Motivation of non-monogamous adults to engage in sex with their different partners

Abstract

This study compared motivations of individuals in non-monogamous relationships to engage in sex with their different partners (n = 596, out of which 103 non-consensual non-monogamous, 135 polyamorous, 204 swinging, 154 in open relationships; women—38.8%, men—59.7%, other gender—1.5%; age range: from 18 to 65+ years; 86% of respondents between 25 and 54 years old; majority of the respondents are in a long-term relationship). The research aim was to identify whether there are differences in reasons to engage in sex with respondents’ primary versus secondary partners. Presented with 17 reasons to engage in sexual activity, the respondents rated the frequency with which they engage in sex for each reason with their different partners. Questions for 14 reasons to engage in sex were created based on the YSEX? questionnaire and three questions were created specifically for non-monogamous population. The three new questions addressed the desire for a specific type of sex (such as kink, fetish, etc.), desire to have sex with a partner of another gender than one’s primary partner, and desire to experience the thrill of the forbidden. The results indicated that there are significant differences in motivation to engage in sex with one’s primary versus secondary partner for most of the reasons. Additionally, this study investigated whether there are differences in motivation to engage in sex with different partners depending on the relationship arrangement. The data analysis shows that there are differences in reasons to engage in sex with one’s different partners between non-consensually and consensually non-monogamous groups. This research compliments existing body of research with new reasons to engage in sex, it demonstrates that non-monogamous people engage in sex with their different partners for different reasons and reveals that these may vary depending on the type of the relationship arrangement.

Motivation of sex workers who provide camming services to engage in sex with their real-life and virtual partners

“…Procreation as a reason to engage in sex was removed from the questionnaire due to the virtual nature of work. In the context of previous studies, factor analysis indicated that each item is measuring a different dimension as each variable was loading heavily on a single factor only ( Kelberg and Martinsone, 2022 ). See Table 2 for the full list of questions.…”

“…To explore the motivation of chat hosts to engage in sex with their virtual clients and real-life partners, authors used a modified YSEX? questionnaire ( Meston and Buss, 2007 ), that was modified in the context of other studies for the purposes of non-monogamous populations ( Kelberg and Martinsone, 2021 , 2022 ) and demonstrated the questionnaire’s effectiveness in measuring the motivation of both monogamous and non-monogamous individuals. Chat hosts were asked to answer a set of 16 questions about their motivation to engage in sex with their real-life partners and the same set of questions in regards to their motivation to have sex with their virtual partners (a Likert scale from 1 to 5, where “1” was “none of my experiences” and “5” was “all of my experiences”).…”

“…Previous research has investigated motivation to engage in sex among various populations – college students ( Meston and Buss, 2007 ), elderly adults ( Wyverkens et al, 2018 ), women in casual and committed relationships ( Armstrong and Reissing, 2015 ), lesbian, bisexual, queer, and questioning women ( Wood et al, 2014 ), monogamous and non-monogamous individuals ( Kelberg and Martinsone, 2021 ). Research by Kelberg and Martinsone (2022) has hypothesized that motivation to engage in sex is not a static and fixed characteristic of an individual but is contextual and motivation to engage in sex might vary with different partners. Drawing on the strategic pluralistic mating strategy theory, which posits that people engage in sex to fulfill different relationship needs ( Gangestad and Simpson, 2000 ; Mogilski et al, 2017 ), the authors of this study investigate whether the motivation to engage in sex differs depending on whether a sex worker providing camming services engages in sex with their real-life partner or their virtual partner (client).…”

“…Subsequent studies have expanded the list of motivations to engage in sex and examined how sexual motivation varies depending on factors such as relationship type -long-term, short-term or extra-dyadic relationship ( Buss and Schmitt, 1993 ; Gangestad and Simpson, 2000 ; Greiling and Buss, 2000 ). More recent research has both expanded the number of reasons to engage in sex (see Meston and Buss, 2007 for an exhaustive list of 142 reasons to engage in sex) and explored how sexual motivation is impacted by individual characteristics like gender ( Kelberg and Martinsone, 2021 ), age ( Meston and Buss, 2007 ; Wyverkens et al, 2018 ), relationship arrangement ( Kelberg and Martinsone, 2021 ), partner status ( Kelberg and Martinsone, 2022 ), commitment ( Armstrong and Reissing, 2015 ), and sexual orientation ( Wood et al, 2014 ). These findings highlight that motivation to engage in sex is not a fixed characteristic, but rather a complex and contextual phenomenon that is influenced by a range of personal factors (e.g., age, gender, etc.)…”

Does Too Much Closeness Dampen Desire? On the Balance of Closeness and Otherness for the Maintenance of Sexual Desire in Romantic Relationships

“…Investigating the role of otherness in relationships in future work could also generate new insights into two additional areas of relationship science: infidelity and consensual nonmonogamy (CNM). In one study of people’s motivation for having sex with a secondary partner, in both CNM and nonconsensually nonmonogamous situations, people engaged in sex with their secondary partner more often to experience something they could not with their primary partner (e.g., fetish, different gender; Kelberga & Martinsone, 2022). Therefore, otherness may play a role in people’s motivation for nonmonogamy (Perel, 2017), whether with the consent of their primary partner or not.…”