Undersexed Swedes turn to online gambling

Despite the international reputation for being oversexed, and having a population of blonde women with physicality worthy of worship in beer commercials, Swedes turn out to be the least sexually active people in the Nordic countries.

• Swedish man charged for blackmailing sex buyer (18 Nov 09)
• Young trio sold sex with mentally disabled girl (16 Nov 09)
• Wallström in running for top UN job (14 Nov 09)

In a survey carried out by contraceptive-maker Durex and reported in the tabloids, Swedes say they have sex an average of 103 times a year. It’s warmer in Icelandic beds: they report having sex 119 times a year.

350,000 people in 41 countries answered the survey and now Durex knows not to waste much money on advertising in Japan, where they apparently have sex just 46 times a year. The most active lovers in the world are, unsurprisingly, the French. They have sex an average of 137 times per year.

"I think they're lying," said Freddy Nordsten, 23, to Expressen. "They don't have more sex than Swedes."

Rickard Allstrin, 27, was more inclined to believe the results but couldn't say why Swedes were so inactive compared to the French.

"To be honest, I'm more like a Frenchman than a Swede where this sort of thing is concerned," he boasted.

Expressen was most shocked by the news that when having sex with a new partner, 64 percent don’t use protection or inquire into their partner's sexual history.

"This is the Swedish double standards," said sex advisor Katerina Janouch. "People worry about HIV but don't think they can get it themselves."

But the good news (for women) is that 79 percent of Swedish men say they are willing to take contraceptive pills. That number is better only in Brazil, where 81 percent would be willing to take a birth control pill.

Aftonbladet delicately pointed out to readers that the survey defines "having sex" as including masturbation and noted that Swedish women said they have sex more often than men: 106 times per year versus just 101 times.

The paper’s Tuesday edition suggests a possible explanation: the battle of the sexes. Of 57,000 men voting on Aftonbladet's web survey, 56.5 percent agreed that it's hard to be a man.

Stockholm university’s Lars Jalmert told the paper that the role of family supporter was not easier in the old days, but it was clearer.

On the other hand, 58 percent of women disagreed that men have a more difficult role in society.

Continuing the theme of the troubled national psyche - and prompted by the news that Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek suffers from social phobia and will not attend the Nobel dinner - Expressen reported that the illness affects over a million people in Sweden.

Psychotherapist Kerstin Hellström told Expressen that the phobia can either be simple worries about being noticed by other people, or it can be so disabling that people refuse to leave their homes.

While sex is apparently not an option for the housebound Swede, there is an increasingly popular alternative: online poker. According to Svenska Dagbladet, thousands of Swedes are gambling through the night on the internet.

Michael Holmberg, with internet gambling company Expect, told SvD: "Profits (on internet poker) are expected to increase by about 27 percent a month."

Expect is a Swedish-owned company based on Malta. Its competitors, Betsson, Unibet and Ladbrokes see a similar pattern. Up to six thousand players are simultaneously online every night.

Some of the best players in the world are Scandinavians, including Martin de Knijff, who recently won the World Poker Tour in Las Vegas, worth 21 million Swedish crowns.

Sources: Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Aftonbladet

Dodi Axelson