The French Aren’t So Randy After All

The French have long had a reputation for being romantic, passionate and generally enthusiastic about sex—hell, they even managed to officially insert themselves in front of the word “kiss,” which is pretty monumental when you think about it: No boy has ever bragged to his seventh grade buddies about how he finally got to first base with smoking hot Suzy Smith from first period and “American-kissed” her for three full minutes in the school parking lot when no one was around.

The assumption has always been that France is a nation populated by thin, fashionable, horny men and women with raging libidos, all of whom are having loud, unbridled sex from dusk till dawn. But it looks like the worldwide association of the French with all things love and sex has been an erroneous one, because the BBC recently reported that the Institute for Public Opinion conducted a poll and found that three-quarters of French people actually have really crappy sex lives. According to the survey results, one in three French women admitted to using excuses such as headaches, feeling tired and being in close proximity to children to get out of having sex; and one in six French men said the same.

But aren’t those the excuses that most people make when they don’t want to have sex? We were expecting lack of deodorant, too much body hair and snooty attitudes to be the culprits, but given that they’re not, we’re thinking this is not so much a French phenomenon as it is a parents-of-young-children phenomenon. If you want to avoid headaches, lack of energy and kids in the next room, we recommend that you don’t have children. However, if you insist on procreating, might we suggest leaving the tots with grandma and grandpa every now and then? We’re guessing that might be the best solution to the lack-of-sex problem induced by high-maintenance little ones—whether you live in Paris, France or Topeka, Kansas.