Sexuality has undergone major changes in 10 years in France. This is what reveals a vast Inserm survey published on November 13, 2024. The study reveals more varied practices, less predominantly heterosexual, less frequent relationships and a level of violence which remains worrying.
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A directory of sexual practices more diverse, more numerous partners and a longer sex life, this is the observation drawn up by the vast survey carried out in 2023 by Inserm and the ANRS Infectious Diseases among some 31,000 people in Francepublished on November 13, 2024.
Among the notable developments, we note that the median age of first sexual intercourse has increased slightly, after a regular decline since the 1960s, to stand at 18.2 years for women and 17.7 years for men. At the same time, young people nevertheless have more sexual partners than before. According to the survey, women aged 18 to 69 report having had 7.9 partners on average in their life, men 16.4.
A gender gap persists
The gap between the sexes remains significant, with women only counting “men who counted”, men “also one-night stands”, said Nathalie Bajos, sociologist and research director at Inserm. Maxime, 23 years old, has around sixty different partners, “ including around fifteen over the last year », all, or almost all, known on dating applications.
HAS the digital ageyoung people are in fact more likely to engage in sexual activity online. 39.4% of women and 43.5% of men under 30 have already met a sexual partner online, while 36.6% of women and 39.6% of men in the same age group have already sent an intimate image, the investigation reveals.
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Practices that are not exclusively heterosexual
The survey notes another major change: an increasingly marked questioning of the heterosexual norm, particularly among young people and women, who are becoming more involved in a sexuality that is not exclusively heterosexual.
So in 2023, and for the first time, women aged 18 to 29 reported having had more homosexual relations than men. 14.8% of young women have had at least one partner of the same sex compared to 9.3% of young men. In this same age group, 32.3% of women report attraction to people of the same sex, compared to 13.8% of men. More than one young woman in three (37.6%) and one young man in six (18.3%) say they are not strictly heterosexual.
“ In a social context marked by an increasing diffusion of feminist ideas, these young women seem to be moving more and more towards other sexual trajectories in which violence and inequalities are less prevalent. », Advances the investigation.
This reveals a decline in the frequency of sexual intercourse, for both sexes and in all age groups. The fact remains that a large majority of the population has had sexual activity during the year. Including at the most advanced ages. According to the survey, 56.6% of women and 73.8% of men remain sexually active between the ages of 50 and 89, and satisfaction ” declines with age and more rapidly in men than in women “.
Blackboard for sexual violence
The investigation, however, establishes “ a picture of the scale of violence which remains worrying “. Thus, 29.8% in 2023 of women aged 18-69 declared having experienced forced intercourse or an attempted forced intercourse, compared to 15.9% in 2006. Among men, the figures increased from 4.6% in 2006 to 8.7% in 2023.
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“ These figures reflect both an increase in frequency linked to the lowering of a threshold of tolerance for intra-marital sexual violence, but not only that, and a greater capacity to qualify these facts and declare them in surveys. », Underlined Nathalie Bajos, sociologist and research director at Inserm.
The question of the redefinition of rape in the Penal Code so that the absence of consent is taken into account, as it is in Sweden, Greece, Denmark and even Spain, which passed a law nicknamed ” Only a yes is a yes », resurfaced in the country on the occasion of the rape trial of Mazan. Since September 2, “Mr. Everyman” have been on trial there, around fifty socially well-integrated attackers, aged 26 to 74, who for 10 years raped a woman drugged by anxiolytics administered by her husband. , Dominique Pelicot, who carried out and filmed the attacks.
The last point of this study nevertheless remains positive. 45% of women and 39% of men say they are very satisfied with their current sex life.
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