Sex really does make men fall asleep Dr Stoléru explained: "After men have an orgasm they usually experience a refractory period when they cannot be aroused. For women it seems to be different. They don't seem to have such a strong refractory period and may be asking for more when their partners just want a rest. A recent study also suggested that men think about sex 19 times a day - almost 8,000 times less than previously thought. They also think about food almost as much as sex - 18 times a day - closely followed by sleep, which crosses their mind 11 times a day. This confounds the long-held stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds while awake, amounting to 8,000 times over an average 16-hour day. However, US scientists discovered that, on average, men still think about sex twice as much as women, who entertain the thought just ten times a day. Women also thought less about food and sleep daily, thinking about them just 15 and 8.5 times respectively. They put the new numbers down to previous studies, which they say were headline-grabbing but poorly set-up. The researchers say that in those studies volunteers were often asked to make a guess at how often they thought about sex rather than actually recording it, with the results wrongly influencing men and women for years after. The team, from Ohio State University recruited 160 women and 120 men aged 18 to 25 to monitor their thoughts. In the group, 59 were randomly assigned to count how often they thought about food, 61 sleep and 163 sex.