New research blows up that age old theory that men fall asleep before women after having sex, in results published in in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.
The study looked at 128 female and 98 male college students in which it was the females who reported a higher likelihood of falling asleep after heterosexual penile–vaginal sexual intercourse compared to the men, according to a report by PsyPost in a piece published Monday. (RELATED: Giant Parrots Used To Roam Ancient New Zealand, According To Newly-Discovered Fossils)
New research indicates that women are more likely to fall asleep after sex than men https://t.co/yQRmuZgeZM
— PsyPost.org (@PsyPost) April 14, 2020
And it was women who were also more likely to report falling asleep before their partner when compared to males. (RELATED: Police Take Parrot Into Custody After It Tries To Help Drug Dealers Escape)
And the reason being for the greater sedative properties in women compared to men could go directly to the differences in the sexes.
“Our paper summarizes growing evidence that the common designation for having sex, ‘getting laid,’ maps on to an evolved adaptive mechanism that functions to promote sperm retention in humans, which as a species are unique in having evolved an upright posture and bipedalism,” study author Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., a professor at State University of New York at Albany, told PsyPost.
“This brings the woman’s reproductive tract into a perpendicular orientation with respect to gravity where it may not be suitable for the retention of sperm,” he added.
The NY professor continued, while explaining that “having sex while laying down with the man on top brings the female reproductive tract back into a more primate parallel orientation with gravity, and women that remain in a spline position after sex would therefore have a greater chance of getting pregnant. Consistent with this analysis, we found that women were unwittingly more likely to fall asleep after sex than men.”
However, Gallup noted that prior to other studies, this one dealt specifically with penile–vaginal intercourse that occurred at night.
“Because of the demands of work, school, and a variety of other activities during the day, it is less likely that people will succumb to the temptation to fall asleep after daytime sex, and by failing to distinguish between the effects of sex during the day and the effects at night, other studies may have unwittingly masked the existence of otherwise subtle but important sex differences,” Gallup’s study explained.
He went on to explain this could be why the findings were different then ones which found when it comes to sex in general there was either “no differences in perceived sleep quality or latency between men and women” or one that noted “men and women fell asleep at roughly the same time after sex, but women were more likely to fall asleep first when sex hadn’t taken place.”