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

