In much of the Western world, sex is everywhere. Thanks to the Internet, descriptions of explicit sexuality, as well as people blogging, analyzing, bragging, and complaining about their sex lives, are more prevalent and more easily accessible than at any other time in human history. Some argue that sex has moved to the center of our identities in a way unknown to previous generations (e.g., Tiefer, 2001). How we define ourselves as individuals has increasingly included the type of sex we pursue and the way we pursue it.
Sex is not everything, of course, but it is a catalyst for many other things and, since so many other things must be right for it to function well, also a touchstone for the quality of the total relationship. When it is good, people look different. The emotional atmosphere one senses in a house where it is right is one of calm and peace, yet also of lightness, fun, and humor, and everything moves easily.”
—A. C. Robin Skynner, psychotherapist, One Flesh; Separate Persons (1976, p. 130)
Yet even in a cultural landscape saturated with sex, research on sexual behavior in 59 countries concluded that when most people actually have sex, they usually do it within the context of an intimate relationship (Wellings et al., 2006). In fact, many people believe that you cannot have a satisfying intimate relationship without a satisfying sex life. For example, when the Pew Research Center asked adults in the United States to rate the elements of a successful marriage, a happy sexual relationship and faithfulness (i.e., not having sex with anybody else) were rated as by far the most important, beating shared interests, adequate income, and sharing household chores (Figure 9.2). This pattern has proven remarkably stable over time, changing barely at all between 1990 and 2007 (Taylor, Funk, & Clark, 2007). It’s not just young people who feel this way, either. Most couples married over 20 years, as well as a whopping 92% of sexually active older adults between the ages of 65 and 80, also believe that sex is a very important part of a successful relationship (Hinchliff & Gott, 2016; National Poll on Healthy Aging, 2018).
FIGURE 9.2What makes a marriage work? When Americans rate the importance of different elements of a successful marriage, the type of sex that couples are having and who they are having it with are ranked as far more important than things like shared interests or agreement on politics, and this pattern has been remarkably stable over time. (Source: Adapted from Taylor et al., 2007.)
Sexual Satisfaction and Relationship Satisfaction
Adults of all ages believe that a couple’s relationship satisfaction depends a lot on the quality of their sex life. Are they right? Answering this question required relationship scientists to develop ways of measuring sexual satisfaction. Where relationship satisfaction is each partner’s overall evaluation of the relationship as a whole, sexual satisfaction is each partner’s evaluation of the sexual aspect of the relationship in particular. Measures of sexual satisfaction can be as simple as a single question (“How happy are you with your sex life right now?”), but most researchers use longer self-report scales, like the one in Table 9.1. Notice that the items look a lot like the marital satisfaction items in Chapter 3. In fact, if we replaced the word “sex” with “relationship,” we’d have a relationship satisfaction measure. Because the two ideas are measured the same way (self-reports) and look so similar, we would expect both sets of responses to overlap, so that people who report higher levels of sexual satisfaction should report higher levels of satisfaction with the relationship as a whole, and people who report lower sexual satisfaction should report lower levels of satisfaction with the relationship as a whole.
Table 9.1 Items from a Quality of Sex Inventory
Not at All True
A Little True
Partly True
Mostly True
Very True
Completely True
My sex life is fulfilling.
O
O
O
O
O
O
I am happy with my sex life with my partner.
O
O
O
O
O
O
My partner really pleases me sexually.
O
O
O
O
O
O
I am satisfied with our sexual relationship.
O
O
O
O
O
O
I am happy with the quality of sexual activity in our relationship.
O
O
O
O
O
O
Sexual activity with my partner is fantastic.
O
O
O
O
O
O
Source: Adapted from Shaw & Rogge, 2016.
That is exactly what researchers have observed. In study after study, partners who are the most satisfied with their sex lives are also the ones who are most satisfied with their relationships (Muise, Kim, McNulty, & Impett, 2016). This is true in dating couples (Sprecher, 2002) and married couples (Butzer & Campbell, 2008), same-sex and different-sex relationships (Holmberg, Blair, & Phillips, 2010), young relationships and older ones (Laumann et al., 2006), in the United States as well as countries all over the world (Heiman et al., 2011).
The association is not equally strong for everyone, however. For example, personal beliefs play a role. Among people who think sex is a really important part of a good relationship, sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction are more strongly linked than for people who think sex is less important (Fletcher & Kininmonth, 1992). People who believe specific sexual acts are important (e.g., oral sex) are more influenced by whether or not their partner performs that act, compared to people who value that specific practice less (Hicks, McNulty, Meltzer, & Olson, 2018).
Attachment style matters, too. Daily diary studies show that, compared to partners with a secure attachment style, relationship satisfaction for those with an anxious attachment style is more affected, and relationship satisfaction in avoidant partners is less affected, by the quality of their sexual interactions on a given day (Birnbaum, Reis, Mikulincer, Gillath, & Orpaz, 2006; cf. Butzer & Campbell, 2008). Gender is another factor. The association between sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction is stronger for men than for women, though consistently significant for both (Impett, Muise, & Peragine, 2014).
