner uses
No, and it's unclear who uses
Yes, and I use
Yes, and my partner uses
Yes, and we both use
No, but I use
No, but my partner uses
No, and it's unclear who uses
While most students, across gender iden-
tities, seem to have conversations about con-
traception and who is responsible for it, more
women are expected to take or use contra-
ception compared to men. Men were more
likely to answer that it is unclear who takes
contraception or that their partner does. We
recognize the limitations of this question, as
not all people are in relationships that re-
quire contraceptive care.
Sexual orientation
How would you characterize your sexual orientation?
Eric Lau / Daily Data Team
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Heterosexual
Bisexual
Lesbian/Gay
Questioning
Pansexual
Asexual
Other
Type of most recent relationship
How would you classify the relationship between you and your
most recent sexual partner(s)?
Eric Lau / Daily Data Team
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
55%
60%
One night stand
Casual relationship
Exclusive relationship
Friend
Other
Many responses concerning one’s pre-
ferred post-coital activity mentioned cud-
dling, “chilling” and napping. This was sur-
prising given how college-hook up culture is
often associated with a “hit-it-and-quit-it”
mentality, which can normalize a sense of
detachment from your sexual partner after
sex, making it like a business transaction.
Cuddling after sex, however, is a bonding ac-
tivity that strengthens relationships. It is im-
portant to note that the majority of respon-
dents indicated that they are in an exclusive
relationship, so perhaps this is a correlation.
Two main themes that arose in response
to the free-response question “What do you
wish you had learned about sex when you
were younger?” was 1) more information
on same-sex sex and 2) more information
on consent. Other responses detailed how
the internet served as an educational tool to
learn about other forms of sex besides het-
erosexual sex; additionally, responses that
were common were learning what a healthy
relationship is, how to communicate your
sexual needs and the general normalization
of sex.
In response to the question of generally,
what reasons do survey-takers mastrubate,
respondents were able to write in their own
free response answers, aside from the check-
box options of “for pleasure,” “stress-relief,”
“to find out what you like” and to “boost
self-esteem.” The most common write-in
answers for why one would masturbate in-
cluded out of boredom, to help them fall
asleep, to procrastinate or to achieve clarity
of mind and focus. We found the frequency
of these responses to be notable, indicating
commonalities behind certain motivations to
masturbate that we may have not considered
obvious before, like clarity and sleep aid.
An overwhelming amount of people who
answered the free-response question “If you
answered that your sexual experiences in
college have been mostly negative, why?” in-
dicated that they have experienced sexual as-
sault and/or sexual harassment during their
time in college. Another glaring theme in
these responses include a lack of communi-
cation. Those parties involved had interests
that didn’t align with each other romanti-
cally, or did not know how to say what felt
good during sex, which was especially distin-
guished by gender — many responses noted
that men aren’t aware on how to provide fe-
male pleasure.
How many sexual partners?
How sexual experience varies by class standing
Alex Cotignola and Eric Lau / Daily Data Team
Senior
Junior
Sophomore
Freshman
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
None
One
Two
Three
Four
5-7
7-10
10+
None
One
Two
Three
Four
5-7
7-10
10+
This figure did not surprise us, as fresh-
men have had less time than upperclassmen
to have multiple sexual experiences. Espe-
cially in the time of COVID-19, when en-
forced social distancing and quarantine have
made sexual encounters limited, it would
make sense for numbers of sexual partners
to remain low.
The 2020
The 2020
sex survey
sex survey
statement