It's a question that arouses the curiosity of people of all genders -- guys may wonder whether they fall in line with what they think is 'normal,' and everyone else may wonder if guys are really as horny as they are made out to be.
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Of course, what constitutes "thinking about sex," exactly? Does a half-second fleeting mental glimmer of horniness on public transit count the same as someone who's worrying about sexually transmitted infections for 10 minutes in a doctor's waiting room? What about someone who engages in half an hour's worth of masturbation fantasies before falling asleep?
As it turns out, however, scientists have attempted to study this issue. So, in order to better understand how often guys think about sex, and what that really means, AskMen spoke to a sex expert. Here's what we learned:
Let's get one thing out of the way right away: that 'statistic' you've heard about the matter is likely not true.
"There's a commonly cited statistic that men think about sex every seven seconds," says Suzannah Weiss, resident sexologist for Fleshy.
This is not accurate -- in no small part, Weiss says, because if you do the math, that would "would amount to around 8,000 times a day."
"If you haven't guessed, this is not based on research. It just wouldn't be possible to get anything else done if that were actually happening."
Yes, it's true that lots of guys find themselves thinking about sex many times a day -- and it's an experience, obviously, that enough people find fascinating that people have attempted to study it.
"Data is mixed in terms of how often men think about sex, as well as whether they think about sex more than women," says Weiss. "One 2012 study found that on average, college men reported thinking about sex 18.6 times a day, vs. 9.9 times for women."
"But," she notes, "women who were worried about their social desirability reported fewer thoughts. These numbers are influenced by what people are willing to admit, as well as whether they feel they have permission to be sexual beings in the first place."
Meaning, essentially, women, living in a sex-negative culture that expects them to be chaste, may be predisposed first to think of sex less often, and second to underreport when they do think about it.
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Furthermore, with numerous studies showing that young people today are having less sex than their predecessors, it's entirely plausible that men today think about sex less than they used to.
Regardless of the data, a lot of things go into how often someone thinks about sex, Weiss notes.
"Factors influencing how often a guy thinks about sex include the values and ideas around sex that he was raised with, whether he is dealing with stress in other areas of his life, how his love and sex life are going, how busy he is, and how often his partner is desiring sexual engagement from him," she explains. "There is also a biological component: Factors like age, hormone levels, and genetics will affect someone's sex drive."
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This confluence of factors means that a depressed and anxious teenager might think about sex less often than a confident and liberated guy in his 50s; even if they're (at these stages in their lives) biologically predisposed to the inverse placement.
It's understandable that guys -- in the process of thinking about sex -- may wonder how often it's 'normal' for them to do so. But why would, for instance, a woman care how often men think about sex?
Weiss thinks the prevalence of myths that overstate how often men think about sex may stem from cultural ideas about men as unable to control their desires and dangerous to women.
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"There's a stereotype that men are always trying to 'get in your pants' and women have to 'watch out' for them," says Weiss. "This breeds distrust and sets up a predator-prey dynamic instead of fostering mutual connection. Spreading rumors about men constantly thinking about sex is a way to perpetuate this myth."
"It may also be a reaction to bad experiences with men; it's a way to dismiss them as creeps," she explains. "When women are trying to figure out how often men think about sex, what's behind that is often the question: 'Can I trust men?'"
In these cases, Weiss believes, what women really want to know is "whether men are capable of seeing them as human beings rather than objects."
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"The answer to this question obviously varies from man to man, but the stereotype that all men are constantly preying on women is false," she notes.
Ultimately, Weiss says, the idea that men think about sex way more often than women may just be an attempt to focus on our differences rather than our similarities.
"Men and women have similar sex drives, and these statistics often serve as a way to depict us as alien to each other," Weiss says. "This is dangerous, as it sets up a dynamic where men have to 'get sex' from women."
"Rather than try to persuade anyone to have sex with us, we should understand they have sexual desires too, and consider their desires as well as our own," she adds.