So far, so good. The more interesting question is: Which comes first? Does a good sex life sustain and support a healthy relationship, or does a good relationship facilitate and encourage a satisfying sex life? Answering this question requires longitudinal research that measures how the two types of satisfaction change over time. Studies involving newlywed participants find that relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction affect each other in both directions (McNulty, Wenner, & Fisher, 2016). Spouses who start off in better relationships experience fewer declines in their sexual satisfaction over the early years of their marriage. It makes sense that, early on, when partners are still figuring each other out sexually, the quality of their relationship affects that process of discovery, with closer couples learning how to please each other more effectively than couples who are less close. At the same time, couples who start off more satisfied with their sex lives experience fewer declines in their relationship satisfaction over the same period. This makes sense too: Couples who are able to connect sexually early on develop a deeper bond, on average, than couples who have trouble in that area. Notably, this pattern was equally true for both husbands and wives.
The story changes for more established relationships. Studies that have examined couples married 10 years and 30 years on average continue to find a reliable association between initial levels of sexual satisfaction and changes in relationship satisfaction (Fallis, Rehman, Woody, & Purdon, 2016; Yeh, Lorenz, Wickrama, Conger, & Elder, 2006). No matter what stage, something about a couple’s sex life continues to predict the course of committed partnerships, for men and for women. The path from relationship satisfaction to changes in sexual satisfaction, however, disappears. Perhaps, by the time a couple has been together for a decade or more, their behavior in the bedroom is more or less predictable. Even though the quality of a couple’s sexual behavior still has the power to affect the rest of the relationship, for many older couples the relationship loses its power to change a couple’s sexual behavior.
Relationships Without Sex
Documenting how deeply our experiences of sex and our feelings about our partner are entwined raises a provocative question: Can a relationship be satisfying without sex? Clearly, the example of asexual individuals (see Chapter 5) proves that it is possible to have a satisfying romantic relationship without sex or sexual attraction (Apt, Hurlbert, Pierce, & White, 1996). But for most people, some sort of sexual interaction is a necessary part of what makes intimacy fulfilling. In contrast, people who experience involuntary celibacy, or going without sex for an extended period of time despite the presence of sexual desire, are rarely satisfied with their relationships, even though they may stay for other reasons (shared children, few alternatives, hope for change in the future; Donnelly & Burgess, 2008). Sex is not a shared behavior that is easily replaced by other shared behaviors, like folding laundry or taking walks. Because sex is so often something people share only with their partners, in most cases it helps define what it means to be intimate with another person (Figure 9.3).
FIGURE 9.3The meaning of sex. Sex is an important part of intimate relationships, but for a lot of couples, deciding how much of a role sex is going to play in the relationship can be confusing.
One consequence of people valuing good sex is that virginity is no longer as attractive as it once was (Gesselman, Webster, & Garcia, 2017). When finding a mate was primarily about starting a family, it made sense to seek sexual purity in a partner, especially female partners, to ensure that any children were the product of the current union. In a modern world that grants individuals the right to sexual satisfaction, purity now takes a back seat to experience, guided by the assumption that partners with some sexual experience are likely to be better lovers than partners with no experience. That said, too much sexual experience is not very attractive either (Stewart-Williams, Butler, & Thomas, 2017). Research on college students (average age 21) suggests that, like Goldilocks, young people want their prospective partners’ sexual history to be “just right”—experienced enough to know their own desires and preferences, but not so experienced as to signal a disreputable character (Figure 9.4).
FIGURE 9.4The right amount of experience. When researchers asked college students about how a potential partner’s previous sexual history affected their willingness to pursue a relationship with that person, partners with no sexual history were rated as less attractive than partners with a handful of previous partners. More than a handful, however, and the potential partners became increasingly less attractive. (Source: Adapted from Stewart-Williams et al., 2017.)
MAIN POINTS
All over the world, women and men of all ages believe that a healthy sex life is an important part of a healthy intimate relationship.
In general, feelings about the sexual aspect of a relationship (sexual satisfaction) are strongly associated with feelings about the relationship as a whole (relationship satisfaction).
In the early years of an intimate partnership, sexual satisfaction predicts changes in relationship satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction predicts changes in sexual satisfaction. In later years, sexual satisfaction still predicts changes in relationship satisfaction, but relationship satisfaction no longer predicts changes in sexual satisfaction.
Virginity is not as attractive as it was historically; college students seek out mates with some, but not too much, prior sexual experience.
Sex is not everything, of course, but it is a catalyst for many other things and, since so many other things must be right for it to function well, also a touchstone for the quality of the total relationship. When it is good, people look different. The emotional atmosphere one senses in a house where it is right is one of calm and peace, yet also of lightness, fun, and humor, and everything moves easily.”
