Study of long-term heterosexual couples finds women over-estimate and men underestimate their partner ’s sexual advances

By Emma Young Imagine that, during a quiet evening at home watching a movie with your romantic partner, you feel intense sexual desire and sensually put a hand on your partner’s thigh. Your partner does not respond and blithely continues to watch the movie… Is your partner truly not interested in sexual activity, or did she/he simply miss your cue? So begins a new paper, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, that explores how accurate heterosexual people are at judging their partner’s attempts to initiate sex – in terms of their ability to the spot their partner’s cues, and also their overall impression of how often their partner makes sexual advances. It’s important, because as the researchers, led by Kiersten Dobson at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, note, “Sexual satisfaction is associated with relationship happiness, whereas sexual dissatisfaction is associated with relationship dissolution.” Other studies have found that in casual, short-term relationships, men tend to overestimate a partner’s sexual interest (while women either underestimate it, or show no bias either way; they’re fairly accurate). An evolutionary psychology explanation for a male tendency to think women are more interested than they actually are is that – in a casual relationship – while incorrectly perceiving interest and being rejected might not feel great, missing the signs of interest, and so a chance to mate, is worse. To explo...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Sex Source Type: blogs