Casual sex among emerging adults can be a source of intimacy, and often is, according to a new study conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers including Binghamton University faculty and researchers at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute. Researchers sent a voluntary online questionnaire to several hundred college students, and asked about their affectionate and intimate activities during sexual encounters in the contexts of both romantic relationships and casual sex hookups.
The researchers found, as they expected, that partners were more likely to engage in affectionate and intimate activities in relationship sex than in casual sexβ but the rate of these acts in casual sex was much higher than hypothesized. Ann Merriwether, a developmental psychologist and lecturer at Binghamton, said casual sex is largely misinterpreted in today's society. Justin Garcia, research director of the Kinsey Institute and Ruth Halls associate professor of gender studies at Indiana University, said they've been working on the topic of casual sex for over ten years with a focus on integrating concepts from evolutionary and gender theories of human behavior, and are conducting further studies as part of ongoing collaborations between researchers at the Kinsey Institute and Binghamton University "We are continuing to explore dynamics of casual sex behavior, and how interpersonal factors like intimacy and demographic factors like gender and sexual orientation influence the motivations, experiences, and outcomes of sexual activity across different relationship contexts," Garcia said.
The students were randomly selected from a university in the U. Northeast and answered questions about whether or not they engage in affectionate and intimate acts during sex, including cuddling, spending the night, eye gazing, and engaging in foreplay. They also indicated which of these acts they preferred during casual hookup sex or sex in the context of a romantic relationship.
The researchers hypothesized women would report being more likely to engage in intimate acts in all scenarios. The information they found supported this hypothesis, but the data also showed many men were likely to engage in intimate acts as well, with no gender difference found in relation to engaging in foreplay or eye gazing. The participants specified which type of sexual context they preferred: sex in a long-term relationship or in casual hookups.
Study coauthor Sean Massey, a social psychologist and associate professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Binghamton, said the team found results they had not anticipated.
