Discussion Groups / English Usage / October 2009

You could perhaps paraphrase it as 'there was much less than they made
out'.

The first.

"Not nearly as much" means "much less than".

"Nearly as much" means "almost as much". Negating the phrase flips the
meaning to the opposite extreme.

As a vague "hand-waving" illustration one might say that if "nearly as
much" means less than 100% but greater than 75% then "not nearly as
much" might indicate less than 25% and certainly less than 50%.

I'd paraphrase that as:

 ...there was much less sex going on than people made out.

As others have said, this is what it means.  But you have "by far"
misplaced -- you want "wasn't as much, by far, ..." or "wasn't as
much ...[,] by far".