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Sometimes, it’s just about hookup.

Usually not: The vast majority of Americans are monogamous and glad about it, voicing satisfaction with their lovemaking lives and a broad preference for emotional commitment in sexual relationships. Most by far choose marriage to the single life.

But there’s more to hook-up in America in two thousand four than that 1950s picture suggests. A groundbreaking ABC News "Primetime Live" survey finds a range of eye-popping sexual activities, fantasies and attitudes in this country, confirming some conventional wisdom, exploding some myths — and venturing where few scientific surveys have gone before.

Click here for PDF version with utter questionnaire and results.

Click here for more ABC News polls in our Poll Vault.

Among the results: Fifty-seven percent of Americans have had lovemaking outdoors or in a public place. Half talk with their playmates about their sexual fantasies. Forty-two percent call themselves sexually adventurous. Twenty-nine percent have had lovemaking on a very first date, and about as many have had an "unexpected sexual encounter with someone fresh." Fifteen percent of dudes — and three in ten single studs age thirty and older — have paid for hookup. About half of women say they’ve faked an orgasm.

Americans’ Sexual Behavior

Two-thirds of sexually active Americans sometimes "wear something sexy" to enhance their hook-up lives, and thirty percent say they and their playmate have observed sexually explicit movies. One in five — around forty million people — say they’ve looked at porn Web sites. As many, studs and women about identically, have had "rebound" hookup to get over a failed relationship.

In some cases, where activity is less common, fantasy takes over. Among people who are married or living in a committed relationship (or formerly married), sixteen percent have cheated on their fucking partner (almost twice as many guys as women) — while more, thirty percent, have fantasized about it. Fourteen percent of adults (and twice as many single guys) have had hookup in a threesome, while an extra twenty one percent have fantasized about that. Twelve percent have had hook-up at their workplace, and it’s been a fantasy for one in ten more.

Fantasy and Activity

There are other signs of yearning: Among the fifty five percent who describe their sexual activity as "traditional," about three in ten would like to be more adventurous. And more — four in Ten, especially studs — would like more adventurousness in their playmates.

The survey also finds meaty differences in sexual attitudes inbetween fellows and women. It underscores the wages of sin: Divorced or separated fellows are twice as likely to have been unfaithful in their marriage. And it demolishes the notion that singles are swinging: Even among youthfull singles (under 30), almost half aren’t dating at all, and among those who are dating, eight in ten are dating one person exclusively. Monogamy, again, rules the roost.

Moreover, the survey finds that satisfaction with hook-up does matter. A statistical analysis identifies some of the factors independently related to satisfaction with hookup, marriage and life more broadly. Among other findings, it shows that activities such as discussing fantasies with a playmate contribute to an arousing hook-up life, that an arousing hook-up life contributes to a blessed marriage and that a blessed marriage contributes to life satisfaction.

These and other findings in this random-sample telephone poll of 1,501 adults paint a remarkable and intimate portrait of hookup in America in the 21st century. Many of the frank and private questions, from make-out to fantasy, have uncommonly if ever been asked before in a representative national survey. Other results comport with previous hook-up research. The survey is the basis for an special report on sexual attitudes and behavior for the ABC News program "Primetime Live" that aired on Thursday, Oct. Twenty one at ten p.m. ET. A 2nd program, based on a separate survey of sexual attitudes and behavior among teenagers, will air at a later date.

Different Planets

If women are from Venus, fellows are — well — guys. Seventy percent of studs think about lovemaking every day — dual the rate among women. Indeed, forty three percent of studs think about lovemaking several times a day; just thirteen percent of women do that. Eighty-three percent of guys love hook-up "a superb deal"; that falls to fifty nine percent of women. Women, tho’, are identically likely to express satisfaction with their hookup lives.

Hookup and the Gender Gap

Overall, women report an average of six hookup fucking partners in their lifetimes; studs, 20. But a better gauge of sexual activity for most people is the median, the midpoint inbetween the high and low: Women report a median of three hook-up fucking partners; fellows, a median of eight.

The averages are higher because a puny number of individuals — especially boys — report a very large number of playmates. Five percent of the guys in this sample reported having had ninety nine or more lovemaking fucking partners, including four who reported 200, three who reported three hundred and one who reported 400. Among women, one percent reported ninety nine or more playmates; the high was one hundred (reported by two women).

Total Number of Lovemaking Fucking partners

While there are differences inbetween the sexes, the data are internally coherent; for example, people who report more hook-up playmates, studs and women alike, are more apt to describe themselves as adventurous sexually and to say they love lovemaking a excellent deal.

