KEY FIGURES
A) BOREDOM AND THE ORGASM GAP: A GENDER DIVIDE THAT HAS WIDENED OVER THE PAST THIRTY YEARS
1 – Female sexual boredom is on the rise: the proportion of French women who admit to feeling bored during sex reached 56% in 2026, compared to 36% thirty years ago (1996), and the number of women who regularly feel bored in bed (29%) is twice that of men (16%).
2 – Orgasm remains a male privilege: 67% of men reach orgasm “during every sexual encounter or almost every one,” compared to only 40% of women, and anorgasmia is twice as common among women (19%) as among men (8%).
3 – The orgasm gap is particularly striking among young people: among those under 35, the percentage of women who orgasm every time they have sex (33%) is half that of men of the same age (75%).
B) FAKING ORGASMS, PERFORMANCE PRESSURE, AND PHALLOCENTRISM: SYMPTOMS OF A GROWING PROBLEM
4 – Faking orgasms is on the rise: 57% of French women aged 18–69 have faked an orgasm in 2026, nearly twice as many as thirty years ago (32% in 1998), and only 32% of men realize when a partner is faking it, compared to 59% of women who admit to having done so.
5 – Men overestimate the duration of their sexual encounters by nearly 4 minutes: on average, they estimate the duration of their last encounter at 18 minutes, compared to 14 minutes and 30 seconds according to their partners—a sign that their sexual performance is more a product of fantasy than reality.
6 – Doggy style and the missionary position still dominate the sexual repertoire of the French: the most commonly practiced position among French men and women, doggy style has a much higher orgasm success rate among men (91%) than among women (57%), while the missionary position stands out as the most effective for female orgasm (64%).
C) EXPLICIT SEX AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE AND SEX TOYS: THE TWO SIDES OF AN UNFINISHED SEXUAL REVOLUTION
7 – Violent sex is becoming the norm among young people: 61% of French women aged 20–29 report having been slapped, spanked, scratched, bitten, or had their hair pulled by a partner, and 37% of young women under 35 have been choked or gagged.
8 – Sex toys in relationships: a silent revolution promoting female pleasure? 43% of French women report having used sex toys with a partner, compared to just 6% in 1996—a practice positively correlated with a more intense and orgasmic sex life.
9 – Squirting, a generational phenomenon: 20% of French women report having engaged in this practice, a proportion that peaks at 29% among those aged 20–29 and at 43% among lesbian women (compared to 19% of heterosexual women).
