SEXUAL DESIRE TYPES IN MARRIED COUPLES: FREQUENCIES AND CORRELATES IN A US REPRESENTATIVE DYADIC SAMPLE

Conflict over sexual desire discrepancy is a common sexual issue in therapy. It is often rooted in misunderstanding sexual desire itself, especially in identifying and discussing the types of sexual desire, including initiating, receptive, and resistant types. Despite some discussion in the literature, limited research hinders targeted interventions for addressing attribution errors in desire discrepancy conflicts. An initial study using matched-pair data from a representative sample of 502 U.S. married couples provides valuable insights. Males typically endorsed initiating type of sexual desire, females endorsed receptive, and few identified with resistant desire as their primary type. Norms varied with some additional demographic variables like age and race/ethnicity. Dyadic data allowed identifying the couple desire type, defined by the interface of the spousal desire types. Exploring relational correlates of these patterns provided a nuanced understanding of marital dynamics that extended beyond which spouse has the higher desire level. Key findings showed associations between couple desire patterns and factors such as marriage length, marital satisfaction and orgasm frequency. For instance, while two initiating reported the highest sexual frequency satisfaction, two receptive-type spouses do not necessarily report lower sexual frequency or satisfaction. Finding support ongoing research in various types of sexual desire, especially as it relates to couple dynamics.