MORE ANALYSIS THAN YOU EVER WANTED ON THIS TOPIC. In regards to the morning's big Clinton story, it really is all a matter of emphasis. As Matt notes, the actual article spends most of its time hinting that the Clinton's don't have much sex (I'll get back to this in a moment). The piece admits that, since the start of 2005, the Clintons have seen each other, on average, 14 days out of every month. Also since the start of 2005, Bill Clinton has quarterbacked a multibillion-dollar foundation and ran the government's response to the tsunami while Hillary has kicked her traveling into high gear to prepare for her presidential bid. And yet they still manage to see each other almost one out of every two days. That could be easily spun as a story of dedication and determination -- "Despite Heavy Schedules, Clintons Make Time For Marriage." But let's talk about the sex. The average adult has sex about once a week, or 58 times a year, a number that's held steady since about 1988. The average, though, isn't adjusted for age. As you'd expect, 20 and 30 year olds have the most sex, with frequency dropping about 20 percent per decade through age 64 (when it begins plummeting). So Americans 18 to 39 have sex about 84 times a year, while those in their 40s get busy around 63 times annually. Extrapolating out, when you hit 50, your frequency will intersect your age, and you'll be making the beast with two backs (to use a Shakespeare-ism) about 50.4 times a year. Come 60, you're down to 40.32 encounters a year. Now, Bill and Hillary are both 59. If they have average appetites (questionable, I know), we're looking at about 42 private moments a year. If they're together around 14 days a month, that's 168 opportunities, meaning they only have to sleep together one out of every four times they see each other to be perfectly normal. So even the article's insinuation is wrong -- there's no reason they can't be enjoying a perfectly healthy romantic life together. And if, as the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder, they can easily be beating the average. TAPPED: taking on the big issues.
--Ezra Klein
