How many partners you’ve had matters – but so does when you had them. A global study reveals people judge long-term partners more kindly if their sexual pace has slowed, challenging the idea of a universal sexual double standard.
Body count. Notches on your belt (or bedpost). Scores. Scrutinizing the number of sexual partners someone has had frequently intersects with gender and is commonly represented as a double standard; women with a higher number of sexual conquests tend to be judged more harshly than men. But is that really the case?
A new international study led by researchers from Swansea University in Wales examined how two aspects of a potential long-term partner’s sexual history – the total number of past sexual partners and how those partners were spread over time – influenced desirability.
“People use sexual history as a cue to assess relationship risk,” said lead and corresponding author, Dr Andrew Thomas, a senior lecturer in psychology at Swansea University. “In our ancestral past, knowing someone’s sexual history could help people avoid risks like STIs, infidelity, emotional instability, or rivalry with ex-partners.
“Previous studies have shown that people are generally less inclined to pursue relationships with individuals who have had many past sexual partners. However, what’s particularly interesting about this study’s findings is that this effect diminishes when those encounters occurred primarily in the past and this is something we found across the globe.”
The present study comprised three separate studies, with a combined sample of 5,331 adults from 11 countries, including the UK, US, Greece, Australia, Brazil, China, Czechia, Italy, Macau, Norway, Poland, and Slovakia. Participants were of any sexual orientation and were recruited through social media, recruitment companies and universities.
The study participants were given graphical timelines showing a suitor’s sexual history that varied along two dimensions. The first dimension was the total number of sexual partners – categorized as low (4), medium (12), or high (36) – and the second was frequency change. Frequency change had 15 patterns ranging from “sharp increase in new partners” to “sharp decrease.” The participants were then asked, How willing would you be to have a long-term, committed relationship with this person? and provided an answer on a scale from 1 to 9. An extra measure, called sociosexuality, which is an openness to engage in casual sex without emotional attachment, was assessed to see if it moderated judgments. Multi-level statistical models tested the effects of partner number, distribution pattern, participant sex, sociosexuality, and country.
Across all countries, the researchers found that willingness to consider someone as a long-term partner dropped sharply as past partner numbers increased. The effect was strongest between four and 12 partners (there was a large drop), and smaller but still significant when partner numbers jumped from 12 to 36. Interestingly, there were minimal and inconsistent sex differences, and no clear evidence of a sexual double standard.
Looking at the distribution of sexual partners, people were more accepting if new sexual encounters decreased over time, and least accepting if they increased over time. The distribution effect was stronger when the total number of partners was high. People who were more open to casual sex were less influenced by partner number and distribution. However, even those high in sociosexuality still preferred fewer partners and a decreasing frequency of partners. The reduction in the effect was more pronounced for low-to-moderate partner numbers, with a “ceiling effect” in some high-sociosexuality cases.
These effects were seen across all 11 countries, though the strength varied slightly. Differences between countries likely reflected cultural norms around sexual liberalism, sex ratios, and environmental factors.
The study does have limitations. Participants weren’t nationally representative, as many were students or recruited via convenience sampling. The researchers used stylized graphics to represent sexual history, which is not the way sexual history is usually learned (it usually comes through conversation or gossip). What people self-report or say they prefer may not match real-world partner choices. The findings may not fully reflect short-term mating contexts, which could produce greater sex differences. And, only countries that legally enforce monogamy were included in the study, so effects may differ in polygamous contexts.
The study’s findings about sexual double standards bear further consideration, given that they challenge the idea that women are judged more harshly for their sexual past than men.
“The online discourse around people’s sexual history can be very damning, but the results of the study reveal the picture is far more nuanced,” Thomas said. “We’ve been led to believe that society harshly judges those with a sexually adventurous past, but as individuals, people are in fact far more forgiving, particularly if someone’s approach to sex has changed. The results of this study not only shed light on the universal nature of our sexual psychology but could be used to combat misogynistic discussion of sexual history online.”
It raises the possibility of adopting a more nuanced view on “body count” debates. The study shows that people don’t just care about how many partners someone has, but also the pattern of those encounters over time. It counters the narrative that assumes a universal sexual double standard. Based on this study’s findings, men and women judge similarly. It shows that context matters and that stereotypes don’t always hold true.
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Source: Swansea University