This is how many people have had sex in a parked car

September 26, 2017 9:22 PM

As you can probably guess, people are more likely to do it in a car with someone they’re in a relationship with versus a random hookup.

It’s always fascinating to know how and when people get it on—so that you can figure out if you’re missing out on something good.

A team of scientists from the University of South Dakota decided to turn our fascination into an actual study with a very specific focus: They researched people who get it on in parked cars (seriously). The findings were published in The Journal of Sex Research.

For the study, scientists conducted an anonymous survey of college students—195 men and 511 women. About 60 percent of them said they’ve had sex in a parked car at some point—and of those, 14 percent say they lost their virginity that way.

As you can probably guess, people are more likely to do it in a car with someone they’re in a relationship with versus a random hookup. But the majority of people—about 60 percent—said they recently did it in the car with someone they were serious with but didn’t actually live with. (Presumably since you could just do it at home when you live together.)

Researchers also asked really specific questions about where people actually got it on in the car. The majority (63 percent) said they did it in the backseat of a standard car (56 percent) that was parked in the country (56 percent).

Most people had P-in-V action and genital touching (85 percent and 56 percent of people, respectively), but just 58 percent used condoms. Less than 1 percent of those who got it on in a car said they contracted an STI or got pregnant from the experience.

We’re just going to let the researchers take it from here. “These data, including personal stories of memorable incidents, revealed that despite discomfort, body bumps, and risk of being caught, sex while parked was primarily a positive sexual and romantic experience for both men and women,” they said in the study. “The future study of sex in parked cars in urban environments is recommended.”

So, if you get busted for having sex in a car parked on a busy street sometime in the future, just say you were doing it in the name of science.