Total Number of Hookup Fucking partners

In another difference inbetween the sexes, forty two percent of studs report having had had hookup on a very first date; that drops to seventeen percent of women. Again the data are coherent; women who report having had first-date hookup also are much more likely to call themselves sexually adventurous, and they report many more hook-up playmates across their lives — an average of Nineteen, compared with an average of four for other women.

A third of adults would like to have more hook-up than they do now — but more studs, about four in Ten, than women, twenty eight percent. Fellows, as noted, are more apt to have cheated, much more apt to fantasize about it, and more than twice as likely as women to say it’s acceptable to have casual lovemaking without an emotional relationship — "just doing it for the lovemaking." (That’s OK with thirty five percent of guys, compared with fifteen percent of women.)

Women also are about half as likely as fellows to say they’ve had hookup in a threesome, unexpectedly with someone fresh, or at work; and they’re less likely to fantasize about these. A third of studs have fantasized about a threesome and twenty percent have fantasized about an unexpected encounter; it’s nine and ten percent of women, respectively.

Women are more conservative about lovemaking in other ways. They’re more apt than boys to say there’s too much lovemaking on TV, eighty four percent to sixty two percent. They’re less likely than fellows to condone hook-up before marriage, fifty four to sixty eight percent. And sixty one percent of sexually active women, compared with fifty percent of studs, call themselves sexually traditional, not adventurous.

In other individual predilections, fellows are twice as likely as women to sleep in the nude (31 percent of studs, fourteen percent of women), and women are much more likely to choose to have lovemaking with the lights off (51 percent of women, twenty seven percent of dudes).

In the online area, studs are more than three times as likely as women to have looked at a sexually explicit Web site, and doing so spikes among dudes under 30. Relatively few — but eleven percent of youthfull dudes — have participated in hook-up talk rooms. Women are much more likely to regard either of these activities as "being unfaithful."

Hook-up and the Web

Adventurousness can be a firestarter. People who call themselves adventurous sexually are ten points more apt to be very pleased with their hookup lives, twenty points more apt to love hookup a excellent deal and almost thirty points more apt to call their lovemaking lives very arousing. They’re also much more likely to have hookup at least several times a week — sixty two percent of the adventurous do so, compared with thirty six percent of sexual traditionalists.

Similarly, couples who sometimes "wear something sexy" are more likely, by twelve to sixteen points, to love hook-up a good deal, to be very pleased with it and to call it very arousing. Talking about fantasies and watching explicit movies are related to more excitement in sexual relationships, but less so to satisfaction or enjoyment.

Satisfaction, in particular, matters: People who are pleased with their hook-up lives are considerably more likely in turn to be pleased with their overall relationship.

Specifically, among those who are very pleased with the hook-up, ninety percent are also very pleased with their marriage or committed relationship overall. Among those who are just somewhat sated with their hookup lives, fewer, seventy one percent, are very pleased with their relationship. And among those who aren’t pleased with the hookup, fewer still — fifty three percent — are very sated with their marriage or partnership.

Moreover, people who aren’t pleased with their sexual relationship are by far the most likely to cheat on their spouse or playmate. Thirty-six percent have done so.

Cheaters

All told, sixteen percent of adults say they’ve strayed from a committed relationship, including fourteen percent who’ve had hookup outside of that relationship, and two percent who’ve had sexual activity but not intercourse. Twenty-one percent of guys say they’ve cheated, as have eleven percent of women.

As noted, people who are not pleased with their hookup lives are most likely to have strayed, as are single boys over thirty (that includes divorced, separated and widowed studs, as well as never-marrieds). People fifty and older in general are more likely than junior adults to have cheated.

Cheaters by Age

There’s a division in motivation among cheaters: Forty-five percent (mostly boys) say it was mainly to fulfill a physical desire, while thirty three percent (more apt to be women) say it was mainly to fulfill an emotional need.

Almost seven in ten cheaters say they stepped out with a friend; thirty nine percent with someone they just met, thirty seven percent with a co-worker and fifteen percent with a neighbor (numerous answers were accepted). Boys and women have cheated with a friend about identically; studs are more apt to have cheated with a co-worker or someone they’d just met.

Cheaters are busy: They’ve had an average of twenty nine hookup fucking partners in their lifetimes (and a median of 12). They’re more uninhibited and more permissive — more likely to have observed sexually explicit movies, to have paid for lovemaking, and to have had vengeance or rebound hookup; and more apt to approve of premarital hookup and to say it’s OK to have hook-up without an emotional relationship (45 percent of cheaters say so, compared with nineteen percent of others).

