They also think about food almost as much as sex - 18 times a day - closely
followed by sleep, which crosses their mind 11 times a day.
This confounds the long-held stereotype that men think about sex every seven
seconds while awake, amounting to 8,000 times over an average 16-hour day.
However, US scientists discovered that, on average, men still think about sex
twice as much as women, who entertain the thought just ten times a day.
Women also thought less about food and sleep daily, thinking about them just
15 and 8.5 times respectively.
They put the new numbers down to previous studies, which they say were
headline-grabbing but poorly set-up.
The researchers say that in those studies volunteers were often asked to make
a guess at how often they thought about sex rather than actually recording
it, with the results wrongly influencing men and women for years after.
The team, from Ohio State University recruited 160 women and 120 men aged 18 to 25 to monitor their thoughts. In the group, 59 were randomly assigned to count how often they thought about food, 61 sleep and 163 sex.
Before beginning the experiment, participants were asked questions designed to gauge their attitudes to sex, food and sleep. They also estimated how many times they thought about each daily, before being given a special tally counter they could use whenever they thought about their assigned subject.
A closer look at the results, published in the Journal of Sex Research, revealed that men thought about sex between one and 388 times daily, with a median of 18 whereas women thought about it between one and 140 times a day, with a median of ten.
The authors say the figure for women was 'a broader range than expected.'
Results also showed that those who claimed to be most comfortable with their sexuality when questionned beforehand thought more about sex, although women who prioritised being seen as 'socially acceptable' tended to think about it less.
Overall, results also showed that the volunteers' estimates of how often they'd think about food, sex or sleep was far higher than the true figure. The authors think this may have been influenced by other headline-grabbing studies which they claim relied mainly on retrospective estimates.
Study author Professor Terri Fisher said: "If you had to know one thing about a person to best predict how often they would be thinking about sex, you'd be better off knowing their emotional orientation toward sexuality, as opposed to knowing whether they were male or female.
"Frequency of thinking about sex is related to variables beyond one's biological sex. It's amazing the way people will spout off these fake statistics that men think about sex nearly constantly and so much more often than women do.
"When a man hears a statement like that, he might think there's something wrong with him because he's not spending that much time thinking about sexuality, and when women hear about this, if they spend significant time thinking about sex they might think there's something wrong with them."
Prof Fisher added: "Since we looked at those other types of need-related thoughts, we found that it appears that there's not just a sex difference with regard to thoughts about sex, but also with regard to thoughts about sleep and food.
"That's very significant. This suggests males might be having more of these thoughts than women are or they have an easier time identifying the thoughts.
"It's difficult to know, but what is clear is it's not uniquely sex that they're spending more time thinking about, but other issues related to their biological needs, as well."
"There's really no good reason that our society should have believed that men are thinking so much more about sex than women. Even the research that had been done previously doesn't support the stereotype that men are thinking about sex every seven seconds."
The team, from Ohio State University recruited 160 women and 120 men aged 18 to 25 to monitor their thoughts. In the group, 59 were randomly assigned to count how often they thought about food, 61 sleep and 163 sex.
Before beginning the experiment, participants were asked questions designed to gauge their attitudes to sex, food and sleep. They also estimated how many times they thought about each daily, before being given a special tally counter they could use whenever they thought about their assigned subject.
A closer look at the results, published in the Journal of Sex Research, revealed that men thought about sex between one and 388 times daily, with a median of 18 whereas women thought about it between one and 140 times a day, with a median of ten.
The authors say the figure for women was 'a broader range than expected.'
Results also showed that those who claimed to be most comfortable with their sexuality when questionned beforehand thought more about sex, although women who prioritised being seen as 'socially acceptable' tended to think about it less.
Overall, results also showed that the volunteers' estimates of how often they'd think about food, sex or sleep was far higher than the true figure. The authors think this may have been influenced by other headline-grabbing studies which they claim relied mainly on retrospective estimates.
Study author Professor Terri Fisher said: "If you had to know one thing about a person to best predict how often they would be thinking about sex, you'd be better off knowing their emotional orientation toward sexuality, as opposed to knowing whether they were male or female.
"Frequency of thinking about sex is related to variables beyond one's biological sex. It's amazing the way people will spout off these fake statistics that men think about sex nearly constantly and so much more often than women do.
"When a man hears a statement like that, he might think there's something wrong with him because he's not spending that much time thinking about sexuality, and when women hear about this, if they spend significant time thinking about sex they might think there's something wrong with them."
Prof Fisher added: "Since we looked at those other types of need-related thoughts, we found that it appears that there's not just a sex difference with regard to thoughts about sex, but also with regard to thoughts about sleep and food.
"That's very significant. This suggests males might be having more of these thoughts than women are or they have an easier time identifying the thoughts.
"It's difficult to know, but what is clear is it's not uniquely sex that they're spending more time thinking about, but other issues related to their biological needs, as well."
"There's really no good reason that our society should have believed that men are thinking so much more about sex than women. Even the research that had been done previously doesn't support the stereotype that men are thinking about sex every seven seconds."
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