7 seconds

But there's no real research to back up this oft-cited stat. And while people often attribute the myth to research by the Kinsey Institute, the actual research shows that while men think about sex a lot (and yes, more often than women), every seven seconds is a gross exaggeration. When Kinsey researchers asked men and women how often they think about sex, 54 percent of men said they think about sex several times a day, 43 percent responded a few times per week or just a few times per month, and 4 percent said less than once a month. Meanwhile, 19 percent of women said they thought about sex every day or several times a day, 67 percent responded a few times per week or a few times a month or, and 14 percent said less than once a month.

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The results: The average man tallied 19 sexy thoughts per day—that comes out to about once every 1.26 hours. To compare that with other thoughts on the average mind, men counted thinking about food 18 times and sleeping 11 times per day. Sex wasn't even the top craving for women, who reported thinking about sex 10 times, food 15 times, and sleep 8.5 times a day.

To put that theory to the test, researchers enlisted 163 female and 120 male college students. All were given handheld tally counters, and 59 students were asked to track thoughts and cravings about food, 61 tracked sleep thoughts, and 163 tracked sexual thoughts of any kind.

The study showed men thought about sex 19 times per day on average, compared to women who reported having nearly 10 sexual thoughts per day. Men thought about food 18 times a day and sleeping 11 times a day. Women thought about food 15 times a day, and sleep 8.5 times a day.

"It's amazing the way people will spout off these fake statistics that men think about sex nearly constantly and so much more often than women do," study author Dr. Terri Fisher, professor of psychology at Ohio State University's Mansfield campus, said in a written statement.