A graph posted on the dating website’s blog shows that the older the man, the more he prefers to get rough in bed—that is, according to data gleaned from the site’s members. Less than 10 percent of OkCupid users between 18 and 26 prefer rough sex, but the line steadily rises, breaking 40 percent at about age 52 and peaking at 50 percent for 58-year-olds. Women users between 18 and 26, meanwhile, prefer rough sex slightly more than their male counterparts, but thereafter the line moves steadily toward zero.
What does this data mean? It would be easy to extrapolate that as men age, they grow fonder of rough sex, and that quite the opposite happens with women. This may be true, but let’s keep in mind that, as one OkCupid commenter writes, “I am pretty sure your pool size severely diminishes as age increases.” The site is popular with the young and hip (and cheap, as the site is free). If you’re, say, 50 years old, you’re more likely to try eHarmony or even SeniorMatch or SilverSingles—unless, of course, you’re interested in getting rough with a 20-year-old, in which case OkCupid might be the perfect haunt, as 15 percent of its users that age prefer rough sex.
But let’s just say this is true, that older men like rough sex. OkCupid commenters have theories! “I was thinking older men like rough sex because it takes more extreme activities to get them excited due to ED,” writes “BA.” “Truth” thinks it’s “because it’s the only way they can feel anything after spending their whole lives circumcised and gradually losing any sense of sexual sensitivity.” “Fred” seems to agree, arguing, with creative grammar, that “those who are circumcised have lost a lot of feeling in their glans and cant feel the softer gentler friction—and thus do rougher sex thinking that women both are also crippled and that they enjoy being rubbed harder for lack of feeling in their skin (usually caused because women dont know how to properly moisturize).”
OK, so maybe I shouldn’t be turning to commenters for insight—unless, of course, those commenters are here. Give us your thoughts below.
—Photo degas15/Photobucket
Those three comments in that last paragraph may be onto something.
As has been shown porn can have a desensitizing affect on people who watch it long enough. Over time they seem to go for more extreme porn because “the light stuff” doesn’t cut it for them anymore. So perhaps after a longer sex life they want something rougher because “the light stuff” doesn’t do it for them anymore. (By this I’m talking about the whole losing the feeling in the glans of the penis over time.)
The difference could also be a generational difference — maybe it’s being a teenager in the 1970’s that does it, not that all 50 years old are always the same. Just a theory.