Lady Gaga may look like a walking advertisement for S-E-X on a leather-studded platter, but in her private life, she’s more of a prude-ish abstinence advocate.In a recent interview on “The Howard Stern Show,” Gaga succeeded in surprising the shock jock himself by preaching the pleasure delay principle: “I’ve got a lot of young fans … Honestly, you should wait as long as you can to have sex. As a woman you don’t even begin to enjoy it until your mid-20s.”Let’s face it: While the 25-year-old pop star is clearly no medical expert, she could be on to something.Everyone has read bits and pieces of the (hotly-debated) data regarding men sexually peaking in their teens and twenties and women hitting their in-the-sack stride later in life. But a newer study claims psychology comes into play, too. According to a paper, authored by University of Texas psychologist David Buss and published in Personality and Individual Differences, ladies of a certain age (27-45, to be specific), not only have more frequent and intense sexual fantasies, they’re doing the deed more often as well.QUIZ: What’s Your Relationship Style? Thanks to reality TV and tabloid culture, we may be preoccupied with the sex lives of teens, but the reality is, middle-aged women enjoy higher quality hook-ups and more of them.The study even found middle-aged women are more likely to indulge in casual sex and one-night stands, just like the patron saint of cougars everywhere, Samantha Jones.But in the case of enjoying sex more (or less) as a young adult, some psychologists argue that it’s simply a matter of older women feeling more comfortable in their own skin and therefore being more open to enjoying physical intimacy. For most of us, this improves with age, but theoretically, even a younger woman with a higher maturity level might enjoy sex more than an insecure peer.For example, another study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, on sexual pleasure in both males and females between the ages of 18-26 found a link between higher self-esteem and boosted satisfaction between the sheets in young women.After all, what Lady Gaga and countless sexual experts seem to be saying is that a greater level of self-awareness, confidence and autonomy simply makes sex more enjoyable.And you’d have to be pretty confident to pull off a meat dress, right?MORE: Eight Ways Sex Makes You Beautiful
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