Who's getting most sex? 4,000 surveyed tell all

Sichuan, Chongqing lead pack; those 19-28 more active than predecessors

Nearly half of Chinese people born in the 1990s have no sex life, according to a survey by internet company NetEase, which was released before Qixi－China's Valentine's Day－which falls on Friday this year.

The survey was conducted from November to April, with 4,000 respondents selected from the company's hundreds of millions of users across its services, including email, e-commerce and online games. Nearly one-third of the interviewees were single; half were married or had a regular romantic partner; and the rest didn't specify any relationship status.

People between 31 and 35 were found to be most active in sex, with upward of 40 percent saying they had sex at least twice a week.

Geographically speaking, people in smaller cities had more sex than their major metro-dwelling counterparts, except for Shenzhen, which boasts China's third-largest GDP.

It was found that 60 percent of the interviewees from the southern Chinese city－which is home to Fortune Global 500 companies such as Tencent and Huawei and has a per capita GDP as high as Spain－enjoy sex at least once a week, 15 percent more than Shanghai and Beijing.

By profession, corporate executives are most engaged in sex, with 53 percent reporting sexual activity at least twice a week, followed by service industry employees and government officials.

"In general, we have found that the less busy and the better-off the respondents are, the more likely they are going to spend time on sex. But the '90s generation stands out as a surprise for being unexpectedly frigid," said a NetEase employee and a member of the survey team. He provided only his surname, Chen.

This was the first time the New York-listed company, founded in 1997, had undertaken a nationwide survey on the sex lives of Chinese. The survey was kicked off a month after the company introduced an exclusive line of sex toys and condoms, branded as Try Fun, on its e-commerce platform.

Pan Suiming, a professor at the Institute of Sexuality and Gender at Renmin University of China, argued that China's '90s generation－people 19 to 28－is actually more sexually active than their predecessors.

Dubbed the father of sex sociology in China, Pan conducted four nationwide surveys on the Chinese sex lives from 2000 to 2015. His surveys have covered 23,147 people from 25 provinces and municipalities across the country, ranging from age 18 to 61.

Pan said that in 2006, up to 60 percent of Chinese 18 to 25 had never had sex. By 2015, the percentage had dropped to less than 40 percent.

However, he said, even though Chinese young people today have an earlier and easier exposure to sexuality, the chances for them to share a life with another person are slimmer.

"For older generations, men and women are more like two rabbits. The more difficult life is, the closer they get and cuddle with each other," Pan said. "Today's young people are more like hedgehogs."