* Kinsey data collected between1938-1963 found that 9% of non-married males and 28% of non-married females had engaged in anal sex at least once. Among married subjects the numbers were much lower, around 11% for both men and women.

* In 1974 Playboy magazine published a huge survey of over 2000 people. Depending on the age of the respondent, between 14-25% of people said they had tried anal sex at least once.

* A more recent study conducted in 1990 at the Kinsey Institute found that 27% of male and 24% of female college students had anal sex at least once.

* One researcher offers a good point of comparison, as he surveyed his group of patients in the 1970s, and then a different group of his patients in the late 1980s. In the first survey 25% of women had anal sex (and 8% reported engaging in it regularly), and in the second, 72% had anal sex, and 23% reported engaging in it regularly.

* A 1991 survey of 3200 men (in a nationally representative sample) found overall 20% of men aged 20-39 had engaged in anal sex at least once. 50% of the men who had tried it, had only tried it once. Interestingly, in this more contemporary study, older men reported having had anal sex than younger men (27% of men 35-39 versus 13% of men 20-24 years old).

* The most recent U.S. data from a national representative sample comes from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), conducted with over 12,000 men and women aged 15-44. 34% of men and 30% of women reported engaging in anal sex at least once.

* In a 1996 survey of Swedish women aged 18-74 which was from a national representative sample, overall 20% of women reported having engaged in anal sex, with the numbers ranging from 28% for 25-34 year olds to 2% for 66-74 year olds.

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