Cheating: Who’s Done It

In terms of their sexual adventurousness, more than two-thirds of cheaters have had hookup outdoors, three in ten have had hook-up at work (more than dual the overall rate), three in ten report having had lovemaking in a threesome (twice the rate for all adults) and another quarter have fantasized about it. Also, half of cheaters say they’ve had "an unexpected sexual encounter with someone fresh," dual the rate among all adults — suggesting that some cheating may be spontaneous rather than planned.

Fantasy Time

As the results suggest, fantasy plays a role in many Americans’ hookup lives. Among sexually active adults, fifty one percent (studs and women alike) say they talk with their fucking partner about their fantasies in order to enhance their hookup lives. And as noted, boys are more likely to fantasize about threesomes, an unexpected sexual encounter with someone fresh, or cheating on their spouses.

Looking at pornographic Web sites likewise attracts more dudes. Fewer fellows or women fantasize about hook-up outdoors (likely because so many have done it), or hook-up at work.

The role of fantasy in a blessed hookup life is not clear-cut. Discussing fantasies does lend itself to excitement: Forty-four percent of couples who talk about their fantasies call their hook-up lives very arousing, compared with twenty eight percent of those who don’t. People who discuss their fantasies with their fucking partner are also ten points more apt to love hook-up a superb deal. But they’re just six points more apt to be very pleased with their hook-up life, and no more likely to be pleased with their marriage or committed relationship.

Interplay

A regression analysis (measuring the effect of one factor by controlling for the influence of others) finds that factors related to Americans’ satisfaction with their lovemaking lives include how titillating they rate their hookup lives, their frequency of lovemaking (especially for married dudes), how regularly they practice orgasms, whether they’re married or in a committed relationship and, only for people in a relationship, their lifetime number of lovemaking fucking partners (more playmates is related to less satisfaction).

Positive contributors to an "titillating" lovemaking life include wearing something sexy, discussing fantasies, age (excitement diminishes with age), being married or in a committed relationship, and frequency of orgasms.

On the negative side, sexual excitement declines with the duration of a marriage or committed relationship — losing the spark. Nonetheless, people who are married or in a committed relationship still are more likely to be pleased with their hook-up lives than those who are not in such a relationship, controlling for other factors such as age and frequency of hook-up.

Items missing from the list of contributors to a satisfying (rather than arousing) hookup life also are notable; age, for example, is not a significant predictor. (That’s limited of course to people who are active sexually, which excludes most senior citizens.)

Another regression analysis finds that Americans’ satisfaction with their hookup lives is a significant predictor of their satisfaction with their marriages or committed relationships. Satisfaction with family lives, and to a lesser degree with finances and social lives, also predict satisfaction with marriage, while satisfaction with health and work do not.

While directionality is hard to establish, it seems more plausible that satisfaction with lovemaking fuels satisfaction with marriage than the switch roles. That’s because more people are very pleased with their marriages than are very pleased with their lovemaking lives. If satisfaction with marriage drove satisfaction with lovemaking, this gap would not exist.

A third regression finds that satisfaction with marriage is a predictor of satisfaction with life overall, along with satisfaction with finances (the strongest predictor) and with health, family life and social life and work. Satisfaction with lovemaking does not directly predict satisfaction with life overall, but it does so indirectly through its positive influence on satisfaction with marriage.

Churchgoers

Religiosity guides sexual attitudes and behavior, with stark contrasts particularly inbetween weekly churchgoers (a third of adults) and those who attend church infrequently or not at all (the "unchurched," about half).

Attitudinally, most weekly churchgoers say premarital hook-up and homosexuality are not acceptable; most infrequent attenders hold the opposite view. Ten percent of weekly churchgoers say hookup without an emotional attachment is acceptable; it’s thirty six percent among the unchurched.

Behaviorally, weekly churchgoers are less likely than the unchurched to observe sexually explicit movies, to have had lovemaking on a very first date, to have looked at a pornographic Web site, had rebound hook-up, had a threesome or had lovemaking outdoors. They’re less likely to say they’ve cheated on a spouse. And weekly churchgoers have had half as many lifetime hook-up playmates (an average of eight, median three) as have the unchurched (average of 16, median seven).

At the same time, more than four in ten weekly churchgoers discuss their sexual fantasies with their fucking partners to enhance their hookup lives, think about hook-up daily, and have had hook-up outdoors; and just over a third describe themselves as sexually adventurous. Weekly churchgoers are as sated as the unchurched with their lovemaking lives, and ten points more likely to be very sated with their marriage or relationship.

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